Resolving Ecosystem Complexity

by Oswald J. Schmitz

An ecosystem's complexity develops from the vast numbers of species interacting in ecological communities. The nature of these interactions, in turn, depends on environmental context. How do these components together influence an ecosystem's behavior as a whole? Can ecologists resolve an ecosystem's complexity in order to predict its response to disturbances? Resolving Ecosystem Complexity develops a framework for anticipating the ways environmental context determines the functioning of ecosystems.


Oswald Schmitz addresses the critical questions of contemporary How should an ecosystem be conceptualized to blend its biotic and biophysical components? How should evolutionary ecological principles be used to derive an operational understanding of complex, adaptive ecosystems? How should the relationship between the functional biotic diversity of ecosystems and their properties be understood? Schmitz begins with the universal concept that ecosystems are comprised of species that consume resources and which are then resources for other consumers. From this, he deduces a fundamental rule or evolutionary ecological mechanism for explaining context individuals within a species trade off foraging gains against the risk of being consumed by predators. Through empirical examples, Schmitz illustrates how species use evolutionary ecological strategies to negotiate a predator-eat-predator world, and he suggests that the implications of species trade-offs are critical to making ecology a predictive science.


Bridging the traditional divides between individuals, populations, and communities in ecology, Resolving Ecosystem Complexity builds a systematic foundation for thinking about natural systems.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010

Reviews

[Anthony DiGiovanni · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the author has a tendency to repeat himself, especially in the earlier chapters (though this might be a virtue to the extent that it helps the concepts stick in your mind), I found this a fascinating book for the most part. Schmitz undertakes a bold project: attempting to outline a framework for understanding and predicting interactions in ecosystems despite the conventional wisdom that they are hopelessly, chaotically complex. This might be old hat for people familiar with ecology generally, but as someone who has only really taken one and a half college-level courses on the subject, I was excited to find a text that directly addressed this challenge.

Schmitz doesn't exactly construct a theory of everything here, and he's careful to admit the cases where more research is needed and the web of interactions among species can be messy, so don't expect to come away from this book with the confidence that ecology has ascended to the predictive status of physics. The deck is stacked against this field. Yet if you're willing to sift through somewhat-dry descriptions of example experiments and literature reviews that support his theories (the statistician in me would've preferred to see actual numbers rather than just bar graphs, but presumably those are in the citations), this book offers a lot of tools for predicting trophic cascade effects based on some biologically plausible factors.

[Geoffreyjen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough study of modern ecosystem theory as informed by the practice of this ecologist - a highly useful study. The author picks out key structural and functional elements that help simplify the overwhelming appearance of complexity of ecosystems. Highly recommended to those interested in ecosystem science.