The Evolutionary Strategies that Shape Ecosystems

Table of Contents:
Preface x Chapter Summaries xii Acknowledgements xviii Introduction 1 1 Evolution and Ecology: a Janus Perspective? 3 Evolutionary biology 3 Ecology 4 The emergence of a science of adaptive strategies 6 Summary 7 2 Primary Strategies: the Ideas 8 MacArthur's 'blurred vision' 9 The mechanism of convergence; trade-offs 10 The theory of r- and K-selection 11 CSR Theory 12 Summary 23 3 Primary Adaptive Strategies in Plants 25 The search for adaptive strategies 26 Theoretical work 26 Measuring variation in plant traits: screening programmes 28 Screening of plant growth rates 29 The Integrated Screening Programme 29 Further trait screening 34 The application of CSR theory 34 Virtual plant strategies 36 Summary 38 4 Primary Adaptive Strategies in Organisms Other Than Plants 40 The architecture of the tree of life 41 r, K and beyond K 42 Empirical evidence for three primary strategies in animals 43 The universal three-way trade-off 44 Mammalia (mammals) 46 Aves (avian therapods) 53 Squamata (snakes and lizards) (with notes on other extant reptile clades) 56 Amphibia (amphibians) 60 Osteichthyes (bony fi shes) 61 Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fi shes) 65 Insecta (insects) 68 Aracnida (spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks) 72 Crustacea (crustaceans) 74 Echinodermata (sea urchins, starfi sh, crinoids, sea cucumbers) 75 Mollusca (snails, clams, squids) 77 Annelida (segmented worms) 79 Cnidaria (corals, sea anemones, jellyfi sh, hydras, sea pens) 81 Eumycota (fungi) (including notes on lichens) 83 Archaea 84 Proteobacteria 86 Firmicutes 87 Cyanobacteria 88 Viruses 90 Extinct groups 94 Universal adaptive strategy theory - the evolution of CSR and beyond K theories 99 First steps towards a universal methodology 100 Summary 103 5 From Adaptive Strategies to Communities 105 Plant communities 106 Productive disturbed communities 107 Productive undisturbed communities 108 Unproductive relatively undisturbed communities 111 Plant community composition 111 The humped-back model 114 Origins 114 Formulation 115 Independent confi rmation and compatibility with new research 116 Species-pools, fi lters and community composition 121 Evidence for the action of twin fi lters 128 Additional mechanisms promoting diversity 132 Genetic diversity, intraspecifi c functional diversity and species diversity 132 Microbial communities 136 The effects of plant strategies on soil microbial communities 139 Facilitation in bacterial communities 141 Coexistence in marine surface waters 142 Novel techniques for investigating microbial adaptive strategies 142 Animal communities 144 Primary producers delimit animal diversity/productivity relationships 145 Twin fi lters and animal community assembly 150 Adaptive radiation and community assembly 154 Summary 160 6 From Strategies to Ecosystems 163 Back to Bayreuth 164 The Darwinian basis of ecosystem assembly 167 How do primary adaptive strategies drive ecosystem functioning? 168 The plant traits that drive ecosystems 169 The propagation of trait infl uences through food chains 176 Complicating factors 178 Ecosystem processes 180 Dominance and mass ratio effects 180 Fluxes and feedbacks between communities 181 Top-down control by herbivores 187 Top-down control by carnivores 189 The key role of eco-evolutionary dynamics 190 Summary 192 7 The Path from Evolution to Ecology 194 What has been learned? 194 What are the implications for conservation and management? 198 Research priorities for the next decade 199 References 202 Organism Index 235 Subject Index 241

About the Author :
Philip Grime is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Sheffield where he currently maintains long-term experiments at the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory in North Derbyshire. As a pioneer of experimental approaches to communities and ecosystems Professor Grime is an elected member of the Dutch and British Royal Societies and was the inaugural recipient in 2011 of the Alexander von Humboldt Medal awarded by the International Association for Vegetation Science. Simon Pierce is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Milan, Italy, and at the time of writing taught plant physiological ecology at the University of Insubria, Varese, Italy. His research encompasses plant community ecology and ecophysiology, and the reproductive biology, cultivation and conservation of terrestrial orchids. During his career he has lived and worked in the Republic of Panama, as an Andrew W. Mellon research fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, for the University of Cambridge, UK. He holds a doctorate from the University of Durham, UK, and a degree from the University of Wales, Bangor.

Review :
"Certainly I have found this a useful way to think about conservation Management." (British Ecological Society, 1 April 2013) "The case studies range from microbes to animals, and even palaeontology is included in the mix, making the book a very comprehensive resource for those interested in eco-evolutionary dynamics." (Teaching Biology, 20 December 2012) "I recommend this book to people interested in evolutionary and ecological strategies in ecosystems, to those who think about universal patterns in organism life history tactics and also to those who love the challenge of linking ecology and evolution." (Basic and Applied Ecology, 1 November 2012) "A significant contribution to the field and a must read for ecologists. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." (Choice, 1 October 2012)