Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Population: a central concept for ecology?

Population: a central concept for ecology? “To search for the best concept is no idle conceit, because the experiments that a scientist may devise and therefore the facts he may discover, as well as the explanations that he offers for them, depend on how he conceives nature.” Andrewartha and Birch (1984) When my colleague Mauricio Lima sent me the accompanying paper ( Camus and Lima 2002 ) it rekindled my interest in an unfinished manuscript that attempts to address some of the questions and problems they pose. The ideas presented in this essay are based on the premise that ecology needs a central unifying concept upon which to build a coherent and practical discipline. I will argue that, from a practical point of view, the “population” is the most logical choice for that central concept and that, because of this, the concept requires a precise and unambiguous meaning. This leads me to propose a definition for “population” that, I think, has these qualities. Does ecology need a central unifying concept? Perhaps I can approach this question by asking another – Does biology need a central unifying concept? The answer, I think, is “yes” because most of modern biology is based on the biological concept http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Oikos Wiley

Population: a central concept for ecology?

Berryman, Alan A.
Oikos , Volume 97 (3) – Jun 1, 2002
Download PDF
4 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/population-a-central-concept-for-ecology-5kbrzzv5cH

References (23)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
0030-1299
eISSN
1600-0706
DOI
10.1034/j.1600-0706.2002.970314.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

“To search for the best concept is no idle conceit, because the experiments that a scientist may devise and therefore the facts he may discover, as well as the explanations that he offers for them, depend on how he conceives nature.” Andrewartha and Birch (1984) When my colleague Mauricio Lima sent me the accompanying paper ( Camus and Lima 2002 ) it rekindled my interest in an unfinished manuscript that attempts to address some of the questions and problems they pose. The ideas presented in this essay are based on the premise that ecology needs a central unifying concept upon which to build a coherent and practical discipline. I will argue that, from a practical point of view, the “population” is the most logical choice for that central concept and that, because of this, the concept requires a precise and unambiguous meaning. This leads me to propose a definition for “population” that, I think, has these qualities. Does ecology need a central unifying concept? Perhaps I can approach this question by asking another – Does biology need a central unifying concept? The answer, I think, is “yes” because most of modern biology is based on the biological concept

Journal

Oikos – Wiley

Published: Jun 1, 2002

There are no references for this article.