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Linking Individual-Scale Trait Plasticity to Community Dynamics 1

Linking Individual-Scale Trait Plasticity to Community Dynamics 1 SPECIAL FEATURE People have long found the richness and complexity of nature to be a source of awe but were unable to make sense of either the diversity of life or the web of interactions. Darwin provided the key to explaining diversity. It is the process of evolution by natural selection that guides and makes sense of the present, and the variation among members of a species that makes sense of its average. It is perhaps surprising then that community ecologists have customarily developed models and experiments that treat organisms as having a fixed set of characteristics. As a field we have largely ignored the community consequences of phenotypic adjustment to environmental conditions, thereby ignoring adaptation in the dictionary sense of ‘‘adjustment to environmental conditions.’’ Given the fact that most organisms exhibit myriad flexible strategies, continuing on this track might deprive the field of its power to interest, explain, and predict. This Special Feature synthesizes recent work that challenges the prevailing view that it is sufficient to understand community dynamics by treating interacting organisms as though they do nothing more than eat, reproduce, and die. We hope to convince the reader that the way organisms respond to their http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Ecology Ecological Society of America

Linking Individual-Scale Trait Plasticity to Community Dynamics 1

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Publisher
Ecological Society of America
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by the Ecological Society of America
Subject
Special Features
ISSN
0012-9658
DOI
10.1890/1051-0761%282003%29084%5B1081:LITPTC%5D2.0.CO%3B2
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

SPECIAL FEATURE People have long found the richness and complexity of nature to be a source of awe but were unable to make sense of either the diversity of life or the web of interactions. Darwin provided the key to explaining diversity. It is the process of evolution by natural selection that guides and makes sense of the present, and the variation among members of a species that makes sense of its average. It is perhaps surprising then that community ecologists have customarily developed models and experiments that treat organisms as having a fixed set of characteristics. As a field we have largely ignored the community consequences of phenotypic adjustment to environmental conditions, thereby ignoring adaptation in the dictionary sense of ‘‘adjustment to environmental conditions.’’ Given the fact that most organisms exhibit myriad flexible strategies, continuing on this track might deprive the field of its power to interest, explain, and predict. This Special Feature synthesizes recent work that challenges the prevailing view that it is sufficient to understand community dynamics by treating interacting organisms as though they do nothing more than eat, reproduce, and die. We hope to convince the reader that the way organisms respond to their

Journal

Ecology – Ecological Society of America

Published: May 1, 2003

Keywords: adaptive response ; community dynamics ; consumer––resource interactions ; empirical synthesis ; individual variation ; mechanistic theory ; plasticity ; scaling ; state-dependence ; structured populations ; theory synthesis ; trait-mediated interactions

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