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

Learn More →

The importance of a relative shortage of food in animal ecology

The importance of a relative shortage of food in animal ecology It is proposed that for many if not most animals — both herbivore and carnivore, vertebrate and invertebrate — the single most important factor limiting their abundance is a relative shortage of nitrogenous food for the very young. Any component of the environment of a plant, by varying the amount of adequately nutritious plant tissue available to herbivores, may consequently affect the abundance of food through all subsequent trophic levels; in this regard weather may be important more often than is immediately obvious. The hypothesis proposes that animals live in a variably inadequate environment wherein many are born but few survive, and leads to a concept of populations being “limited from below” rather than “controlled from above”. And it may lead to a reappraisal of the role of predation, competition and social and territorial behaviour as factors likely to influence the numbers of animals in the environment, the response of “pests” to manipulation of populations of their food plants by Man, and the likely effectiveness of agents of biological control. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Oecologia Springer Journals

The importance of a relative shortage of food in animal ecology

White, T.
Oecologia , Volume 33 (1) – Jan 1, 1978
Download PDF
16 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/the-importance-of-a-relative-shortage-of-food-in-animal-ecology-aQ6pWou98g

References (45)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by Springer-Verlag
Subject
Life Sciences; Ecology; Plant Sciences
ISSN
0029-8549
eISSN
1432-1939
DOI
10.1007/BF00376997
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

It is proposed that for many if not most animals — both herbivore and carnivore, vertebrate and invertebrate — the single most important factor limiting their abundance is a relative shortage of nitrogenous food for the very young. Any component of the environment of a plant, by varying the amount of adequately nutritious plant tissue available to herbivores, may consequently affect the abundance of food through all subsequent trophic levels; in this regard weather may be important more often than is immediately obvious. The hypothesis proposes that animals live in a variably inadequate environment wherein many are born but few survive, and leads to a concept of populations being “limited from below” rather than “controlled from above”. And it may lead to a reappraisal of the role of predation, competition and social and territorial behaviour as factors likely to influence the numbers of animals in the environment, the response of “pests” to manipulation of populations of their food plants by Man, and the likely effectiveness of agents of biological control.

Journal

Oecologia – Springer Journals

Published: Jan 1, 1978

There are no references for this article.