Foundations of Macroecology

Foundations of Macroecology Classic Papers with Commentaries

edited by Felisa A. Smith, John L. Gittleman and James H. Brown

University of Chicago Press, 2014
Cloth: 978-0-226-11533-7 | Paper: 978-0-226-11547-4 | Electronic: 978-0-226-11550-4
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226115504.001.0001

AVAILABLE FROM

University of Chicago Press (cloth, paper, ebook)
Brytewave (CafeScribe-Follett Higher Ed)
Chegg Inc
EBSCO eBooks (formerly NetLibrary)
Google Play
Kno

ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Macroecology is an approach to science that emphasizes the description and explanation of patterns and processes at large spatial and temporal scales. Some scientists liken it to seeing the forest through the trees, giving the proverbial phrase an ecological twist. The term itself was first introduced to the modern literature by James H. Brown and Brian A. Maurer in a 1989 paper, and it is Brown’s classic 1995 study, Macroecology, that is credited with inspiring the broad-scale subfield of ecology. But as with all subfields, many modern-day elements of macroecology are implicit in earlier works dating back decades, even centuries.

Foundations of Macroecology charts the evolutionary trajectory of these concepts—from the species-area relationship and the latitudinal gradient of species richness to the relationship between body size and metabolic rate—through forty-six landmark papers originally published between 1920 and 1998. Divided into two parts—“Macroecology before Macroecology” and “Dimensions of Macroecology”—the collection also takes the long view, with each paper accompanied by an original commentary from a contemporary expert in the field that places it in a broader context and explains its foundational role. Providing a solid, coherent assessment of the history, current state, and potential future of the field, Foundations of Macroecology will be an essential text for students and teachers of ecology alike.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Felisa A. Smith is professor of biology at the University of New Mexico and coeditor of Animal Body Size, also published by the University of Chicago Press. John L. Gittleman is dean of the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. He is coeditor of Carnivore Conservation and Phylogeny and Conservation. James H. Brown is Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico and past president of the International Biogeography Society. He is author of Macroecology and coeditor of Foundations of Ecology and Foundations of Biogeography, all also published by the University of Chicago Press.

REVIEWS

“I love these papers. They’re our disciplinary heritage, and it’s valuable to wrap them all up in one spot. The pieces that have been selected are truly important, and there’s a roster of terrific scientists who have written informatively, sometimes even passionately, about the inspiration these papers provide. What’s not to like? A formidable summary that could and should be a useful basis for students new to the field.”

— Jeremy T. Kerr, University of Ottawa

“Like the other ‘Foundations of’ books, this title includes classic papers and commentary by the editors on the development of the topics. Dates of the papers range from 1920 to 1998; topics include determinants of diversity and species abundances, allometry, speciation and extinction patterns, and new methodologies.”

— Ecology

“Macroecology emphasizes the study of patterns and processes of species distributions, interactions, and diversity at broad temporal and spatial scales. This collection of classic papers is especially relevant for researchers studying biodiversity in a world impacted by human population growth on the one hand and climate change on the other. . . .The volume is also particularly timely in illustrating the roots of macroecology, which seems to be more a perspective on species and ecology than a discipline. . . . The papers in this useful but somewhat specialized book are mainly from the 1970s and 1980s, a golden age that allowed ecologists to recognize macroecology as a perspective distinct from many ecological endeavors of the period. . . . Recommended.”

— J. Burger, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, Choice

“Foundations of Macroecology is an essential compilation for researchers and teachers as well as students.”

— Conservation Biology

Preface

Introduction: The Macro of Macroecology / Felisa A. Smith, John L. Gittleman, and James H. Brown

Paper 1. J. H. Brown and B. A. Maurer (1989), Macroecology: The Division of Food and Space among Species on Continents, Science 243:1145–50 / Commentary by James H. Brown and Brian A. Maurer

Part One. Macroecology before Macroecology / Edited by James H. Brown, S. K. Morgan Ernest, and Ethan P. White

Paper 2. O. Arrhenius (1920), Distribution of the Species over the Area, Meddelanden Från K. Vetenskapsakademiens Nobelinstitut 4:1–6 / Commentary by Ethan P. White

Paper 3. R. A. Fisher, A. S. Corbet, and C. B. Williams (1943), The Relation between the Number of Species and the Number of Individuals in a Random Sample of an Animal Population, Journal of Animal Ecology 12:42–58 / Commentary by Ethan P. White

Paper 4. C. B. Williams (1947), The Generic Relations of Species in Small Ecological Communities, Journal of Animal Ecology 16:11–18 / Commentary by Nicholas J. Gotelli

Paper 5. G. E. Hutchinson and R. H. MacArthur (1959), A Theoretical Ecological Model of Size Distributions among Species of Animals, American Naturalist 93:117–25 / Commentary by S. K. Morgan Ernest

Paper 6. L. R. Taylor (1961), Aggregation, Variance and the Mean, Nature 189:732–35 / Commentary by Ford Ballantyne IV

Paper 7. B. K. McNab (1963), Bioenergetics and the Determination of Home Range Size, American Naturalist 97:133–40 / Commentary by James H. Brown and John L. Gittleman

Paper 8. E. C. Olson (1966), Community Evolution and the Origin of Mammals, Ecology 47:291–302 / Commentary by Mark D. Uhen and Jessica Theodor

Paper 9. R. W. Sheldon and T. R. Parsons (1967), A Continuous Size Spectrum for Particulate Matter in the Sea, Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada 24:909–15 / Commentary by S. K. Morgan Ernest

Paper 10. M. L. Rosenzweig (1968), Net Primary Productivity of Terrestrial Communities: Prediction from Climatological Data, American Naturalist 102:67–74 / Commentary by S. K. Morgan Ernest

Paper 11. H. L. Sanders (1968), Marine Benthic Diversity: A Comparative Study, American Naturalist 102:243–82 / Commentary by Andrew Clarke

Part Two. Dimensions of Macroecology

Allometry and Body Size / Edited by Alistair Evans, Daniel P. Costa, Karl J. Niklas, Richard M. Sibly, and Felisa A. Smith

Paper 12. T. A. McMahon (1973), Size and Shape in Biology, Science 179:1201–4 / Commentary by Richard M. Sibly and Karl J. Niklas

Paper 13. T. Fenchel (1974), Intrinsic Rate of Natural Increase: The Relationship with Body Size, Oecologia 14:317–26 / Commentary by Richard M. Sibly

Paper 14. J. Damuth (1981), Population Density and Body Size in Mammals, Nature 290:699–700 / Commentary by Alistair Evans

Paper 15. S. L. Lindstedt and W. A. Calder III (1981), Body Size, Physiological Time, and Longevity of Homeothermic Animals, Quarterly Review of Biology 56:1–16 / Commentary by Daniel P. Costa

Paper 16. D. R. Morse, N. E. Stork, and J. H. Lawton (1988), Species Number, Species Abundance and Body Length Relationships of Arboreal Beetles in Bornean Lowland Rain Forest Trees, Ecological Entomology 13:25–37 / Commentary by Alistair Evans

Paper 17. R. Å. Norberg (1988), Theory of Growth Geometry of Plants and Self-Thinning of Plant Populations: Geometric Similarity, Elastic Similarity, and Different Growth Modes of Plant Parts, American Naturalist 131:220–56 / Commentary by Karl J. Niklas

Paper 18. J. H. Brown and P. F. Nicoletto (1991), Spatial Scaling of Species Composition: Body Masses of North American Land Mammals, American Naturalist 138:1478–1512 / Commentary by Felisa A. Smith

Evolutionary Dynamics / Edited by Mark D. Uhen

Paper 19. L. Van Valen (1973), A New Evolutionary Law, Evolutionary Theory 1:1–30 / Commentary by Matthew A. Kosnik

Paper 20. R. K. Bambach (1983), Ecospace Utilization and Guilds in Marine Communities through the Phanerozoic, In Topics in Geobiology, edited by M. J. S. Tevesz and P. L. McCall, pp. 719–46. Plenum Press, New York. / Commentary by Andrew M. Bush

Paper 21. R. W. Graham (1986), Response of Mammalian Communities to Environmental Changes during the Late Quaternary, In Community Ecology, edited by J. Diamond and T. J. Case, pp. 300–313. Harper and Row, New York. / Commentary by S. Kathleen Lyons

Paper 22. D. Jablonski (1986), Background and Mass Extinctions: The Alternation of Macroevolutionary Regimes, Science 231:129–33 / Commentary by Michael Foote

Paper 23. J. H. Brown and B. A. Maurer (1987), Evolution of Species Assemblages: Effects of Energetic Constraints and Species Dynamics on the Diversification of the North American Avifauna, American Naturalist 130:1–17 / Commentary by Douglas A. Kelt

Paper 24. K. J. Gaston (1998), Species-Range Size Distributions: Products of Speciation, Extinction and Transformation, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 353:219–30 / Commentary by David Storch

Abundance and Distributions / Edited by Kevin J. Gaston, Christy M. McCain, and S. Kathleen Lyons

Paper 25. S. J. McNaughton and L. L. Wolf (1970), Dominance and the Niche in Ecological Systems, Science 167:131–39 / Commentary by Brian J. McGill

Paper 26. S. Anderson (1977), Geographic Ranges of North American Terrestrial Mammals, American Museum Novitates 2629:1–15 / Commentary by Christy M. McCain

Paper 27. J. C. Bernabo and T. Webb III (1977), Changing Patterns in the Holocene Pollen Record of Northeastern North America: A Mapped Summary, Quaternary Research 8:64–96 / Commentary by John W. (Jack) Williams

Paper 28. E. C. Pielou (1977), The Latitudinal Spans of Seaweed Species and Their Patterns of Overlap, Journal of Biogeography 4:299–311 / Commentary by Christy M. McCain

Paper 29. D. Rabinowitz (1981), Seven Forms of Rarity, In The Biological Aspects of Rare Plant Conservation, edited by H. Synge, pp. 205–17. John Wiley and Sons, New York. / Commentary by Kevin J. Gaston

Paper 30. I. Hanski (1982), Dynamics of Regional Distribution: The Core and Satellite Species Hypothesis, Oikos 38:210–21 / Commentary by S. Kathleen Lyons

Paper 31. J. H. Brown (1984), On the Relationship between Abundance and Distribution of Species, American Naturalist 124:255–79 / Commentary by Christy M. McCain

Species Diversity / Edited by Jessica Theodor, Alison G. Boyer, and David J. Currie

Paper 32. R. M. May (1978), The Dynamics and Diversity of Insect Faunas, In Diversity of Insect Faunas, edited by L. A. Mound and N. Waloff, pp. 188–204. Royal Entomological Society of London Symposium 9. Blackwell Scientific, Oxford. / Commentary by Alle

Paper 33. J. W. Valentine (1980), Determinants of Diversity in Higher Taxonomic Categories, Paleobiology 6:444–50 / Commentary by David Jablonski

Paper 34. J. H. Brown (1981), Two Decades of Homage to Santa Rosalia: Toward a General Theory of Diversity, American Zoologist 21:877–88 / Commentary by Walter Jetz

Paper 35. D. M. Raup and J. J. Sepkoski Jr. (1982), Mass Extinctions in the Marine Fossil Record, Science 215:1501–3 / Commentary by Jessica Theodor

Paper 36. K. J. Niklas, B. H. Tiffney, and A. H. Knoll (1983), Patterns in Vascular Land Plant Diversification, Nature 303:614–16 / Commentary by Peter Wilf

Paper 37. D. H. Wright (1983), Species-Energy Theory: An Extension of Species-Area Theory, Oikos 41:496–506 / Commentary by David J. Currie

Paper 38. K. P. Dial and J. M. Marzluff (1988), Are the Smallest Organisms the Most Diverse? Ecology 69:1620–24 / Commentary by Alison G. Boyer

Paper 39. J. J. Sepkoski Jr. (1988), Alpha, Beta, or Gamma: Where Does All the Diversity Go?, Paleobiology 14:221–34 / Commentary by Peter Wagner

Paper 40. G. C. Stevens (1989), The Latitudinal Gradient in Geographical Range: How So Many Species Coexist in the Tropics, American Naturalist 133:240–56 / Commentary by David J. Currie

Methodological Advances / Edited by John L. Gittleman

Paper 41. J. A. Wolfe (1971), Tertiary Climatic Fluctuations and Methods of Analysis of Tertiary Floras, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 9:27–57 / Commentary by Scott L. Wing

Paper 42. D. M. Raup (1975), Taxonomic Diversity Estimation Using Rarefaction, Paleobiology 1:333–42 / Commentary by Andrew M. Bush

Paper 43. E. F. Connor and E. D. McCoy (1979), The Statistics and Biology of the Species-Area Relationship, American Naturalist 113:791–833 / Commentary by Brian A. Maurer

Paper 44. P. H. Harvey and G. M. Mace (1982), Comparisons between Taxa and Adaptive Trends: Problems of Methodology, In Current Problems in Sociobiology, edited by King’s College Sociobiology Group, pp.343–61. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. / Comm

Paper 45. R. K. Colwell and D. W. Winkler (1984), A Null Model for Null Models in Biogeography, In Ecological Communities: Conceptual Issues and the Evidence, edited by D. R. Strong Jr., D. Simberloff, L. G. Abele, and A. B. Thistle, pp. 344–59. Princeton

Paper 46. J. Felsenstein (1985), Phylogenies and the Comparative Method, American Naturalist 125:1–15 / Commentary by T. Jonathan Davies

List of Contributors

Index