Ecological Assembly Rules
Perspectives, Advances, Retreats

Considers the evidence for the existence of unifying rules controlling the formation and maintenance of ecological communities.

Evan Weiher (Edited by), Paul Keddy (Edited by)

9780521655330, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 August 2001

432 pages, 100 b/w illus. 35 tables
22.8 x 15.4 x 2.2 cm, 0.743 kg

'This book is a refreshing attempt to extend our knowledge into one important aspect of community-level processes: how ecological assemblages build up during ecological time.' Eric R. Pianke, Trends in Ecology and Evolution

It is over twenty years since Jared Diamond focused attention on the possible existence of assembly rules for communities. Since then there has been a proliferation of studies trying to promote, refute or test the idea that there are sets of constraints (rules) on community formation and maintenance (assembly). This timely volume brings together carefully selected contributions which examine the question of the existence and nature of assembly rules with some rigour and in some detail, using both theoretical and empirical approaches in a variety of systems. The result is a balanced treatment which encompasses a wide range of topics within ecology including competition and coexistence, conservation and biodiversity, niche theory, and biogeography. As such it provides much to interest a broad audience of ecologists, while also making an important contribution to the study of community ecology in particular.

Introduction Paul A. Keddy and Evan Weiher
Part I. The Search for Meaningful Patterns in Species Assemblages: 1. The genesis and development of guild assembly rules Barry J. Fox
2. Ruling out a community assembly rule: the method of favored states Daniel Simberloff, Lewi Stone and Tamar Dayan
3. Community structure and assembly rules: confronting conceptual and statistical issues with data on desert rodents Douglas A. Kelt and James H. Brown
4. Introduced avifaunas as natural experiments in community assembly Julie L. Lockwood, Michael Moulton and Karla L. Balent
5. Assembly rules in plant communities J. Bastow Wilson
6. Assembly rules at different scales in plant and bird communities Martin L. Cody
7. Impact of language, history and choice of system on the study of assembly rules Barbara D. Booth and Douglas W. Larson
Part II. Other Perspectives on Community Assembly: 8. On the nature of the assembly trajectory James A. Drake, Craig R. Zimmerman, Tom Purucker and Carmen Rojo
9. Assembly rules as general constraints on community composition Evan Weiher and Paul A. Keddy
10. A species-based, hierarchical model of island biogeography Mark V. Lomolino
11. Interaction of physical and biological processes in the assembly of stream fish communities Elizabeth M. Strange and Theodore C. Foin
12. Functional implications of trait-environment linkages in plant communities Sandra Diaz, Marcelo Cabido and Fernandez Casanoves
13. When does restoration succeed? Julie L. Lockwood and Stuart L. Pimm
14. Assessing the state of the assembly rules Paul Keddy
Index.

Subject Areas: Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]