Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences
43rd Symposium of the British Ecological Society

Provides an overview of current thinking about macroecological patterns.

Tim M. Blackburn (Edited by), Kevin J. Gaston (Edited by)

9780521549325, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 1 August 2003

464 pages, 136 b/w illus.
24.8 x 17.1 x 2.5 cm, 1.022 kg

'The book … presents macroecology at its broadest sense, with achievements that have emerged in various biological disciplines, and which thus can be treated under this label because they greatly contributed to answers of … major ecological questions … It is therefore an extremely useful reading not only for those interested in macroecology itself, but for everybody who wants to know which big ecological ideas are now in the air.' David Storch, Charles University, Czech Republic

Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences brings together for the first time major researchers in the field to present overviews of current thinking about the form and determinants of macroecological patterns. Each section presents different viewpoints on the answer to a key question in macroecology, such as why are most species rare, why are most species small-bodied, and why are most species restricted in their distribution?

1. Introduction: why Macroecology? Tim M. Blackburn and Kevin J. Gaston
Part I. Why Are Some Taxa More Diverse Than Others?: 2. Evolutionary analysis of species richness patterns in aquatic beetles: why macroecology needs a historical perspective Alfried P. Vogler and Ignacio Ribera
3. The unified phenomenological theory of biodiversity Sean Nee
Part II. Why Are Most Species Rare?: 4. The neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography, and beyond Stephen P. Hubbell and Jeffrey Lake
5. Breaking the stick in space: of niche models, metacommunities and patterns in the relative abundance of species Pablo A. Marquet, Juan E. Keymer and Hernán Cofré
Part III. Why Are There More Species in the Tropics?: 6. How to reject the area hypothesis of latitudinal gradients Michael L. Rosenzweig
7. Climatic–energetic explanations of diversity: a macroscopic perspective Robert J. Whittaker, Katherine J. Willis and Richard Field
8. The importance of historical processes in global patterns of diversity Andrew Clarke and J. Alistair Crame
Part IV. Why are More Species Small-Bodied?: 9. Why are most species small-bodied? A phylogenetic view Andy Purvis, C. David L. Orme and Konrad Dolphin
10. Adaptive diversification of body size: the roles of physical constraint, energetics and natural selection Brian A. Maurer
Part V. Why are some species more likely to go extinct?: 11. Life histories and extinction risk John D. Reynolds
12. Routes to extinction Bernt-Erik Sæther and Steinar Engen
Part VI. Why Aren't Species More Widely Distributed?: 13. Why aren't species more widely distributed? Physiological and environmental limits F. Ian Woodward and C. K. Kelly
14. Macroecology and microecology: linking large-scale patterns of abundance to population processes Andrew R. Watkinson, Jennifer A. Gill and Robert P. Freckleton
15. Genetics and the boundaries of species' distributions R. K. Butlin, J. R. Bridle and M. Kawata
Part VII. Why Are There Interspecific Allometries?: 16. Intraspecific body size optimisation produces interspecific allometries J. Kozowski, M. Konarzewski and A. T. Gawelczyk
17. Scaling the macroecological, and evolutionary implications of size and metabolism within and across plant taxa Brian J. Enquist
Part VIII. Why is Macroecology Important?: 18. Macroecology and conservation biology Kevin J. Gaston and Tim M. Blackburn
19. Evolutionary macroecology and the fossil record David Jablonski, Kaustuv Roy and James W. Valentine
20. Comparative methods for adaptive radiations Robert P. Freckleton, M. Pagel and Paul H. Harvey
21. The next step in macroecology: from general empirical patterns to universal ecological laws James H. Brown, James F. Gillooly, Geoffrey B. West and Van M. Savage.

Subject Areas: Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]