Abstract
AbstractThis Chapter details the hierarchy of ecological assembly, from organismic, to population, to community, to ecosystem and to landscape levels. The processes of evolution by natural selection, genetic differentiation and speciation are described. Measures of species richness, evenness, diversity, endemism and categories of threat are important to conservation needs assessment and are illustrated with examples from Africa. The use of models of life history patterns (such as r- and K-strategies), and of the concepts of the ecological niche and guild are explained. Interactions between consumers and their food source provides a basis for their classification into herbivores, carnivores, omnivores and decomposers. To these are added interactions between two species with reciprocal effects—predation, parasitism, mutualism and commensalism. At landscape scales, interactions within and between populations and communities of existing and immigrant species, and the rates of immigration and extinction, are explored using the theories of island biogeography and of metapopulations. The impact of invasive species on rural livelihoods is used to demonstrate the fragility of natural communities to anthropogenic disturbance.
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
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