Discussion: From individuals to ecosystems; the papers of skellam, lindeman and hutchinson

✍ Scribed by Catherine A. Toft; Marc Mangel

• Book ID: 104271880
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 847 KB
• Volume: 53
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1522-9602
• DOI: 10.1016/s0092-8240(05)80043-6

✦ Synopsis

It is not necessary in any empirical sense to keep an elaborate logicomathematical system always apparent, any more than it is is necessary to 'keep a vacuum cleaner conspicuously in the middle of a room at all times. When a lot of irrelevant litter has accumulated the machine must be brought out, used and then put away " and Skellam (1951, p. 196) wrote: "Nevertheless, biologists as a whole have been reluctant to develop the analytical as distinct from the purely statistical _..". 121 * We will drop this awkward expression, but the distinction between early community ecology, practised by plant ecologists and limnologists, which was much more p0pulation-free, and present community ecology, which is derived from population ecology, needs to be kept in mind.