Multitrophic Level Interactions - Softcover

Tscharntke, Teja

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521084180 ISBN 13: 9780521084185

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

The multitrophic level approach to ecology addresses the complexity of food webs much more realistically than the traditional focus on simple systems and interactions. Only in the last few decades have ecologists become interested in the nature of more complex systems including tritrophic interactions between plants, herbivores and natural enemies. Plants may directly influence the behaviour of their herbivores' natural enemies, ecological interactions between two species are often indirectly mediated by a third species, landscape structure directly affects local tritrophic interactions and below-ground food webs are vital to above-ground organisms. The relative importance of top-down effects (control by predators) and bottom-up effects (control by resources) must also be determined. These interactions are explored in this exciting volume by expert researchers from a variety of ecological fields. This book provides a much-needed synthesis of multitrophic level interactions and serves as a guide for future research for ecologists of all descriptions.

About this title

About the Authors

Teja Tscharntke is Professor of Agroecology at the University of Göttingen, Germany. His research focus is on plant-herbivore-enemy interactions including parasitism, predation and pollination, insect communities and food webs on a landscape scale and temperate-tropical comparisons. He is editor-in-chief of Basic and Applied Ecology and a member of the editorial board of Oecologia.

Bradford A. Hawkins is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. His research focus is on the biology and ecology of insect parasitoids, insect community ecology, food webs and energy-diversity theory. He is the author of Pattern and Process in Host-Parasitoid Interactions (Cambridge University Press, 1994), and editor of Parasitoid Community Ecology (1994, with William Sheenan) and Theoretical Approaches to Biological Control (Cambridge University Press, 1999, with Howard V. Cornell).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521084180
• ISBN 13: 9780521084185
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 284