EBOOK How Species Interact:Altering the Standard View on Trophic Ecology

Understanding the functioning of ecosystems requires the understanding of the        interactions between consumer species and their resources. How do these interactions        affect the variations of population abundances? How do population abundances        determine the impact of predators on their prey? The view defended in this book is        that the "e;null model"e; that most ecologists tend to use is inappropriate because it        assumes that the amount of prey consumed by each predator is insensitive to the        number of conspecifics. The authors argue that the amount of prey available per        predator, rather than the absolute abundance of prey, is the basic determinant of        the dynamics of predation. This so-called ratio dependence is shown to be a much        more reasonable "e;null model."e;