Proceedings: Conference on Applications of the Guild Concept to Environmental Management

Abstract : This report provides the proceeding of the conference held on 20-22 April 1982, sponsored by the University of Illinois and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to discuss the philosophy within basic and applied ecology of classifying organisms into functional units (guilds). The meeting was attended by a cross-section of scientists representing state and Federal government agencies, academic institutions, and private enterprise. The major points raised during the conference were (1) the imprecision of the concept of guild classification within the between academic and applied ecological research communities, (2) the need for functional classification to help define problems and analyze management goals, (3) the potential for the guild concept in applied ecological research, and (4) the premature status of statistical procedures for using the guild concept in applications-oriented studies.