Ecological modelling and disturbance evaluation

Abstract The idea of ‘disturbance’ has played contradictory roles in ecological theory. In some cases, disturbances have been viewed as disruptive to ecological systems, whereas in others they have been seen as necessary to maintain ecological systems. In this paper we show that the role of disturbance is dependent on the temporal and spatial characteristics of the systems. Our approach is to examine a variety of ecological models. We divide models into three spatial categories (closed, multicell, and open systems) and three categories of stability (equilibrium, loose equilibrium, and nonequilibrium). In the ‘classical’ closed equilibrium models of ecology, disturbances act primarily in a destructive way, reducing the ecological structure that can be maintained, whereas in other categories disturbances promote species diversity and richness of spatial pattern. We attempt to make clearer the role of scale in affecting the system properties ‘equilibrium vs. nonequilibrium’, ‘closed vs. open’, and the disturbance property ‘endogenous vs. exogenous’.

[1]  R. Macarthur.  Fluctuations of Animal Populations and a Measure of Community Stability , 1955 .

[2]  J. Connell.  Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs. , 1978, Science.

[3]  James W. Porter,et al.  A spatial model of growth and competition strategies in coral communities , 1977 .

[4]  P. Chesson,et al.  Environmental Variability Promotes Coexistence in Lottery Competitive Systems , 1981, The American Naturalist.

[5]  Graham P. Harris,et al.  Temporal and Spatial Scales in Phytoplankton Ecology. Mechanisms, Methods, Models, and Management , 1980 .

[6]  J. Connell,et al.  On the Evidence Needed to Judge Ecological Stability or Persistence , 1983, The American Naturalist.

[7]  Montgomery Slatkin,et al.  Competition and Regional Coexistence , 1974 .

[8]  A. Watt,et al.  Bracken versus heather, a study in plant sociology , 1955 .

[9]  R. May,et al.  Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems , 1976, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[10]  Paul R. Ehrlich,et al.  The "Balance of Nature" and "Population Control" , 1967, The American Naturalist.

[11]  P. Crowley.  Predator-mediated coexistence: an equilibrium interpretation. , 1979, Journal of theoretical biology.

[12]  W. Mitsch,et al.  Turbulence and phytoplankton diversity: A general model of the “paradox of plankton”☆ , 1979 .

[13]  R M May,et al.  Niche overlap as a function of environmental variability. , 1972, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[14]  H. Tuckwell,et al.  Persistence times of populations with large random fluctuations. , 1978, Theoretical population biology.

[15]  J. R. Wallis,et al.  Some ecological consequences of a computer model of forest growth , 1972 .

[16]  R M May,et al.  Harvesting Natural Populations in a Randomly Fluctuating Environment , 1977, Science.

[17]  D. R. Strong,et al.  Density vagueness abiding the variance in the demography of real populations , 1986 .

[18]  Stuart L. Pimm,et al.  Food web design and the effect of species deletion , 1980 .

[19]  R. Paine,et al.  Intertidal Landscapes: Disturbance and the Dynamics of Pattern , 1981 .

[20]  R. Macarthur,et al.  Competition among Fugitive Species in a Harlequin Environment , 1972 .

[21]  V. Volterra.  Variations and Fluctuations of the Number of Individuals in Animal Species living together , 1928 .

[22]  R. Paine,et al.  Disturbance, patch formation, and community structure. , 1974, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[23]  Thomas B. Starr,et al.  Hierarchy: Perspectives for Ecological Complexity , 1982 .

[24]  H. Comins,et al.  Prey-predator models in spatially heterogeneous environments. , 1974, Journal of theoretical biology.

[25]  Ja Wiens,et al.  On understanding a non-equilibrium world:myth and reality in community patterns and processes , 1984 .

[26]  J. Steele,et al.  Spatial Heterogeneity and Population Stability , 1974, Nature.

[27]  R. Paine.  Food webs : linkage, interaction strength and community infrastructure , 1980 .

[28]  J. Cohen.  A Markov Contingency-Table Model for Replicated Lotka-Volterra Systems Near Equilibrium , 1970, The American Naturalist.

[29]  A. L. Koch,et al.  Coexistence resulting from an alternation of density dependent and density independent growth. , 1974, Journal of theoretical biology.

[30]  M. Turelli,et al.  Does environmental variability limit niche overlap? , 1978, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[31]  Alfred J. Lotka,et al.  On an Integral Equation in Population Analysis , 1939 .

[32]  Hal Caswell,et al.  Predator-Mediated Coexistence: A Nonequilibrium Model , 1978, The American Naturalist.

[33]  A. Nicholson,et al.  Supplement: the Balance of Animal Populations , 1933 .

[34]  W. Post,et al.  Community assembly and food web stability , 1983 .

[35]  H. Shugart,et al.  Succession: Similarities of Species Turnover Rates , 1973, Science.

[36]  J. Lawton,et al.  On feeding on more than one trophic level , 1978, Nature.

[37]  S. Levin.  Population Dynamic Models in Heterogeneous Environments , 1976 .

[38]  A. Milne.  On a theory of natural control of insect population , 1962 .

[39]  B P Zeigler,et al.  Persistence and patchiness of predator-prey systems induced by discrete event population exchange mechanisms. , 1977, Journal of theoretical biology.

[40]  H. G. Andrewartha,et al.  The distribution and abundance of animals. , 1954 .

[41]  W. D. Valentine,et al.  The concepts of elasticity, invulnerability and invadability. , 1979, Journal of theoretical biology.

[42]  G. E. Hutchinson,et al.  The Balance of Nature and Human Impact: The paradox of the plankton , 2013 .

[43]  C. Huffaker.  Experimental studies on predation : dispersion factors and predator-prey oscillations , 1958 .

[44]  P. Richerson,et al.  Contemporaneous disequilibrium, a new hypothesis to explain the "paradox of the plankton". , 1970, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[45]  Richard Levins,et al.  Coexistence in a Variable Environment , 1979, The American Naturalist.

[46]  John Maynard Smith.  Models in ecology , 1974 .

[47]  L. Slobodkin.  Growth and regulation of animal populations , 1962 .

[48]  J. Lawton,et al.  Number of trophic levels in ecological communities , 1977, Nature.

[49]  J. Reddingius,et al.  Gambling for existence , 1971 .

[50]  Robert A. Armstrong,et al.  Fugitive Species: Experiments with Fungi and Some Theoretical Considerations , 1976 .

[51]  M. Huston.  A General Hypothesis of Species Diversity , 1979, The American Naturalist.

[52]  M. Turelli,et al.  A reexamination of stability in randomly varying versus deterministic environments with comments on the stochastic theory of limiting similarity. , 1978, Theoretical population biology.

[53]  M. J. Sobel,et al.  Stability in Time-Varying Ecosystems , 1975, The American Naturalist.

[54]  K. Mann,et al.  Relationship Between Destructive Grazing by the Sea Urchin, Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis, and the Abundance of American Lobster, Homarus americanus, on the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia , 1981 .

[55]  A. Nicholson,et al.  The Balance of Animal Populations.—Part I. , 1935 .

[56]  A. Hastings.  Disturbance, coexistence, history, and competition for space , 1980 .

[57]  R. Hilborn,et al.  The effect of spatial heterogeneity on the persistence of predator-prey interactions. , 1975, Theoretical population biology.

[58]  S. Levin.  Dispersion and Population Interactions , 1974, The American Naturalist.

[59]  H. Wright.  Landscape Development, Forest Fires, and Wilderness Management , 1974, Science.

[60]  R. Levins,et al.  Regional Coexistence of Species and Competition between Rare Species. , 1971, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[61]  J. Vandermeer.  On the regional stabilization of locally unstable predator-prey relationships. , 1973, Journal of theoretical biology.

[62]  S. Levin,et al.  The role of mosaic phenomena in natural communities. , 1977, Theoretical population biology.

[63]  Harry S. Smith,et al.  The Rôle of Biotic Factors in The Determination of Population Densities , 1935 .