Adaptive Herbivore Ecology From Resources to Populations in Variable Environments

About this book

Owen-Smith innovatively links the principles of adaptive behaviour to their consequences for population dynamics and community ecology, through the application of a metaphysiological modelling approach. The main focus is on large mammalian herbivores occupying seasonally variable environments such as those characterised by African savannas, but applications to temperate zone ungulates are also included. Issues of habitat suitability, species coexistence, and population stability or instability are similarly investigated.

Contents

Symbol and acronym conventions; 1. Conceptual origins: variability in time and space; 2. Consumer-resource models: theory and formulation; 3. Resource abundance: intake response and time frames; 4. Resource distribution: patch scales and depletion; 5. Resource quality: nutritional gain and diet choice; 6. Resource constraints: physiological capacities and costs; 7. Resource allocation: growth, storage and reproduction; 8. Resource production: regeneration and attrition; 9. Resource competition: exploitation and density dependence; 10. Resource-dependent mortality: nutrition, predation and demography; 11. Habitat suitability: resource components and stocking densities; 12. Resource partitioning: competition and coexistence; 13. Population dynamics: resource basis for instability; 14. An adaptive resource ecology: foundation and prospects; References; Index.

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Biography

Norman Owen-Smith is Research Professor in African Ecology and heads the Centre for African Ecology at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was awarded the Honorary Overseas Membership Award by the Ecological Society of America for his exceptional contribution to ecology. His previous book is Megaherbivores: The Influence of Very Large Body Size on Ecology (1988, 0521 36020X hardback and 0521 426375 paperback).