Experimental Ecology

• Earl E. Werner, Ecological Experiments and a Research Programme in Community Ecology; Arthur E. Dunham and Steven J. Beaupre, Ecological Experiments: Scale, Phenomenology, Mechanism, and the Illusion of Generality; Peter J. Morin, Realism, Precision, and Generality in Experimental Ecology; James H. Brown, The Desert Granivory Experiments at Portal; Mathew S. Leibold and Alan J. Tessier, Experimental Compromise and Mechanistic Approaches to the Evolutionary Ecology of Interacting Daphnia Species; Mary E. Power, William E. Dietrich, and Kathleen O. Sullivan, Experimentation, Observation, and Inference in River and Watershed Investigations; William J. Resetarits Jr and John E. Fauth, From Cattle Tanks to Carolina Bays - The Utility of Model Systems for Understanding Natural Communities; Sally J. Holbrook and Russel J. Schmitt, Have Field Experiments Aided in the Understanding of Abundance and Dynamics of Temperate Reef Fishes?; John H. Lawton, Ecological Experiments with Model Systems - The Ecotron Facility in Context; Peter S. Petraitis, How Can We Compare the Importance of Ecological Processes If We Never Ask, "Compared to What?"; David M. Lodge, Steven C. Blumenshine, and Yvonne Vadeboncoeur, Insights and Application of Large-Scale, Long-Term Ecological Observations and Experiments; Sharon P. Lawler, Ecology in a Bottle, Using Microcosms to Test Theory; Gary A. Polis et al, The Interplay between Natural History and Field Experimentation; Elizabeth A. Marschall and Bernadette M. Roche, Using Models to Enhance the Value of Information from Observations and Experiments; J. A. Mongold, Experimental Approaches to Studying the Population Dynamics and Evolution of Micro-organisms; Barbara L. Peckarsky, The Dual Role of Experiments in Complex and Dynamic Natural Systems; A.J. Underwood, Design, Implementation and Analysis of Ecological and Environmental Experiments: Pitfalls in the Maintenance of Logical Structures; J. Timothy Wootton and Catherine A. Pfister, The Motivation for and Context of Experiments in Ecology; Joseph Bernardo, The Logic, Value, and Necessity of Grounding Experiments in Reality - an Essential Link in the Inferential Chain Back to Nature; John E. Fauth, Investigating Geographic Variation in Interactions Using Common Garden Experiments; Robert J. Marquis and Christopher J. Whelan, Revelations and Limitations of the Experimental Approach for the Study of Plant-Animal Interactions; Joseph Travis and David N. Reznick, Experimental Approaches to the Study of Evolution.

"The ghost of Robert H. MacArthur continues to haunt community ecology. In the 1960s, MacArthur and his colleagues revolutionized community ecology by developing simple but effective models of species interactions based on the unifying principles of competitive exclusion and the ecological niche. . . . [T]he most profound challenge to MacArthur's work came from experimental ecologists. . . . [T]hese ecologists added and removed species in communities, monitored the result, and evaluated the models in this light. . . . Experimental ecology has since developed rapidly, and ecologists have carried out sophisticated manipulative experiments in terrestrial, marine, and freshwater habitats. Experimental Ecology . . . is an edited volume with 22 contributions from the leaders of experimental ecology. . . . This symposium volume gives a state-of-the-art look at experimental ecology. . . . [T]his book was thought-provoking and enjoyable. I highly recommend it to all ecologists." BioScience