Gary A. Polis

"Provides interesting and thought-provoking reading and is highly recommended to anyone interested in desert ecosystems or community ecology. The book . . . should serve as an inspiration to many for future research."—Journal of Biogeography "This book is not just about deserts; it is an update of the contributions that research in desert systems is making to community ecology. . . This book will provide a useful reference for desert ecologists, as well as indicate critical directions where progress needs to be made."—Ecology "This important book fills a significant gap in previous syntheses by presenting a detailed series of reviews of current understanding of community patterns and structure in desert environments. . . . Each chapter is thorough and well written and . . . closes with a discussion of suggested future research. . . . [T]hese ideas will do much to focus interest on the importance of desert systems in understanding community. Thus, this book has interest well beyond desert ecologists alone."—BioScience "Valuable reading and reference for ecology students, teachers and researchers."—Quarterly Review of Biology

The Ecology of Desert Communities

Mary E. Power

Gary R. Huxel

Gary R.. Huxel

Scientists rely on food webs—complex networks that trace the flow of nutrients and energy between species and through ecosystems—to understand the infrastructure of ecological communities. But given the complexities of food webs—think of following the flow of nutrients through the microbes, fungi, roots, worms, ants, and birds that pass over or through a single cubic meter of prairie soil—it's not difficult to see why most experiments on food-web dynamics focus on small, local habitats. Yet as this book convincingly shows, important insights come when scientists expand the temporal and spatial scope of their research to look at the ways energy, organisms, nutrients, and pollutants flow not just at the local level, but across whole landscapes—between and among food webs in a wide variety of habitats. Paying special attention to the fertile boundaries between terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, Food Webs at the Landscape Level not only shows what this new methodology means for ecology, conservation, and agriculture but also serves as a fitting tribute to Gary Polis and his major contributions to the field.

Gary A. Polis

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