Population Interspersion: An Essay on Animal Community Patterns
Population Interspersion: An Essay on Animal Community Patterns
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种群散布：动物群落模式论文
DOI：
10.2307/2256726
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发表时间：
1949
影响因子：
5.5
通讯作者：
C. Elton
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
C. Elton
在过去的四分之一世纪里，生态学的大部分重大进展要么发生在植物生态学特有的领域，要么发生在动物的人口学或种群问题上。一方面，我们在植物群落的一般分类和性质、它们的演替关系、特定植物的生理反应和共生体、土壤组织、生态遗传学和全新世植被历史等方面取得了很大进展。另一方面，关于动物数量密度、年龄和性别结构、动物种群的运动和波动的实地研究也出现了激增，伴随着在实验室中进行的关于自我限制、竞争、寄生虫-宿主和捕食者-猎物关系的一些相当令人兴奋的实验，这些实验都得到了各种雄心勃勃的数学理论的支持。这些主要的研究领域清楚地揭示了植物生态学和动物生态学之间的一些内在差异，特别是动物运动能力的多种后果。但在这两个领域之间存在着一个巨大的区域，植物生态学和动物生态学在其中交汇，两者中的所有发现都应该在逻辑上综合起来，以便至少为我们提供一个关于整个生态系统在自然界中如何排列以及它们如何工作的工作模型和相互作用。在这一地区，动物群落结构和模式以及能量学的研究，动物栖息地的描述，植物和动物在食物，覆盖，授粉，水果和种子的传播方面的关系，以及动物对植被和植物对动物的其他反应。它包括了大量关于动物行为和分布的事实，以及涉及自然界一般均衡的许多问题。因为必须记住，这种一般均衡确实存在，尽管它会受到各种反复出现的波动的影响，甚至会受到生态系统的完全局部崩溃的影响，例如蓝藻爆发对湖泊动物群的毒害（普雷斯科特，1939），以及田鼠、蝗虫或毛虫对植被的破坏。我将试图探讨一些在我看来没有被作为一个整体来看待的、调节群落的分布和平衡的一般规律。我很清楚，我们对许多事情的无知程度之深，而这些事情正是完成这样一幅图景的一部分。在目前，希望实现完整性是荒谬的。尽管如此，我绝对相信，如果我们要充分解释生态现象，并在适当的背景下看待它们，那么我们正处于一个时期的门槛上，在这个时期，动物和植物群落的事实和概念的综合不仅是可能的，而且是必要的。我认为，生态学事实的海洋已经达到了危险的水位，我希望在这里发展的观点可能具有一定的价值，就像一个漂浮的木筏，一般的生态学家需要一个木筏，从那里撒下他的浮游生物取样网。浮游生物可能是零散的，收集和合成的工作非常费力。* 这篇论文的主旨是1949年1月7日在英国生态学会上宣读的总统演讲。J. Ecol. 37 1
Most of the great advances in ecology during the last quarter century have taken place either within the field peculiar to plant ecology, or in the demology or population problems of animals. On the one hand we have seen much progress in the general classification and nature of plant communities, their succession relations, the physiological reactions and symbionts of particular plants, soil organization, ecological genetics, and Holocene vegetation history. On the other hand, there has been an outburst of field research on the density of animal numbers, and on the age and sex structure, movements and fluctuations of animal populations, accompanied by some rather exciting experiments in the laboratory on self-limitation, competition, parasite-host and predator-prey relationships, backed by ambitious mathematical theories of various kinds. These main fields of research have brought into clear relief some of the intrinsic differences between plant and animal ecology, and especially the manifold consequences of animals' power of movement. But between these two fields lies a tremendous region in which plant and animal ecology join, and where all the discoveries made in either should logically be synthesized to give us at least a working model of how whole ecosystems are arranged in nature, and how they work and intereact. In this region lie studies of animal community structure and pattern and energetics, the description of animal habitats, relationships between plants and animals in respect to food, cover, pollination, dispersal of fruits and seeds, and other reactions of animals on vegetation and plants on animals. It includes a huge range of facts about animal behaviour and distribution and many problems involving the general equilibrium in nature. For it must be remembered that such general equilibrium does exist, even though it is subject to recurring fluctuations of all sorts, and even to complete local breakdowns of the ecosystem such as the poisoning of lake faunas by outbreaks of blue-green algae (Prescott, 1939), and the desolation of vegetation by field mice, locusts or caterpillars. I shall attempt to explore a few general laws regulating the distribution and balance of communities that do not seem to me to have been looked at as a whole. I am quite aware of the depth of our ignorance of many matters that take part in the completion of such a picture. It would be absurd at the present time to hope for completeness. Nevertheless, I am absolutely convinced that we are on the threshold of a period when synthesis of animal and plant community facts and concepts will not only be possible but necessary, if we are to interpret ecological phenomena fully, and see them in the proper contexts. I think that the ocean of ecological facts has reached a dangerous tide level, and the ideas I wish to develop here may have a certain value as a raft to float on. The general ecologist needs a raft from which to cast his sampling plankton net. The plankton may be patchy and the work of collection and synthesis very laborious, * The substance of this paper was read as Presidential Address to the British Ecological Society on 7 January 1949. J. Ecol. 37 1