Phylogenetic Approaches to Community Ecology: a Symposium and Special Issue, Held this Summer in Portland, Oregon

生物进化发生在群落环境中，同样，进化产生了物种之间的差异（或相似），这对它们的共存至关重要。然而，尽管领先的研究人员尽了最大的努力，进化和群落生态学在很大程度上还是作为独立的学科发展起来的。由于分子系统发育学和群落系统发育结构分析的最新进展，将我们对生态群落分类群进化史的认识与群落生态结构的认识相结合的可能性正在成为现实。但所涉及的技术和思想在主流生态学家中仍未广为人知。作为整合生态学和进化观点的初步尝试，2004年美国生态学会年会将召开一次题为“群落生态学的系统发育方法”的研讨会。这次专题讨论会的价值将大大增加，因为这些谈话将迅速发表在《生态学》杂志的特刊上，这种特刊广为流传。

Biological evolution occurs in a community context, and likewise, evolution produces thedifferences (or similarities) among species that are crucial to their coexistence. Yet despite the best efforts of leading researchers, evolution and community ecology have developed largely as separate disciplines. Because of recent advances in molecular phylogenetics and in the analysis of community phylogenetic structure, the possibility of integrating our understanding of the evolutionary history of taxa in ecological communities with knowledge of the ecological structure of communities is becoming a reality. But the techniques and ideas involved are still not widely known among mainstream ecologists. As an initial attempt towards integrating ecological and evolutionary perspectives, a symposium entitled "Phylogenetic approaches to community ecology" will be convened at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting in 2004. The value of this symposium will be greatly increased by the rapid publication of the talks in a special feature publication in the journal Ecology, that is widely available.