MacroEcology

Do you believe these statements?

• There are no general laws in ecology worth pursing.
• The assessments of dissimilarities is more rewarding than assessments of similarities.

We agree that some attempts at generalisation have been premature, but wonder whether ecologists are collectively mesmerized by local details at the expense of tests of broader patterns (Fowler-Walker et al. 2005). We are encouraged by some widely observable patterns in subtidal ecology (Fowler-walker & Connell 2002). Theories of broad patterns may never account for all the variance of a noisy world, but for those inspired by similarities, they may provide predictive power which provides a basis of new discovery.

We test these ideas across temperate Australia using multiple perturbations common to subtidal forests. We find chaotic responses at local scales, but the influence of regional & historical factors are impossible to ignore.  My work leads me to believe that marine ecologists are too preoccupied with systems under strong top-down control. This is a pity, because much of the world's ecology is not shaped by this influence. 

References:

• Connell SD & Irving AD 2008.  Integrating ecology with biogeography using landscape characteristics: a case study of subtidal habitat across continental Australia.  Journal of Biogeography, in press.  dio:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2008.01903
• Connell SD. & Irving AD in press. The subtidal ecology of rocky coast: local-regional-biogeographic regional patterns and their experimental analysis. in J. D. Witman and R. Kaustuv, editors. Marine Macroecology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago