This book focuses on the FAM- project (FAM Munich Research Network on Agroecosystems) of the 1990s as a means to assessing, forecasting, and evaluating changes in the agroecosystems that are necessary for agricultural sustainability. Sustainable agriculture is a key concept for scientists, researchers, and agricultural engineers alike. In bringing together a diverse team of expert contributors, this novel text captures the excitement of a dynamic field that will help to define its future research agenda. Focusing on a range of ecological and evolutionary aspects over different scales (from individual to ecosystem), the chapters in this book provide expert coverage of our current understanding of mutualism whilst highlighting the most important questions that remain to be answered. This volume, the first general work on mutualism to appear in almost thirty years, provides a detailed and conceptually-oriented overview of the subject. Furthermore, the key ecosystem services that mutualists provide mean that they are increasingly being considered as conservation priorities, ironically at the same time as the acute risks to their ecological and evolutionary persistence are increasingly being identified. Mutualisms are essential to the reproduction and survival of virtually all organisms, as well as to nutrient cycles in ecosystems. Mutualisms occur in every terrestrial and aquatic habitat indeed, ecologists now believe that almost every species on Earth is involved directly or indirectly in one or more of these interactions. Mutualistic symbioses were crucial to the origin of eukaryotic cells, and perhaps to the invasion of land. Their influence transcends levels of biological organization from cells to populations, communities, and ecosystems. Mutualisms, interactions between two species that benefit both of them, have long captured the public imagination. Suggests a general solution to the recruitment puzzle in marine organisms Proposes a holistic hypothesis for marine spring blooming ecosystems by considering variability enhancing and variability dampening processes Asserts that fisheries will induce variability in marine ecosystems and alter the energy flow patterns in predictable ways It suggests that Predator-prey Synergism is important in some terrestrial ecosystems and is in agreement with the punctuated equilibria theory of evolution (i.e., stepwise evolution). Introduces a new paradigm, Predator-prey Synergism, as a building block on which to construct new ecological theories. This book approaches the long-standing question of what generates recruitment variability in marine fishes and invertebrates in an engaging and unique way that students and researchers in marine ecosystems will understand. This novel paradigm can also be used to predict the potential impact of global warming on marine ecosystems, identify how marine ecosystem may respond to gradual environmental changes, and develop possible measures to mitigate the negative impact of increasing temperature in marine ecosystems. Using this model, the text explains a number of issues that appear paradoxical in the case of a negative predator-prey relationship, including observed ecosystem bifurcations (regime shifts), ecosystem resilience, red tides in apparently nutrient depleted water, and the dominance of grazed phytoplankton over non-grazed species under high grazing pressure. From an Antagonistic to a Synergistic Predator Prey Perspective: Bifurcations in Marine Ecosystems is a groundbreaking reference that challenges the widespread perception that predators generally have a negative impact on the abundance of their prey, and it proposes a novel paradigm - Predator-prey Synergism - in which both predator and prey enhance abundance by their co-existence.
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