E-grāmata: Phytochemical Landscape: Linking Trophic Interactions and Nutrient Dynamics

Hunter describes how variation in the chemical traits of primary producers--plants--is of fundamental importance in ecology, and how that variation can be used as an organizing force for synthesis. By focusing on variation in autotroph chemistry on the phytochemical landscape, he links studies of trophic interaction to studies of ecosystem processes in order to show how autotroph chemistry influences, and is influenced by, nutrient dynamics at the ecosystem scale. Students and researchers could find the study useful in studying ecological processes at the population, community, and ecosystem levels. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

The dazzling variation in plant chemistry is a primary mediator of trophic interactions, including herbivory, predation, parasitism, and disease. At the same time, such interactions feed back to influence spatial and temporal variation in the chemistry of plants. In this book, Mark Hunter provides a novel approach to linking the trophic interactions of organisms with the cycling of nutrients in ecosystems.

Hunter introduces the concept of the "phytochemical landscape"--the shifting spatial and temporal mosaic of plant chemistry that serves as the nexus between trophic interactions and nutrient dynamics. He shows how plant chemistry is both a cause and consequence of trophic interactions, and how it also mediates ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling. Nutrients and organic molecules in plant tissues affect decomposition rates and the fluxes of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. The availability of these same nutrients influences the chemistry of cells and tissues that plants produce. In combination, these feedback routes generate pathways by which trophic interactions influence nutrient dynamics and vice versa, mediated through plant chemistry. Hunter provides evidence from terrestrial and aquatic systems for each of these pathways, and describes how a focus on the phytochemical landscape enables us to better understand and manage the ecosystems in which we live.

Essential reading for students and researchers alike, this book offers an integrated approach to population-, community-, and ecosystem-level ecological processes.