Editorial: Disentangling the environment and representing vegetation science

WILSON, J. B.; WHITE, P.S.; BAKER, J.P.; DÍAZ, S.

JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE

Opulus Press

Lugar: Uppsala; Año: 2006 p. 1 - 3

1100-9233

Each year, the Chief Editors of J. Veg. Sci. choose a paper to exemplify one type of paper they are keen to pyblish, and to give credit to the authors. For 2005, it is Désilets & Houle (2005). The existence of the species-area curve is probably the oldest observation in community ecology, often dated back to Humboldt & Bonpland (1807). In the past  ca. 200 years it has been observed so often that it has been called ecology´s only law. Yet we still do not know which of the main causes, sampling or environmental heterogeneity, is the more important, and we know little of how the species- area relation varies among ecological situations. Désilets & Houle sampled 70 plots, each with nested subplots, across gradients of the supply and heterogeneity of five resource/environmental factors. The factors were inter-correrlated, so their relative importance was determined by path analysis. The authors concluded that the over-riding factor near the river was disturbance- flooding filtered the pool of species to those able to tolerate it- but resource availability ws high there, enabling the tolerant species to dominate the community. The great problem in field ecology is that every environmental factor is correlated with others, but Désilets & Houle showed how they can be disentangled.