Description / Table of Contents: 1: The Organism and its Environment1.1 The organism and its abiotic environment: limits to tolerance -- 1.2 Interactions between environmental variables -- 1.3 Macro-environment and micro-environment -- 1.4 Adjustment of tolerance limits -- 1.5 Homeostasis: avoidance of the problem -- 1.6 Behavioural mechanisms for homeostasis -- 1.7 Adaptive suites -- 1.8 Organism and abiota: a two-way interaction -- 2: The Ecological Community -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Communities and ecosystems -- 2.3 Biotic relationships -- 2.4 The organism in the community -- 2.5 The community level of organisation -- 2.6 Tropho-dynamic analyses -- 2.7 Community structure -- 2.8 Analyses of food web design -- 2.9 Subcompartments in community structure -- 2.10 Common denominators of community design -- 2.11 Species-abundance relationships -- 2.12 Species associations -- 2.13 Niche relationships and design rules -- 2.14 The structure of particular communities -- 2.15 Community flux -- 3: Community Dynamics -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 The community as a system of energy transformations -- 3.3 Energy relationships of individuals -- 3.4 Energy relationships in the community -- 3.5 Energy flow within the community: the tropho-dynamic approach -- 3.6 Limitations of energy analysis -- 3.7 The flow of nutrients within communities -- 3.8 The importance of the decomposers -- 4: Temporal Change in Community Structure and Function -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Short-term cycles in community structure -- 4.3 Shifts in community structure: colonisation and extinction -- 4.4 Succession -- 4.5 Characteristics of succession -- 4.6 The mechanics of succession -- 4.7 What stops the successional process? -- 4.8 Climax communities -- 4.9 Succession as a necessary mathematical consequence -- 5: The Concept of the Niche -- 5.1 Introduction and definition of niche -- 5.2 Parameters of the niche -- 5.3 Factors affecting the niche and its parameters -- 5.4 Niche separation -- 5.5 Niche overlap -- 5.6 Measures of niche width, separation and overlap -- 5.7 Niche relationships and community structure -- 5.8 Parallel niches -- 6: Interspecific Competition and Community Structure -- 6.1 Introduction and definitions of competition -- 6.2 Interspecific competition -- 6.3 The mechanics of competition -- 6.4 Niche overlap and competition -- 6.5 The effects of interspecific competition within the community: exclusion and coexistence -- 6.6 Diffuse competition and indirect competitive effects -- 6.7 Competition as a selection pressure promoting change -- 6.8 Niche shifts and evolutionary change due to competition -- 6.9 Interspecific competition in natural systems -- 7: Population Structure and Analysis -- 7.1 What is population ecology? -- 7.2 Theoretical population growth -- 7.3 The analytic (life table) approach -- 7.4 Simulation of population events -- 7.5 Towards a general population theory -- 8: Competition and Population Stability -- 8.1 Introduction: inter and intra-specific competition and population stability -- 8.2 Regulation in vertebrate populations -- 8.3 Population cycles in vertebrates -- 8.4 Population cycles in invertebrates -- 9: Predators, Parasitoids and Population Stability -- 9.1 Why study predators and parasitoids? -- 9.2 Analytical models and the components of prédation -- 9.3 Predator development and accumulation -- 9.4 A theoretical basis for biological control -- 9.5 Polyphagous predators and analytical models -- 9.6 Field studies of the role of polyphagous predators -- 9.7 The effects of prédation on prey productivity and community structure -- 10: Evolution and Adaptation -- 10.1 Evolution and ecology -- 10.2 Adaptation -- 10.3 Bionomic strategies -- 10.4 Implications of r- and K-selection -- 10.5 Adaptiveness of foraging strategy -- 10.6 Optimal foraging -- 10.7 Reproductive strategy -- 10.8 Adaptiveness of social group -- 10.9 Optimality and evolutionarily stable strategies -- 10.10 The evolution of stable strategies -- 11: Coevolution -- 11.1 Insect-plant interactions -- 11.2 Larger herbivores -- 11.3 Interaction of plant-herbivore populations -- 11.4 Coevolution to mutualism -- 11.5 Coadapted systems -- 12: Species Diversity -- 12.1 Diversity as a descriptor of ecological communities -- 12.2 Measures of diversity -- 12.3 Resolution of chaos in diversity indices -- 12.4 The S component of diversity: why are there so many kinds of organisms? -- 12.5 Colonisation, extinction and island biogeography -- 12.6 Saturation point -- 12.7 Equitability -- 12.8 Factors promoting species diversity -- 12.9 Theories of diversity -- 13: Stability -- 13.1 Definitions -- 13.2 Stability of single species populations -- 13.3 Stability of two or three species systems -- 13.4 Community stability -- 13.5 Diversity and stability -- 13.6 May’s Paradox -- 13.7 Stability and food web design -- 13.8 The energetics of stable systems -- 13.9 Causes for stability -- References -- Acknowledgements.