Source:  Quarterly Review of Biology, Dec 1997 v72 n4 p494(1).
                                                                             
Title:  Applied Population Ecology: A Supply-Demand Approach._(book
            reviews)

Author:  Jerald S. Ault
                                                                             
Subjects:  Books - Reviews

People:  Gutierrez, Andrew Paul Ellis, C.K.

Rev Grade:  A
                                                                             
Electronic Collection:  A20436736

RN:  A20436736
                                                                             
Full Text COPYRIGHT 1997 University of Chicago

By Andrew Paul Gutierrez; with the assistance of C K Ellis. New York: John
Wiley & Sons. $69.95 (hardcover). xvii + 300 p; ill.; author and subject
indexes. ISBN: 0-471-13586-0. 1996.

Improved management of living resources requires a better understanding of
biological population dynamics and realistic models of multitrophic community
dynamics to assess the persistence of interacting species. A*lied Population
Ecology takes a novel approach to this "prey-preciator" problem by the use of
a theme of the effects of resource supply-demand. With terrestrial arthropods
as his biological model in the development of realistic age-structured
multitrophic models of plant-herbivore predator interactions in nature,
Gutierrez provides us with a coherent theory for understanding and analysing
multispecies community dynamics through an innovative persspective on the
theory and practice of poikilotherm development. A recurring theme is common
processes occur at all trophic levels, and the similarity of the functions
that describe them makes development of realistic multitrophic models highly
tractable. These properties are exploited in the identification of analogous
processes for resource acquisition and on allocation. In practice, one models
modular populations (or populations within populations) so individual
organisms are linked via the dynamics of resource supply-demand (i.e., the
elements of metabolic pool) The inflect of economics is seen in the models in
the use of the ratio of requisite supply to demand to regulate all birth,
death, mass growth, and net emigration rates. This is a core feature of this
paradigm because this ratio captures the time varying behavior and dynamics of
field populations.

The book is organized in an intriguing manner with three main sections:
introduction and overview, mathematical modeling and some essential
quantitative tools for applied ecologists. The first section considers the
positive impacts of sampling theory in applied ecology and develops a
biophysical model to examine the role of abiotic factors such as weather that
influence population and community dynamics. Resource acquisition and
allocation is the cur currency for models. Evolving stable strategies for
resource acquisition in predator-prey prey systems are considered since
populations have mass age structure, i.e., the young are commonly smaller than
the old and the average age size within an age class may vary over time. The
second section presents several model types: holistic simple single-species,
multitrophic interactions, single-species with age structure and realistic
age-structured multitrophic models. These approaches are considered? in the
context of regional dynamics and ecosystem sustainability. Gutierrez makes
available? much of the primary literature to guide applied d population
ecologists and to simplify the task of modeling? and understanding community
assemblages and food webs. Building complicated models is e easy, but what is
difficult is the analysis of the model's properties. In the third section,
Gutierrez provides! an overview of the essential mathematics of applied?
population models.

The book provides an entree for students in applied e ecology whose forte is
not mathematics, to the increasingly difficult literature in population?
ecology. Excellent illustrations help to make the author's points clear. As a
didactic tool, the book would make an excellent companion textbook to a
rigorous upper division or graduate course in ecological modeling. But this is
book is clearly useful to a wider audience of terrestrial and marine
ecologists, population? dynamicists, applied mathematicians and resource
managers, actively involved in research, who should give this book serious and
critical consideration. Applied Population Ecology will be of particular
interest to those w who endeavor to gain a better comprehension of the
dynamics, productivity, and sustainability of living resources.