Folks might want to take a look at this paper (after doing the survey!).
Fauth, J. E., J. Bernardo, M. Camara, W. J. Resetarits, Jr., S.A.
McCollum, and J. Van Buskirk.
1996. A conceptual approach to simplifying the jargon of community
ecology. American Naturalist 147:282-286.
It includes definitions based on the original usage of the terms and a
logical conceptual framework.
You can get the pdf from my sadly in need of updating website.
http://www.myweb.ttu.edu/wresetar/
It would be interesting to see how differently these terms are actually
used, since my impression is that usage of most of these terms does not
show any consistency with actual definitions. In common usage, it seems a
"community" is still "that group of organisms on which I worked."
"Community" is thus used in place of every set included in the survey (and
many that are not). So, while most may be able to define the terms, they
may still not use them consistent with the definitions.
Part of the problem is that predator communities and prey communities are
particularly common usages that fit no known definition of community. So,
while we have good definitions for many "sets" in community ecology, the
particular constructs of "predator" and "prey" are more than a little
problematic when dealing with groups that are not taxonomically
proscribed. Some sets of predators might be roughly categorized as a
guild, but diverse sets of predators that don't utilize similar resources
in a similar way present a definitional problem.
So, predators, in general usage, share a vaguely defined common food
"type". How should one refer to all the predators in a given locality?
I would argue that "predator communities" is a non sequitur, since I know
of no communities that consist only of predators, and few that consist
primarily of predators. But what is a proper description of a set of
predators?
For prey, it is even more vague, since the only thing prey share is the
risk of being eaten. And so "prey communities" makes even less sense
logically, since you can't even BE prey unless there are predators in your
community! I have searched in vain for a simply term from the actuarial
and insurance side of things for groups that share a common risk. What
should we call groups of unrelated "prey" in a community. Simply saying
prey, like predator, does not specify a set, but can refer to single or
multiple prey species.
William J. Resetarits, Jr.
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas 79409-3131
Phone: (806) 742-2710, ext.300
Fax (806) 742-2963
http://www.festivalofecology.org/100-influential-papers
http://www.unifr.ch/biol/ecology/sayingseco.html
On 2/18/14 10:41 AM, "Nathan Lemoine" wrote:
>Hey everyone,
>
>We¹re taking a survey to find out how certain terms are used in ecology
>(and how prevalent their use is) since we see them used interchangeably.
>We¹re asking researchers from all levels (undergrad, grad, professor,
>non-academic) to define a set of common terms in ecology, like assemblage
>and community.
>
>The survey is short, four questions with two supplemental info questions.
>We¹d appreciate your taking the time to fill it out!
>
>The web address: http://climateecology.wordpress.com/
>
>Thanks!
>
>Nate and Andy
