Components of environment: malentities

Abstract

Andrewartha and Birch (1954) recognized four components of environment one of which they called ‘a place in which to live’. Andrewartha and Browning (1961), analysing the idea of resources in animal ecology, suggested that many of the interactions that had been discussed under a place in which to live might be properly encompassed by the idea of resources. And Browning (1962, 1963) suggested a fifth component of environment, hazards, which accounted for most of the interactions remaining in Andrewartha and Birch’s discussion of a place in which to live after resources had been abstracted from it. This was a more elegant analysis because it made the components of environment more homogeneous and made the classification more functional: it separated ‘resources’ which have a positive influence on an animal’s chance to survive and reproduce (Fig. 3.01) from ‘hazards’ which have a negative influence (Fig. 7.01.)