Epilogue

Abstract

At the beginning of this book we asked whether adaptive behavior might explain the apparent persistence, if not stability, of real communities. We hope that by now even the most skeptical reader is convinced that adaptive forms of behavior might play a major influence on community dynamics. A growing body of work suggests that adaptive behavior has neither a routinely stabilizing influence, nor a routinely destabilizing influence. It all depends on the form of behavior, the environmental structure, and the set of environmental parameters that apply in a given situation.