Community Dynamics

Abstract

The previous chapter stressed the fact that a community is a functional entity: this complexity of structure and organisation lacks a dimension, until it is seen in operation — for it is a system which only exists in motion. Clearly the operation of any community is a function of the interaction of the various processes affecting its component organisms: competition, parasitism, prédation and so on, and these individual processes will each be examined in detail in later chapters. But to stick first with our ‘overview’ let us consider the operation of the community as a whole: the net result of all these separate interactions combined.