Abstract
Recent progress in plant population biology is often used to argue that most questions in community ecology should be answered using a reductionistic approach. This progress may, however, be attributed to at least two other factors: (1) greater emphasis on clear questions with testable alternatives, and (2) greater agreement upon the important variables which describe the systems of interest. In plant community ecology there has been a tendency to collect data rather than pose clear questions, and there is lack of agreement on which community properties are most useful to measure. As a consequence, there is sometimes a tendency to debate concepts instead of posing clear questions. Other more productive avenues for community level ecology exist.
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I thank F. B. Goldsmith, J. Graves, D. Moore, B. Shipley and the referees for helpful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the British Royal Society.
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Keddy, P.A. Beyond reductionism and scholasticism in plant community ecology. Vegetatio 69, 209–211 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00038702
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00038702