Advances in ecological research (volume 8)

The ecologists today is faced with two major difficulties of communication, one fundamental to the science and the other concerning relations with his fellow men. The fundamental difficulty is that of combining a broad understanding of complicated ecosystems with an accurate account of detail. The second problem, of communication with a wider audience, is currently affected by public awareness of the human relevance of ecological problems. It is influenced by the demand for "relevant" ecological research and speedy answers to practical problems. These are the primary justifications for a publication such as the present, and these same reasons provide the criteria for acceptable review articles. It is aimed to cover a wide field extending into borderlands with genetics, taxonomy, biometrics and many more. Volume 8 includes four articles which readers may care to match against these rather high-sounding principals. The first article on human ecology as an interdisciplinary concept: a critical inquiry is perhaps the first attempt to draw together the many different themes to which this much-abused title has been applied. The second article about the studies on Cereal Ecosystem is remarkable for introducing a thorough ecological approach to ubiquitous. The third article dealing with realistic models in population ecology extends horizons by applying a mathematician's understanding of the rather heterogeneous and often empirical approaches which together constitute conventional population dynamics. In the last article concerning the populations cycles in small mammals, the authors provides some magnificent examples of the use in ecology of the planned field experiment as well as a wide-ranging review of the common properties and the differences between small mammal population cycles . The reader is entitled to his own views on the relevance of these articles to his conception of what should constitute ecological science; it is our hope that they will all be seen to contribute in their different ways to the general purpose already outlined and, failing that, stimulate others to contribute their views on what is significant in ecology.