Ecologia

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Filling key gaps in population and community ecology
Anurag A Agrawal1*, David D Ackerly2, Fred Adler3, A Elizabeth Arnold4, Carla Cáceres5, Daniel F Doak6, Eric Post7, Peter J Hudson7, John Maron8, Kailen A Mooney1, Mary Power2, Doug Schemske9, Jay Stachowicz10, Sharon Strauss10, Monica G Turner11, and Earl Werner12
We propose research to fill key gaps in the areasof population and community ecology, based on a National Science Foundation workshop identifying funding priorities for the next 5–10 years. Our vision for the near future of ecology focuses on three core areas: predicting the strength and context-dependence of species interactions across multiple scales; identifying the importance of feedbacks from individual interactions to ecosystem dynamics;and linking pattern with process to understand species coexistence. We outline a combination of theory development and explicit, realistic tests of hypotheses needed to advance population and community ecology.
Front Ecol Environ 2007; 5(3): 145–152

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cology is concerned with understanding the abundance, diversity, and distribution of organisms in nature, the interactions among organismsand between organisms and their environment, and the movement and flux of energy and nutrients in the environment. Along with an understanding of the principles that shape funda-

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In a nutshell:
• Ecology will become a more quantitative and predictive discipline if research is focused on how the strength of interactions between species changes with biotic or abiotic context • Interactionsamong ecological entities – be they individuals, populations, or ecosystems – are almost always bidirectional, but are rarely studied as such; the explicit examination of feedbacks is critical for understanding ecological dynamics • Theory on species diversity and species coexistence has outpaced experimentation, so empirical tests that distinguish among competing theories are needed • The role ofhistorical events in driving ecological patterns and processes is increasingly recognized and must be accounted for in both theory and experimentation

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 *(aa337@cornell.edu); 2Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; 3Department of Mathematics and Department of Biology,University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112; 4Department of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; 5Department of Animal Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801; 6 Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064; 7Biology Department, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802; 8Division of BiologicalSciences, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812; 9Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824; 10 Section of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616; 11Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706; 12Deptartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
© The EcologicalSociety of America

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mental parameters, such as the organization of communities and the cycling of resources in ecosystems, the basic knowledge of ecologists should include information from other physical and environmental sciences to address today’s most pressing environmental issues. In January 2006, the US National Science Foundation convened a panel to discuss the “frontiers of ecology”(www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_ summ.jsp?pims_id=12823&org=DEB&from=home) and to make recommendations for research priority areas in population and community ecology. This article summarizes the panel’s recommendations. The last such panel was convened in 1999 (Thompson et al. 2001), and we therefore report on recent progress and research goals for the next decade. Although we agree with many of the...