The Ecology of Bird Communities by John A. WiensReview by: S.M. RedpathJournal of Animal Ecology, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 211-212Published by: British Ecological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/5600 .

Accessed: 02/05/2014 22:57

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

British Ecological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal ofAnimal Ecology.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 130.132.123.28 on Fri, 2 May 2014 22:57:56 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

211

Book Reviews

concepts in population and quantitative genetics. There is a very large amount of text spent on the neutral theory and stochastic processes: Ridley tries to put the argument from both sides although it is not too difficult to detect which side of the fence he is on. Models which explain the ubiquity of poly- morphisms in nature are discussed at some length and given quite a good treatment where they are usually skirted over in other text books.

The next section, 'Adaptation and natural selec- tion', is much shorter than the previous one. It covers units of selection and adaptations using examples. There is a long section on the evolution of sex where lots of ideas are discussed, although there is no mention of either haplodiploidy or environmental sex determination. There is also some discussion of creationism in this section. I'm sure that if a creationist had picked up this book he would have put it down again by Chapter 13!

The last big section is 'Evolution and diversity'. This is the area where Mark Ridley is obviously most at home, especially in the chapters on classi- fication where phenetics is given a rather rough ride. Much of what is presented read like a synopsis of Ridley's earlier book Evolutioni anid Classification: The Reformation of Cladism. The chapter on speci- ation will certainly need to be tightened up for a second edition. For example, the hybrid zones of the hooded and carrion crow are described with the species mixed up in the text and map. This map is taken from Mayr (where there is no confusion) who, in turn, was quoting a 1928 reference. There is no need for such a mistake and there is no attempt to discuss the well-known movement of this particular hybrid zone over the last 100 years.

The fifth section 'Paleobiology and Macroevolution' looks at evolutionary rates, mass extinctions and coevolution. In many ways this section was the best of the five. The examples were good and there was a less 'preaching' style than is evident in some sections. Coevolution sits uneasily in this section, but it is not clear where it could have been fitted in earlier.

Throughout the book each chapter is divided into sections and subsections, concluded with a summary and a further reading list. There are very few refer- ences cluttering the text which improves read- ability. There is a glossary and index as well as a fairly extensive reference list.

In conclusion, I must say that this book is inter- esting and thought-provoking. As an introduction to evolution I think it fails for two reasons: there is often too much depth and the author's own views come through too strongly. If an introduction to this huge subject is required then I think that several books with a less sweeping scope would be a better place to start.

CALVIN DYTHAM

John A. Wiens (1991) The Ecology of Bird Communities. 2 Vols. Pp. 539. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ?29.95; $49.95 (paperback). ISBN 0521-42636-7-316.

Those of us unable to afford the hardback of this book will be grateful at the prompt arrival of the paperback. For anyone who has not yet seen this tour-de-force since its publication in 1989, the book is an excellent and extensive review of the current state of avian community ecology. John Wiens is a doyen in this field, having worked on shrubsteppe birds for over 20 years. Who better to present a critical assessment on the current state of the subject?

The work is divided into two volumes. The first (Foundations and Patterns) examines the patterns so far discovered in bird communities. Essentially, the science blossomed following the publication of MacArthur's papers, in particular his famous 1958 paper on forest warblers. In this volume, subjects such as community assemblage, species-area re- lationships, niche theory, ecomorphology, conver- gence and bioenergetics are discussed. The second volume (Processes and Variations) considers the interpretation of these patterns and the importance of the various underlying processes. This volume looks in detail at competition and then considers other extrinsic factors such as predation and parasit- ism. Temporal and spatial variation in communities are also discussed and the book ends with some suggestions for future work.

Whilst Wiens refers to huge numbers of studies (over 1600 in the first volume alone), the book is more than just a review. He also considers such aspects as the conceptual framework and the philos- ophy behind the science. Indeed, he is cautious about deriving patterns through the comparison of large numbers of studies. Largely this is due to differences and problems in methodology, but also to the tendency not to publish negative results.

Throughout the work he stresses the need to move away from the still persistent dogma of the MacArthurian approach to community ecology. Only too often, he claims, the importance of compe- tition has been taken for granted. Whilst it may be an important process in some communities, e.g. the nectarivores reviewed in Vol. 2, this does not mean it applies to all communities. Similarly, he advocates a fresh approach to niche theory: 'The influence of competition and niche thinking are so pervasive in community ecology that the search for patterns has been conducted largely in this context'.

Wiens constantly argues against dogma and for a pluralistic approach to the science. To achieve this end he pleads for careful, well-planned studies, and for the testing of clear unequivocal hypotheses. The formulation of theories and models should, he maintains, be based on an intimate knowledge of species rather than on 'mathematical convenience'.

This content downloaded from 130.132.123.28 on Fri, 2 May 2014 22:57:56 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

212 Book Reviews

These books are hugely impressive. They are clearly and precisely written and the arguments within are convincing and well structured. Anyone interested in community ecology will find the books stimulating and extremely useful. Wiens ends his books by discussing the importance of criticism and controversy in keeping a subject alive and vibrant. Undoubtedly, based on this criterion, community ecology is indeed in a healthy state.

S.M. REDPATH

George C. Williams (1992) Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges. Pp. x + 208. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-506932-3 (hardback) ?35.00. ISBN 0-19-506933-1 (paperback) ?14.95.

George Williams' new book Natural Selection: Domainzs, Levels, anzd Challenges is a bold and original assessment of selected topics in evolution- ary biology. Williams has never been shy of big titles, so I'll begin with a pr6cis of the book. Mech- anism, natural selection, and historicity are given in Chapter 1 as the doctrinal bases of 'successful' contemporary biology. Chapter 2 adds to the notion of replicators and vehicles a distinction between the 'codical' and the 'material' domains of selection. A forceful argument for clade selection occupies Chapter 3. Chapter 4 continues the exploration of levels of selection, including discussion of trait- groups, and beehive and haystack models. Opti- mality, historicity and constraint, and diversity within and among populations, are the topics, respectively, of Chapters 5, 6 and 7, and Chapter 8, entitled 'Some Recent Issues', includes insightful discussion of the lekking paradox, the Schrekstoff, and fallacies of the species concept. Chapter 9 offers an account of stasis including a plea that it receive more attention, and Chapter 10 closes with dis- cussions of Haldane's dilemma, paradoxes of sexu- ality, and 'other difficulties'.

Williams' writing voice is laconic and recognizes no authority. This frequently makes for entertaining reading as Williams confidently dismantles local orthodoxies. Objections to clade selection are dismissed as 'correct but trivial', the concept of the bauplan is seen as 'misguided and dispensable', frequency-dependent selection optimizes 'nothing at any level', and interpretations of phenotypic variation tracking environmental variation as indi- cating adaption are brushed aside as 'nonsense'.

The codical domain - as distinct from the material domain - in Williams' terminology is the domain of information: genes as packages of information rather than bits of DNA, genotypes rather than the physical bodies or somata they code for, and gene

pools rather than 'phylads'. A branching tree or dendrogram test is offered as a way to determine whether a level in the codical domain is susceptible to selection. Levels above those of the gene and the individual, gene pools for example, pass in Williams' view. These two points (the codical domain and the dendrogram test) form a new and subtle argu- ment about the ways that information can proliferate at different biological levels, and they attend much of Williams' discussion of clade selection.

I suspect that Williams' treatment of clade selec- tion will become controversial and reinvigorate debate on the topic. Clades do vary in the number of 'offspring' they leave behind (either by increased cladogenesis or decreased clade extinction), be they gene pools, species or higher groupings. Sexual lineages, for example, persist longer through time and include many more taxa than non-sexual line- ages. Even though the persistence of a clade is ultimately derived from natural selection sorting among individuals (apart from the occasional ac- cident that obliterates an entire clade, or the poss- ibly hypothetical example of a trait that does not vary within a clade (sex?), or the variation which is unrelated to fitness of the clade), some clades do proliferate faster than others, and they may sometimes do so at the expense of others. The result is that the distribution of forms in the biota changes. Higher level phenomena such as this may reveal fundamental invariances in the structure of environments (both across time and space), or in how environments interact with different types of genotypes-things not obvious from a gene- selectionist view. They may, at a much more prosaic level, simply tell us what the biota is likely to look like in the future.

Williams' discussion of historicity and constraint is level-headed and commendably bereft of the politi- cal overtones that usually accompany this topic in the context of human adaptations. Williams offers a characteristically simple, positivistic, and yet suf- ficient definition of constraint that avoids the usual implicit references to occult forces such as phylo- genetic inertia: 'any restriction on a population's responsiveness to selection'. My irritation at these topics, then, should not be taken to apply to Williams or his book (indeed Williams dismisses one evang- elist of the constraint view by saying 'It is clearly not true that "species have ... genetic and developmental sequences that resist selective pressures of the moment"). Discussions of constraints on evolution usually revolve around some trait that does not vary across a wide range of taxa. This fact is usually offered as implicit evidence that the trait could not have changed even if selected for; hence the meta- phors of 'constraint' and 'inertia'. Many of these facts turn out not to be facts on closer inspection (I shall let readers try to find one such example in Williams' book). But even if a trait is invariant

This content downloaded from 130.132.123.28 on Fri, 2 May 2014 22:57:56 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions