CHAPTER 14
Emerging frontiers of community
ecology
Peter J. Morin
14.1 Introduction
Speculation about the future direction of any disci-
pline is always problematic, frequently foolhardy,
and typically embarrassing to the speculator in ret-
rospect. Predictions about the future of community
ecology are no exception. Nonetheless, the contri-
butions in this volume point to a number of impor-
tant and vital developments in community ecology
that may presage important new directions of
study. Obviously, these areas constitute only a
small sample of the active research frontiers in
community ecology. An overview of the chapters
in this volume and a number of other recent pub-
lications suggests that the following themes may be
particularly important in future research.
14.1.1 Spatial ecology
A spatial context determines the outcome of inter-
actions within and among metacommunities, as
repeatedly emphasized in Chapters 2, 5, 6, 7 and 9
in this volume. The growing awareness that com-
munities are open systems, which have dynamics
that can be strongly influenced by the movement of
organisms among subsets of metacommunities, is
increasingly clear (Leiboldet al. 2004). Despite that
recognition, theoretical studies far outnumber ex-
perimental studies of the consequences of such spa-
tial dynamics. Clever tests of metacommunity
theory with amenable experimental systems, such
as those of Holyoak and Lawler (1996) and B. Kerr
et al. (2006), will remain an important future topic
of research. It is remarkable that we have so few
empirical studies of dynamics in metacommunities,
so many years after Huffaker (1958) first demon-
strated their likely importance.14.1.2 Complex dynamics
Even simple models can give rise to remarkably
complex dynamics (May 1976). It seems even
more likely that complex and often chaotic dynam-
ics will be a feature of systems involving three or
more species (de Rooset al. 2002; see Chapter 3).
Those dynamics can define assembly rules or create
alternate stable states for some systems (Scheffer
et al. 1993; see Chapters 4 and 5).14.1.3 Size-dependent interactions
Interactions whose strength and consequences de-
pend on the relative sizes of interacting organisms
figure prominently in the emerging mechanistic
understanding of food web patterns (de Rooset al.
2002; Beckermanet al. 2006; Petcheyet al. 2008; see
Chapter 5). The many ecological correlates of or-
ganism size provide a possible entry into mechanis-
tic ecological theory that links the physiology,
energetics and behaviour of individual organisms
to their role in communities (Brownet al. 2004).14.1.4 Interactions between topology and dynamics
The many suggestions that aspects of food web
topology (May 1973; Pimm and Lawton 1977; de
Ruiter et al. 1995; Montoya et al. 2006) are193