Here are extracts from the first review, by a distinguished ecologist, of my book Nonequilibrium Ecology (http://www.cambridge.org/9780521674553). The reviewer is well known for his studies of coral fish communities.

Book Reviews
Parasites and Passerines Tell Different Tales
Nonequilibrium Ecology. Rohde,
K. 2006. Cambridge University Press,
New York, NY. 234 (xi + 223) pp.
$120.00 (hardcover). ISBN 0-521-
85434-2. $60.00 (paperback). ISBN 0-
521-67455-7.
Passerine birds have had a surprisingly substantial impact on the development of ecological theory. Studies of birds, most often passerines, have been central to such topics as niche theory, resource partitioning, energy allocation, and optimality, and to the broad range of behavioral ecology topics such as parental investment, parent-offspring conflicts, and sexy sons. They have been important despite being a relatively species poor and ecologically atypical taxon. Passerines have strongly determinate growth; thus, juveniles are essentially full size at fledging, and individuals of a species are remarkably uniform in size. Consequently, each bird in a population has a very uniform set of ecological requirements and set of impacts on its environment, and these features remain largely constant throughout life. Passerines are among the less fecund organisms and provide much larger parental investments per offspring than is the case for any animals other than mammals. Passerines are homeotherms with high metabolic rates, and, perhaps because the requirements of flight limit their ability to store energy, they require a continuous supply of food and can quickly die in its absence. Finally, with the forelimbs specialized for flying and the hind limbs for perching, they are forced to use a quite inflexible jaw structure as the sole tool for food acquisition, manipulation, and consumption. In each of these aspects they are bizarre compared with the majority of organisms. In fact, as someone who does not work with birds, I marvel that they have been able to persist and diversify to the extent that they have. Intelligent design would never have produced such creatures—they are so tightly constrained by their morphology, ontogeny, and physiology that they must live continuously at the very edge of survival. It has always seemed strange to me that ecological ideas have been so heavily influenced by such atypical organisms. But then, some of the ideas central to ecological thinking have also seemed very strange to me, and maybe these two things are linked. Perhaps what is termed conventional ecology, or equilibrium ecology to use Rohde’s terminology, got that way because of the strange organisms that fueled its development. In his book Nonequilibrium Ecology, Klaus Rohde sets out to redress both issues. The author provides abundant examples from the ecology of parasites and other organisms to demonstrate that what may possibly be true for some birds is not necessarily the norm for other kinds of creatures. As its title states, the book is also an attempt to draw attention to the very considerable evidence for the idea that ecological systems—populations, communities, ecosystems—are normally (usually) not at or moving toward equilibrial conditions. In my opinion, a book like this has been needed for some time, and I am pleased that Rohde has written it.

……for those students and scientists who value hypotheses and the rigorous testing of them, it is clear that the equilibrium ecology that Rohde argues against is now but a tattered remnant of its earlier sparkling comprehensiveness. …Rohde’s book provides them with substantial ammunition to use in building a new, more realistic ecological paradigm.

……this is a useful book that should be read by any ecologist and particularly by any graduate student interested in a refreshingly different perspective on our science than the one dished up too frequently in survey courses and the conservation press.

Peter F. Sale
Biological Sciences, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and United Nations University—International Network on Water, Environment and Health, Hamilton, Ontario P0B 1J0.

Conservation Biology 21, 282, February 2007

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