Abstract
ANDREWARTHA'S ideas on density-dependent factors1 in ecology are very misleading, and have already been criticized by Huffaker2. I wish to refer to three points which he raises in his recent communication. First, he argues that since the population models of Lotka and Volterra are based on density-dependent relationships, and these have been “partly confirmed by laboratory experiments with such simple animals as Paramecium, but not with more complex ones such as Calandra and Tribolium and not with any sort of animal in Nature”, this is evidence against the applicability of ideas of density dependency. Yet density-dependent relationships are known to operate in two ways in Tribolium cultures. Chapman3 found the beetles ate their own eggs, and Boyce4 showed female beetles laid fewer eggs when crowded. The Lotka–Volterra formulæ have seldom been applied to interpret these happenings because they are not properly applicable to animals with a long pre-reproductive period. However, Crombie5 has used the formulæ with encouraging success to interpret the results of competition between the beetles Oryzaephilus and Tribolium and other grain insects.
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References
Andrewartha, H. G., Nature, 183, 200 (1959).
Huffaker, C. B., Proc. Tenth Int. Congr. Entomol., 2, 625 (1958).
Chapman, R. N., “Animal Ecology”, 188 (McGraw-Hill, 1931).
Boyce, J. M., Ecol., 27, 290 (1946).
Crombie, A. C., Proc. Roy. Soc., B, 132, 362 (1945); 133, 76 (1946).
Nicholson, A. J., Aust. J. Zool., 2, 9 (1954).
Solomon, M. E., and Varley, G. C., Nature, 181, 1778 (1958).
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VARLEY, G. Density-Dependent Factors in Ecology. Nature 183, 911 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1038/183911a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/183911a0
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