This book seeks to bring together the findings and ideas of workers studying such varied systems as marine invertebrate communities; grasslands; and boreal, temperate, and tropical forests. Our primary goal is to present a synthesis of diverse individual contributions. The book is divided into three main sections: (1) examples of patch dynamics in diverse systems; (2) adaptations of organisms and evolution of populations in patch dynamic environments; and (3) implications of patch dynamics for the organization of communities and the functioning of ecosystems. We feel this approach demonstrates the commonality of disturbance-generated phenomena over a wide range of scales and levels of organization and thus validates the broad applicability of the patch dynamic viewpoint. We seek to present clearly a framework that can stimulate the generation of explicit hypotheses and theory and thus form an alternative to equilibrium concepts of the evolution of populations, composition of communities, and functioning of ecosystems. We hope, in addition, that this volume will help identify areas of future research. This book draws principally on terrestrial and marine systems, in which most work on patch dynamics has been done. Freshwater environments have received less emphasis, because studies of patch dynamics have been rare in these systems. By contrast, there is a rich, and largely recent, literature on a wide variety of terrestrial systems, examining both biotic and abiotic components and a variety of trophic levels. This book provieds a common focus for this growing body of work, and aquatic patch dynamics have been included in this synthesis where possible. Although this book is replete with detailed examples of community dynamics and organism adaptation, no book of this length could exhaustively treat all systems; even some terrestrial systems are missing here. For example, descriptions of boreal forest patch dynamics were omitted in reliance on recent, widely available reviews. We have sought, rather, to emphasize building a theoretical framework in which to view disturbance in natural systems. The stress here is on the processes of dynamics and emerging generalization from patch dynamic systems, and not a mere catalog of examples. Treating certain systems in depth, while drawing connections and parallels with others, will best serve an understanding of processes and successful generalization.
