In all fields of science today, data are collected and theories are
developed and published faster than scientists can keep up with, let
alone thoroughly digest. In ecology the fact that practitioners tend to
be divided between such subdisciplines as aquatic and terrestrial
ecology, as well as between popula- tion, community, and ecosystem
ecology, makes it even harder for them to keep up with all relevant
research. Ecologists specializing in one sub- discipline are not always
aware of progress in another subdiscipline that relates to their own.
Syntheses are frequently needed that pull together large bodies of
information and organize them in ways that makes them more coherent, and
thus more understandable. I have tried to perform this task of
integration for the subject area that encompasses the interrelationships
between the dynamics of ecological food webs and the cycling of
nutrients. I believe this area cuts across many of the subdisciplines of
ecology and is pivotal to our progress in understanding ecosystems and
in dealing with human impacts on the environment. Many current
ecological problems involve human disturbances of both food webs and the
nutrients that cycle through them. Little progress can be made towards
elucidating the complex feedback relations inherent in the study of
nutrient cycles in ecological systems without the tools of mathematics
and computer modelling. These tools are therefore liberally used
throughout the book.