The book is a reflection on patterns of thought, theoretical positions,
and research methods in population ecology. It advocates an approach
which refrains from attempts at general mechanistic theory building, but
which instead tries to explain population phenomena by life history
characteristics, physiological and behavioural processes of organisms
and to combine these facts in explanatory models. As far as possible the
difference between individuals in morphology, physiology and behaviour
should be taken into account, so that the connection of population
ecology with the science of Neo-Darwinian evolution can be redressed
again.