No species is an island

Abstract

Books and Arts Nature 455, 1178-1179 (30 October 2008) | doi:10.1038/4551178b; Published online 29 October 2008 No species is an island Emma Marris1 BOOK REVIEWED-The Loom of Life: Unravelling Ecosystems by Menno Schilthuizen Springer: 2008. 220 pp. £37.50 In the summer of 1966, Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson and his student Daniel Simberloff undertook a classic ecology experiment in Florida. They identified a number of minuscule mangrove islands, took a census of their mostly insect fauna, and then paid an exterminator to kill all the animals on the islands with methyl bromide. Observing the islets as they became repopulated, they found that, after eight months, nearly all had regained the same number of species as they had hosted before the extermination. But most of these inhabitants were not of the same species as before.