Biological Invasions and Ecosystem Processes: Towards an Integration of Population Biology and Ecosystem Studies

Abstract

Much of the recent progress in ecosystem ecology can be traced to studies which have examined the responses of ecosystems to disturbance (Odum 1969). For example, early studies of forest clear-felling (cf. Hesselman 1917, in Stalfelt (1960) demonstrated that soil nutrient availability is usually enhanced in harvested sites. More recently, studies at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (Likens et al. 1970, Bormann and Likens 1979), in Sweden (Tamm et al. 1974, Wiklander 1981), and elsewhere documented that forest cutting alters watershed-level hydrology and nutrient losses; longer-term measurements have documented the reestablishment of biotic regulation of water and nutrient cycling during secondary succession (Bormann and Likens 1979).