The value of stress and limitation in an imperfect world: A reply to Körner

447 6 1688 1 4881 document 1688 Lortie et al 2004 JVS.pdf application/pdf ff9e1f6b7246a35ccfb2aa9da34f67ab MD5 446800 2014-01-23 04:57:38 http://eprints.iliauni.edu.ge/447/1/Lortie%20et%20al%202004%20JVS.pdf 447 1 1 application/pdf text en public

Lortie et al 2004 JVS.pdf

1693 2 4899 document 1693 lightbox.jpg image/png 44b1b57e4e9c7d3f864039a5f2bd5b6f MD5 50954 2014-01-23 05:08:01 http://eprints.iliauni.edu.ge/447/3/lightbox.jpg 447 3 3 image/png other Thumbnails conversion from text to thumbnail_lightbox ge public

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http://eprints.org/relation/isVersionOf http://eprints.iliauni.edu.ge/id/document/1688 http://eprints.org/relation/isVolatileVersionOf http://eprints.iliauni.edu.ge/id/document/1688 http://eprints.org/relation/issmallThumbnailVersionOf http://eprints.iliauni.edu.ge/id/document/1688 archive 137 disk0/00/00/04/47 2014-01-23 05:47:47 2014-01-23 05:47:47 2014-01-23 05:47:47 article no_search Lortie Chris lortie@yorku.ca Brooker Rob rob.brooker@hutton.ac.uk Kikvidze Zaal zaal.kikvidze@iliauni.edu.ge Callaway Ray ray.callaway@mso.umt.edu The value of stress and limitation in an imperfect world: A reply to Körner pub QEC ins18 public A recent perspective paper offered by Körner essentially argued that ‘limitation’ and ‘stress’ are functionally useless terms for ecology except perhaps within limited contexts such as plant physiology or agriculture. We strongly disagree, and to this end argue that, although stress is not as precise as other concepts in ecology and is probably more difficult to apply to communities than to individuals, if ecologists want to communicate in a meaningful and interesting way about the distribution and abundance of species, we have to use multi-purpose terminology that allows us to scale from reductionistic, strictly quantifiable levels of analysis to more general conceptual levels. Here, we revisit the main arguments presented against these concepts and use three lines of counter-argument to support our conclusion that limitation and stress are necessary concepts for organizing and integrating general ecological inquiry. We discuss (1) the role of interactions between individuals in changing the limitation experienced by a species, (2) the importance of delineating whether stress is being applied to individuals or to the community, and (3) the evolutionary argument that fitness is never perfect since even adapted species are likely limited to some degree by the environment. Journal of Vegetation Science International Association for Vegetation Science TRUE 1654-1103