Invasive aquatic species of Europe

Abstract

Stephen Carpenter has spent his research career investigating the functioning of temperate lake ecosystems.This interesting book provides us with an extensive summary of the recent findings in this field.The format is rather unusual: it results from the author receiving a prize from the International Ecology Institute in Germany, part of which is the opportunity to write a book on his own research, published by the Institute.While this could in some cases provide something of an idiosyncratic output, this certainly is not the case here.Carpenter has used the opportunity to provide us with a fascinating and very useful account of the state of the art of research into the dynamics of temperate lake ecosystems.Whole-ecosystem research has been somewhat out of fashion of late, though the extreme view put forward by some that the ecosystem concept itself has had its day is not one that I hold (Dickinson & Murphy, 1998).However there is no question that, after the failure of the big ecosystem models developed in the 1970s to produce useable results, many ecological modellers retreated to smaller-scale studies, particularly in population ecology.Carpenter is an unashamed fan of wholesystem studies, although he shares my own view that minimal modelling (whether linear or non-linear, the latter becoming increasingly important, and undoubtedly the way forward: Murphy & Hootsmans, 2003) is the best approach.Break the system down into bite-sized chunks, build good models for each component and build the system-model on the resulting combined outputs: such approaches are proving highly fruitful in many areas of ecology.The key word in Carpenter's approach is thresholds.If these can be identified, together with both the proximate and ultimate causes