An understanding of the dynamics of populations is critically important to ecologists, evolutionary biologists, wildlife managers, foresters, and many other biologists. This edited treatise brings together the latest research on how populations fluctuate in size, the factors that drive these changes, and the theories explaining how populations are regulated. The book also includes specific chapters dealing with insects of economic importance.

Insects are by far the largest group of animals on Earth, with over a million described species, and they occupy a wide range of ecological niches - they may be herbivores, predators, parasites or decomposers. Some are of particular economic importance as pests of agriculture and forestry, as vectors of animal and human disease, or as species of interest to wildlife conservation. Thus an understanding of the processes determining their numbers is of considerable practical value. Entomologists have played a leading role in developing a theoretical basis to Population Ecology, but we still do not have adequate experimental and observational proof for many of the theoretical ideas that have been proposed. As a result, the subject has been beset with arguments for more than 50 years. This volume attempts to reconcile some of these controversies, while also reviewing the current state of our knowledge. The editors have drawn together an international list of contributors whose views reflect a range of opinions on how natural populations are stabilised. They have succeeded in producing a book that both covers the main alternative views in population theory and contains some of the best recent field studies of insect populations. This Royal Entomological Society Symposium volume will be of great interest to all entomologists and ecologists, particularly those who wish to know more about Population Dynamics.

Aimed primarily at advanced graduate students and professional biologists, this book explores the degree to which animal*b1plant interactions are determined by plant and animal variability. Many of the patterns seen in natural communities appear to result from cascading effects up as well as down the trophic system. Variability among primary producers can influence animal and plant population quality and dynamics, community structure, and the evolution of animal*b1plant interations.