Describe Dr. Vellend's unifying theory of ecological communities (the factors that determine community structure). Where do conc
epts like competition, predation, habitat suitability, disease and parasitism, and disturbance (most of what we covered this semester) fit into his theory
Community ecology is a discipline that studies the organism's communities and the manner in which populations of species interact with each other within a particular habitat. Mark Vellend is an eco-evolutionist that developed a theoretical framework of ecological communities from a unified functional perspective. This theory is based on four forces of evolutionary biology: selection, drift, dispersal and speciation. This theory is used to explain how species interactions including parasitism, competition and predation may influence population fluctuations. On the other hand, this theoretical framework can also be used to understand how colonization, disturbance and habitat suitability components alter the dynamics of interacting species.
