The Power/Reality Of Demons And Supernatural Evil.

I'm interested in your papers - ecology and conservation are my fields. You stated, Cascade effects, and the term trophic cascade I used in my previous post, were described by Jared Diamond in two papers in 1984:Daimond, JM, 1984a "Historic extinctions: a Rosetta Stone for understanding prehistoric extinctions" in "Quaternary Extinctions" P.Martin and R.Klein, eds, ppg: 824-862 Uni Arizona Press (a great book! Highly recommended)Diamond, JM, 1984b "'Normal' extinctions of isolated populations" in "Extinctions" MH Nitecki, ed ppg: 191-246 Uni Chicago PressDiamond 1984a is probably the defining paper on the idea. That book is where I got my Hibiscadelphus example. Although there have been a number of scientists who have contributed substantially to our understanding of the effect (see, for instance, Quinn JF, Harrison SP, 1988 "Effects of habitat fragmentation and isolation on species richness: evidence from biogeographic patterns" Oecologia, 75:132-140), a lot of the framework Diamond used was based on John Terborgh's work on Barro Colorado (where I got my other example). See especially Terborgh, J, 1974 "Preservation of natural diversity: The problem of extinction-prone species" BioScience 24:715-722, which discusses the role of rarity among other things that lead to extinction in small populations.An even more extensive treatment of the cascade effect can be found in "Tropical Forest Remnants: Ecology, Management, and Conservation of Fragmented Communities" WF Laurance and RO Bierregaard, Jr., eds
1997, Uni Chicago Press - a must-read for any ecologist.I'd be very interested in reading your paper if it's available. Could you give a citation?

Thanks Stephen,I'll look next week to see if my library has or can get a copy of the book and the "Perspectives" and Oikos papers. They sound interesting. The early '70's were really a boom time for ecology, so it's unfortunate you didn't get the grant you'd applied for - sounds like an interesting experiment."Cascade" IS a pretty sexy term - very evocative. Diamond seems to have long had a facility for the neat turn of phrase (he's a really good writer, even in his popular books).When I get a chance to read the material, would you be willing to discuss them in a new thread? I'm one of those who believes that to effectively conserve an ecosystem, you have to understand the community dynamics; and to understand the dynamics, you have to understand extinction, which of course is where the cascade effect comes in.