Evolutionary ecology includes aspects of community structure, trophic interactions, life-history tactics, and reproductive modes, analyzed from an evolutionary perspective. Freshwater environments often impose spatial structure on populations, e.g. within large lakes or among habitat patches, facilitating genetic and phenotypic divergence. Traditionally, freshwater systems have featured prominently in ecological research and population biology.

This book brings together information on diverse freshwater taxa, with a mix of critical review, synthesis, and case studies. Using examples from bryozoans, rotifers, cladocerans, molluscs, teleosts and others, the authors cover current conceptual issues of evolutionary ecology in considerable depth.

The book can serve as a source of critically evaluated ideas, detailed case studies, and open problems in the field of evolutionary ecology. It is recommended for students and researchers in ecology, limnology, population biology, and evolutionary biology.

Autorentext
Bruno Streit ist Professor am Institut für Ökologie, Evolution und Diversität. Er lehrt seit 1985 an der Universität Frankfurt am Main und ist Sprecher des Kompetenzverbunds Biodiversität Frankfurt (BioFrankfurt).

Inhalt
Ecosystem structure and trophic interactions.- Habitat partitioning by zooplankton and the structure of lake ecosystems.- New Zealand mountain stream communities: Stable yet disturbed?.- Complex trophic interactions in freshwater benthic food chains.- Prey dispersal and predator impacts on stream benthic prey.- Aspects of life-history evolution.- Rotifer life history strategies and evolution in freshwater plankton communities.- The evolution and genetics of maturation in Daphnia.- Optimal energy allocation tactics and indeterminate growth: Life-history evolution of long-lived bivalves.- Population biology and reproductive modes.- Ecology and genetics of interspecific hybridization in Daphnia.- Population biology, genetic structure, and mating system parameters in freshwater snails.- Evolution and ecological correlates of uniparental and biparental reproduction in freshwater snails.- Genetic similarity, parasitism, and metapopulation structure in a freshwater bryozoan.- Evolutionary processes following colonizations.- Evolutionary consequences of postglacial colonization of fresh water by primitively anadromous fishes.