As natural as it gets

Abstract

e-ISSN: 1948-6596 https://escholarship.org/uc/fb doi:10.21425/F59134085 Book Review As natural as it gets Natural Systems: The Organisation of Life, by Markus P. Eichhorn, 2016 Wiley-Blackwell, 392 pp. ISBN: 978-1-118-90588-3 Life, as a very special manifestation of the hierar- chical organization of matter, can be studied at various levels, or simultaneously at multiple levels as evinced by the fast growing fields of molecular ecology, evo-devo, and eco-evo. The importance of these relatively new fields notwithstanding, recent developments in more traditional disci- plines such as biogeography and community ecol- ogy are also exciting and can offer crucial insights into the way life manifests on our planet. Several textbooks offer nice accounts of findings in these fields (e.g., Morin 2011, Mittelbach 2012, Begon et al. 2014, Ricklefs and Relyea 2014), and one might think that there is no space left for a fresh textbook view on issues like ecological diversity, biotic communities, island biogeography, etc. Markus Eichhorn did not seem to agree, though, and came up with a book that justly attracts atten- tion (Eichhorn 2016), not so much by its some- what exceptional title – Natural Systems: The Or- ganisation of Life – but mostly by its focus on im- portant questions and a structure that combines the virtues of a compilation of self-sufficient chap- ters with a coherently unfolding volume. Each chapter starts with a ‘big question’ justifying its theme and ends with suggestions for future work plus a selection of the chapter’s references as rec- ommended reading. It is certain that different au- thors might formulate the ‘big questions’ in a different way or even focus on different questions, but Eichhorn does not pretend to be ‘objective’ in any absolute sense. He explicitly offers his person- al opinion in most debates explored, though with- out undermining the breadth of coverage and the quintessential authoritative character of a text- book. This alone is an admirable accomplishment; the insightful walk through the extensive and vari- able literature on each topic is another. Basic concepts are introduced in the first chapter where the author straightforwardly dis- Frontiers of Biogeography 2017, 9.I, e34085 credits the Clementian ‘super-organism’ view of ecological systems in a balanced nature, a view commonly held by non-experts. Next, Eichhorn goes on with an admittedly far from exhaustive critique of the species concept, mostly used to alert the reader that species should be considered as dynamic entities or even tentative hypotheses, always keeping in mind what they do and do not represent. The brief reference to the history of life that follows is mainly an introduction to the une- venness of diversity among lineages. Next, the author focuses on estimates of global species rich- ness, pinpointing problems with simplistic meth- ods and techniques that may lead to absurd esti- mations. As Eichhorn points out, evidently biased or downright inappropriate methods (I would also add their analogs in estimating ‘background ex- tinction rates’) all too often find their way to high- ly ranked journals (see He and Hubbell 2011), ob- viously due solely to the ‘sexiness’ of their subject. Chapters 5 to 9 are grouped as Part II dedi- cated to ‘Diversity’, and reasonably start with is- sues related to the measurement of diversity. Here Eichhorn introduces important concepts and tools, such as species accumulation curves, the lognormal distribution with its ‘veil line’, species turnover as pertaining to beta-diversity, and some common metrics of diversity. Chapter 5 is accom- panied by an Appendix with a working example, enabling the reader to become familiar with met- rics and concepts, playing with real data. This is a key chapter, of course, and the Appendix is well- structured and useful. Nevertheless, it might give a somewhat imbalanced nuance to the book, as similar quantitative exercises are lacking from oth- er equally important chapters. The chapter that follows will probably evoke strong responses from people working on ecological niches, since Eichhorn supports that a theoretical framework based on the ‘R* rule’ (or © the authors, CC-BY license