What to read after Keystone Species: Nature’s Maintenance Managers?

For many years biologists and ecologists focused on the bottom-up approach to how an ecosystem managed itself. However, in the late 1960s, Dr. Robert Paine began seeing a different ecological trend. His data began revealing that some organisms, often apex predators, actually managed (secured) the characteristics of their habitat by either predation or some behavior that maintained the health and vitality of the ecosystem.

Paine called these “keystone species,” based on the idea that were these organisms removed, then the environment would decline in health and eventually fail, falling prey to becoming a monoculture. His studies with starfish and mussels are a classic, and he was able to replicate the hypothesis in other habitats. This book revisits 14 of the organisms addressed in the first 39 issues of the Love of Nature series.