Ecology

Abstract

Ecology is concerned with the economy of the biosphere. Its currency is energy, nutrients and information. Its primary focus is the patterns of the interrelationships between the different organisms and between them and the environment. Many of the patterns and processes that define these interr relationships are only revealed by the collection of quantitative data. In common with other large and taxonomically complex families of small insects, such data are sparse for the Phoridae. This has caused ecologists to underestimate the ecological significance of such families. The fragmentary data reviewed below constitute no more than a rough sketch of the ecological significance of the scuttle flies. Our current knowledge is also unbalanced by being largely derived from studies in temperate latitudes.

All biologists are more impressed by what we don’t know than they are by what we know, and such an emphasis is thus a true reflection of our state of knowledge and our state of mind (Bates, 1951)