Communities and Energy Flow

Abstract

A biological community may be considered as an integrated assemblage of plants and animals living together in a particular environment. The structure and composition of some communities are now well known, for example the communities of a stony stream and a weedy pond are distinct ecologically and would be categorised as such by most ecologists. However, though it is possible to draw up schemes of community classification at different levels, many of them run into the difficulty that many fresh waters are transitional in type. Elaborate classifications are fraught with difficulties, and the divisions within them are often those of greatest convenience to the classifier, and not necessarily of ecological significance.