Part 41

THE DYNAMIC OR PROCESS RELATION OF ANIMAL ASSOCIATIONS AND AGGREGATIONS

1. The Struggle for Existence.

2. The Dynamic Relations of Aggregations and Associations, with Special Reference to Animal Associations.

a. The Relation of Animals to Pollination and to Plant Galls.

b. Subterranean and Cave Associations.

c. Selected References on Aggregations and Associations.

“Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood.”--DARWIN.

“Every reflective biologist must know that no living being is self-sufficient, or would be what it is, or be at all, if it were not part of the natural world, although no truth is easier to lose sight of. Living things are real things, ... but their reality is in their interrelations with the rest of nature, and not in themselves.”--W. K. BROOKS. (1906.)

1. The Struggle for Existence

DARWIN, CHAS.

1876. Struggle for Existence. pp. 43-61. In On the Origin of Species, 6th ed. New York. (See Figures 2 and 3.)

BROOKS, W. K.

1893. Salpa in its Relation to the Evolution of Life. Studies Biol. Lab., Johns Hopkins Univ., Vol. V, pp. 129-211. See particularly pp. 129-170.

A remarkable and little known paper on the struggle for existence in the sea.

FORBES, S. A.

1887. The Lake as a Microcosm. Bull. Sci. Assoc. of Peoria, Illinois, 1887, pp. 77-87. Reprinted, with revisions, as from the Bull. Peoria Sci. Association, 1887, pp. 1-15.

An excellent picture of the struggle for existence in a lake, where the life is considered as a microcosm or social community.

1880. On Some Interactions of Organisms. Bull. Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist., Vol. I, No. 3, pp. 1-18. Second Edition. 1903.

1882. The Ornithological Balance-Wheel. Trans. Ill. State Hort. Soc. for 1881, N. S., Vol. XV, pp. 120-131.

1883. The Regulative Action of Birds upon Insect Oscillations. Bull. Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist., Vol. I, No. 6, pp. 3-32.

These three papers are very important for their discussion of the dynamic character of the struggle among organisms, and how the balance of nature is maintained.

1888. On the Food Relations of Fresh-Water Fishes: a Summary and Discussion. Bull. Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist., Vol. II, pp. 475-538.

A summary of the food of fishes, based upon a detailed study of the contents of their stomachs.

RODWAY, J.

1911. In the Guiana Forest, Studies of Nature in Relation to the Struggle for Life. Second Edition, pp. 326. London.

A graphic account of the biotic competition in the tropics.

JOHNSTONE, J.

1908. Conditions of Life in the Sea. pp. 332. Cambridge, England.