English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Zendy Plus

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Zendy Tools

Zendy Open

It is most remarkable that the study of one group of arthropods, the mites, has generated a disproportionately large contribution to recent progress in the area of theoretical population ecology, and hence, in the development of a theoretical foundation for pest management. It is probably a combination of various factors that has brought this situation about. Mites are very small organisms, allowing the all important large sample sizes, even in laboratory studieS, yet, they are large enough to be individually noted and manipulated. The fact that they are terrestrial, flightless surface dwellers simplifies observing, counting and model testing, and alleviates the problem of unwanted dispersal. That several phytophagous mites are major agricultural pests, and that many of their natural enemies are also mites certainly encourages researchers to choose these organisms as their subjects of consideration. Perhaps the most significant development in furthering our understanding of animal population dynamics is our coming to terms with rejecting the assumption of homogeneity in populations. Starting in the 1960s several authors stressed the importance of spatial heterogeneity, scale, patchiness, space and time lags, and other such concepts that challenged the assumption of homogeneity (e.g. Den Boer, 1968; Maynard Smith, 1974; Roff, 1974; Hilborn, 1975; Hastings, 1977; Crowley, 1978 ), but little formal theory or experimental work addressed this aspect of ecology until the early 1980s. The mite researchers and theoretical ecologists alike, Huffaker's (1958) population experiments with an orange-feeding spider mite and its phytoseiid predator are generally recognized as a milestone in challenging the homogeneity assumption. These showed that prey and predator were able to coexist for a longer period in a more heterogeneous environment than in a more homogeneous one. This observation has been widely cited as the first demonstration that prey-predator persistence is enhanced by patchiness in the environment (see Taylor, 1991 ). However, Huffaker's results were more complex than a mere relation between complexity and persistence. One of the most intriguing features of Huffaker's prey-predator dynamics was the occurrence of distinct cycles. This extra dimension has received a lot of attention (e.g. Maynard

Of mites and models: an introduction to the symposium proceedings