Population and community ecology of ontogenetic development and growth

• Andre M. de Roos

Abstract
Current ecological theory is to a large extent based on population dynamic models that ignore individual variation within species, in particular the variation that stems from the ontogenetic development that virtually all species go through during life history. The theoretical understanding about the consequences of ontogenetic development for the dynamics and structure of ecological communities has in recent years progressed to a state that a synthesizing book of this theory is urgent, possible and timely. I propose to devote my sabbatical period to writing this synthesis and want to spend this time specifically at NCEAS to take full advantage of the Center’s unique data resources for testing the theoretical predictions against as many experimental and empirical data sets as are available.