Is a community still a community? Reviewing definitions of key terms in community ecology

Abstract

Community ecology is an inherently complicated field, confounded by the conflicting use of fundamental terms. Nearly two decades ago, Fauth et al. (1996) demonstrated that imprecise language led to the virtual synonymy of important terms and so attempted to clearly define four keywords in community ecology; "community," "assemblage," "guild," and "ensemble". We revisit Fauth et al.'s conclusion and discuss how the use of these terms has changed over time since their review. An updated analysis of term definition from a selection of popular ecological textbooks suggests that definitions have drifted away from those encountered pre-1996, and slightly disagreed with results from a survey of 100 ecology professionals (comprising of academic professors, nonacademic PhDs, graduate and undergraduate biology students). Results suggest that confusion about these terms is still widespread in ecology. We conclude with clear suggestions for definitions of each term to be adopted hereafter to provide greater cohesion among research groups.

Keywords: Assemblage; community; community ecology; definitions; ensemble; guild.

Figure 1

Relative interest in community ecology terms from 1977 to 2013, as reflected by respective citation histories (trends are overlayed, not stacked). The publication date of Fauth et al. is indicated by a vertical dashed line. Terms were searched for in the “ecology” category of ISI Web of Science (accessed 20 February 14).