Niche Hierarchy: Structure, Organization, and Assembly in Natural Systems

Written by Dr. George Sugihara, this pioneering work represents a unifying synthesis to tie together four disparate areas of ecology: 1) topological structure of food webs; 2) ecosystem dynamics; 3) ecosystem/food web assembly; and 4) universal patterns of species abundance. Based on the premise that deep general principles are likely to be associated with widely observed empirical regularities, it is organized around uncovering and explaining such patterns for each of the four research areas, and then showing how they interrelate. While this book has historic interest, it is even more relevant today in its findings and overall scope.

George Sugihara is a professor of biological oceanography and a member of the Physical Oceanography Research Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, where he is currently the inaugural holder of the McQuown Chair in Natural Science. Dr. Sugihara's research into complex systems and nonlinear forecasting has led to diverse collaborations across academic disciplines as well as with governmental and industrial partners. Part of his current research at Scripps seeks solutions to environmental problems through a combination of scientific and financial market innovations, two areas that reflect his background as a scientist and Managing Director for Deutsche Bank. Sugihara conducts fundamental research on a variety of natural science areas including ecology, neuroscience, gene expression, atmospheric and climate science, and is currently championing a method for addressing Berkeley's age-old dilemma of detecting causation (versus correlation) in time-series data. Prior to joining Scripps, Sugihara was concurrently the Wigner Prize Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and associate professor of Mathematics at the University of Tennessee. He has been a visiting professor at Cornell University, Imperial College London, Kyoto University, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He held the UC San Diego John Dove Isaacs Chair at Scripps Oceanography, and was a visiting fellow at Merton College, Oxford University. He is the recipient of several national and international awards, and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Mathematical Sciences and its Applications, a National Research Council advisory board that advises government agencies, and guides the nation's mathematics agenda to better serve national needs. Sugihara received an M.S. in biology and a Ph.D. in mathematical biology, both from Princeton University, where he received the Ogden Porter Jabocbus Prize, Princeton's highest academic award given by the Graduate School.