The legacy of Connell's long-term time-series data

Background/Question/Methods   Although Connell pioneered manipulative field experiments in ecology, much of his career was devoted to observational “experiments” designed to examine the long-term dynamics of rainforest, coral reef, rocky intertidal and desert shrub communities. These studies, all ongoing, span six decades and have contributed immensely to an improved understanding of the mechanisms that shape population and community dynamics, diversity, and demography.

Results/Conclusions   Examples include the roles of disturbance, competition, and recruitment in succession and the maintenance of species diversity in rainforest coral reef and rocky intertidal communities. By contrast, Connell's long-term quantitative observations of the arid shrub community in the Mojave Desert of southern California have revealed a striking absence of change amid extremely low rates of recruitment, growth, and mortality. Importantly, Connell's enduring studies have also provided a long-term ecological context for a myriad of shorter-term manipulative field experiments conducted by his students, colleagues and the ecological community at large. Collectively, this body of work has revealed considerable insight into the ecology and natural history of a diverse array of biological communities that neither long-term observations nor short-term experiments, by themselves, could provide. Connell's early insight into the need for integrating long-term observations and manipulative field experiments anticipated the research approach now being undertaken by NSF's Long Term Ecological Research program.