Ecological Dominance (2)

The community concept is one of the most important ecological principles. Because:

• 1. It emphasizes the fact that different organisms are not arbitrarily scattered around the earth with no particular reason as to why they live where they do together in an orderly manner.
• 2. By illuminating the importance of the community as a whole to any of its individual parts, the community concept can be used by man to control a particular organism, in the sense of increasing or decreasing its numbers. The realization that the success of any particular species is dependent on integrity of its biotic community as a whole has profound implications for human welfare.