ENVS200 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Fish Migration, Victor Ernest Shelford, Qualicum River
Document Summary
Most species perform best in a fairly narrow range of temperatures. We can group these phenomena and say that ecologists study how environment affects the performance of organisms. Victor shelford was an influential ecologist active in the early 1900s who studied the link between species distributions and their physiology. Shelford was among the first to explicitly link the ability of a species to tolerate local environmental conditions, and its range and abundance. He was able to recognize from his own research, and from that of others, that the performance of organisms generally varies as a function of differences in temperature, moisture, light, nutrient availability, and other environmental conditions. At extreme levels of any of these factors, many species are unable to survive. At severe levels, species may survive, but not thrive. At more moderate levels, growth and reproduction may be highest. In other words, the performance of most species is greatest in a fairly narrow range of environmental conditions (fig.
