Preface	7
	Acknowledgements	11
	Contents	13
	Life in Little Worlds	15
	1.1 Bottled Biotas	15
	1.2 Not As We Know It	16
	1.3 A Perfect Pitcher	20
	Leaky Buckets	25
	2.1 The Boxer’s Bread Knife	25
	2.2 Counting Calories	27
	2.3 How To Build a Pyramid	30
	2.4 The Flea Hath Smaller Fleas	33
	2.5 This Food Chain Will Self- Destruct	35
	Hidden Riches	39
	3.1 Specific Issues	39
	3.2 Alice in the Jungle	41
	3.3 Deep Secrets, Intimate Friends	48
	No Niche Like Home	55
	4.1 There Goes a Badger	55
	4.2 Peaceful Coexistence?	59
	4.3 A Moveable Niche	61
	4.4 Paradox of the Plankton	63
	Neutral by Nature	69
	5.1 This Fauna Ain’t Big Enough for the Two of Us	69
	5.2 Far- Flung Flora and Fauna	72
	5.3 Dying by Random Numbers	78
	In Splendid Isolation	81
	6.1 A Bug’s Life	81
	6.2 The Coffee Table of Science	83
	6.3 Earth Sinks in the Sea	86
	6.4 Chainsaws and Methyl Bromide	88
	6.5 Lubricant Biogeography	91
	Ecology of Wildcards	95
	7.1 Guild by Association	95
	7.2 Registry of Births and Deaths	99
	7.3 Maintaining Neutrality	101
	7.4 Algebraic Kneejerks	103
	7.5 Pest Control	105
	The Loom Of Life	111
	8.1 Weft and Warp	111
	8.2 The More the Merrier?	113
	8.3 Six Degrees of Separation	115
	8.4 Top- Down or Bottom- Up?	117
	8.5 The Weakest Link	120
	8.6 Elton Revisited	123
	The Age of Atropos	129
	9.1 Ecosystems Unravelled	129
	9.2 The Shears of Extinction	130
	9.3 The Awl of Invasion	136
	9.4 The Ecosystem Ripper	142
	9.5 Coda	147
	Notes	149
	References	163
	Index	177