Ecological Time

Abstract

This chapter explores the role of time in ecology as a resource. In this framework, the established terms timing, rate, acceleration, and duration accrue more nuanced importance. Here, timing, rate, and duration refer to the onset of, progression through, and hence use of time in linked series of associated phenophases that comprise an individual organism's life history cycle. As with other resources, time available for allocation to such phenophases or life history stages is limited in supply, and it is in demand by conspecific and heterospecific competitors alike. The chapter then argues that time, much like space, varies in its scales of availability for use by the individual organism, and in its forms available for use by the individual organism.