The Ecology of River Systems

Our understanding of the ecology of running waters has come a long way during the past few years. From being a largely descriptive subject, with a few under­ tones concerned with such things as fisheries, pollution or control of blackflies, it has evolved into a discipline with hypotheses, such as the River Continuum Concept (Vannote et a/. 1980), and even a book suggesting that it offers opportunity for the testing of ecological theory (Barnes & Minshall 1983). However, perusal of the lite...