Animal Communities in Temperate America

Victor Ernest Shelford's Animal Communities in Temperate America (1913) was a foundational text in ecology, treating the subject as a distinct science. The book explored how different animal species interact within specific environments in temperate regions of America. Shelford's work helped establish the study of animal ecology and the concept of the biome, which describes a large geographic area characterized by its predominant vegetation and animal inhabitants. His research emphasized experimental methods and the correlations between animal population changes and environmental shifts. A biological community, in general, is an interacting group of various species in a common location, forming an ecosystem with their physical environment.12