Biological communities: Discussion

[First paragraph(s)...]
The discussion was opened by DR. J. T. SALMON who said that Dr Falla's paper had brought out two very important points; one was the rapidity of change in a community and the other the importance of studying the living community as a whole. It was quite wrong to study the ecology of an animal community divorced from the plant community with which it is associated. He congratulated Dr. Batham on stressing the importance of the relationship between animals and plants, and pointed out that many workers overlooked the importance of the relationship between the community under study and other communities. Referring to Mr. Rawlings' paper he said that it was unfortunate that Mr. Rawlings was not present as there were several statements in the paper that were open to criticism from an entomological point of view. Studies abroad have shown that climate plays a very important part in the development of insects. It is recognized that humidity, temperature, etc., are all-important in governing incubation, rate of hatching and survival values of the larvae and nymphs of insects. Mr. Rawlings stated that by the third generation the predators and parasites overtake the increase in the damaging insect species. This was too sweeping a statement in the present state of our knowledge. The biotic potential of an insect depends on two things, the availability of the food plant and climate.