Guild (ecology)

A guild (or ecological guild) is any group of species that exploit the same resources, often in related ways.^[1]^[2]^[3] It does not follow that the species within a guild occupy the same, or even similar, ecological niches. Guilds are defined according to the locations, the attributes, and the activities of their component species; for example, their mode of acquiring nutrients, their mobility, and the zones of their habitat that they occupy or otherwise exploit. The number of guilds occupying an ecosystem is termed its disparity. Members of a guild within a given ecology could be competing for some resources (such as space or light), while cooperating in resisting wind stresses, attracting pollinators, or detecting predators, such as happens among savannah-dwelling antelope and zebra.

A guild does not typically have strict, or even clearly defined boundaries. A broadly defined guild will practically always have constituent guilds; for example, grazing guilds will have some species that concentrate on coarse, plentiful forage, while others concentrate on low-growing, finer plants. Each of those two sub-guilds may be regarded as guilds in appropriate contexts, and they might in turn have sub-guilds in more closely selective contexts. Some authorities even speak of a fractal resource model.^[4] This is a concept that arises in several related contexts, such as the metabolic theory of ecology, the scaling pattern of occupancy, and spatial analysis in ecology, all of which are concepts fundamental in defining guilds.

An ecological guild is not to be confused with a taxocene, a group of phylogenetically related organisms in a community that do not necessarily share the same or similar niches. Nor is a guild the same as a trophic species.

Example guilds

References

Look up guild in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

↑ Simberloff, D; Dayan, T (1991). "The Guild Concept and the Structure of Ecological Communities". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 22: 115. doi:10.1146/annurev.es.22.110191.000555.
↑ Encyclopaedia Britannica article on guilds
↑ Williams, SE; Hero, JM (1998). "Rainforest frogs of the Australian Wet Tropics: guild classification and the ecological similarity of declining species". Proceedings. Biological sciences / the Royal Society 265 (1396): 597–602. doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0336. PMC 1689015. PMID 9881468.
↑ Ritchie, Mark E. (2010). Scale, Heterogeneity, and the Structure and Diversity of Ecological Communities. Volume 45 of Monographs in population biology. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-09070-2.

Modelling ecosystems – trophic components

General	Abiotic component Abiotic stress Behaviour Biogeochemical cycle Biomass Biotic component Biotic stress Carrying capacity Competition Ecosystem Ecosystem ecology Ecosystem model Keystone species List of feeding behaviours Metabolic theory of ecology Productivity Resource

Producers	Autotrophs Chemosynthesis Chemotrophs Foundation species Mixotrophs Myco-heterotrophy Mycotroph Organotrophs Photoheterotrophs Photosynthesis Photosynthetic efficiency Phototrophs Primary nutritional groups Primary production

Consumers	Apex predator Bacterivore Carnivores Chemoorganotroph Foraging Generalist and specialist species Intraguild predation Herbivores Heterotroph Heterotrophic nutrition Insectivore Mesopredator release hypothesis Omnivores Optimal foraging theory Predation Prey switching

Decomposers	Chemoorganoheterotrophy Decomposition Detritivores Detritus

Microorganisms	Archaea Bacteriophage Environmental microbiology Lithoautotroph Lithotrophy Microbial cooperation Microbial ecology Microbial food web Microbial intelligence Microbial loop Microbial mat Microbial metabolism Phage ecology

Food webs	Biomagnification Ecological efficiency Ecological pyramid Energy flow Food chain Trophic level

Example webs	Cold seeps Hydrothermal vents Intertidal Kelp forests Lakes North Pacific Subtropical Gyre Rivers San Francisco Estuary Soil Tide pool

Processes	Ascendency Bioaccumulation Cascade effect Climax community Competitive exclusion principle Consumer-resource systems Copiotrophs Dominance Ecological network Ecological succession Energy quality Energy Systems Language f-ratio Feed conversion ratio Feeding frenzy Mesotrophic soil Nutrient cycle Oligotroph Paradox of the plankton Trophic cascade Trophic mutualism Trophic state index

Defense/counter	Animal coloration Antipredator adaptations Camouflage Deimatic behaviour Herbivore adaptations to plant defense Mimicry Plant defense against herbivory Predator avoidance in schooling fish

Modelling ecosystems – other components

Population ecology	Abundance Allee effect Depensation Ecological yield Effective population size Intraspecific competition Logistic function Malthusian growth model Maximum sustainable yield Overpopulation in wild animals Overexploitation Population cycle Population dynamics Population modeling Population size Predator–prey (Lotka–Volterra) equations Recruitment Resilience Small population size Stability

Species	Biodiversity Density-dependent inhibition Ecological effects of biodiversity Ecological extinction Endemic species Flagship species Gradient analysis Indicator species Introduced species Invasive species Latitudinal gradients in species diversity Minimum viable population Neutral theory Occupancy-abundance relationship Population viability analysis Priority effect Rapoport's rule Relative abundance distribution Relative species abundance Species diversity Species homogeneity Species richness Species distribution Species-area curve Umbrella species

Species interaction	Antibiosis Biological interaction Commensalism Community ecology Ecological facilitation Interspecific competition Mutualism Storage effect

Spatial ecology	Biogeography Cross-boundary subsidy Ecocline Ecotone Ecotype Disturbance Edge effects Foster's rule Habitat fragmentation Ideal free distribution Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis Island biogeography Landscape ecology Landscape epidemiology Landscape limnology Metapopulation Patch dynamics r/K selection theory Source–sink dynamics

Niche	Ecological niche Ecological trap Ecosystem engineer Environmental niche modelling Guild Habitat Marine habitats Limiting similarity Niche apportionment models Niche construction Niche differentiation

Other networks	Assembly rules Bateman's principle Bioluminescence Ecological collapse Ecological debt Ecological deficit Ecological energetics Ecological indicator Ecological threshold Ecosystem diversity Emergence Extinction debt Kleiber's law Liebig's law of the minimum Marginal value theorem Thorson's rule Xerosere

Other	Allometry Alternative stable state Balance of nature Biological data visualization Constructal theory Ecocline Ecological economics Ecological footprint Ecological forecasting Ecological humanities Ecological stoichiometry Ecopath Ecosystem based fisheries Endolith Evolutionary ecology Functional ecology Industrial ecology Macroecology Microecosystem Natural environment Regime shift Systems ecology Theoretical ecology

List of ecology topics

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