Evolutionary ecology is concerned with the ways in which organisms living in different environments enhance their survival and reproduction. In this text we consider the evolutionary ecology of the marsupials, a group of mammals which have fascinated biologists since the discovery of their unique mode of reproduction. In doing this we do not offer an exhaustive review of all aspects of ecology. Rather, we focus on instances where marsupials elucidate problems in evolutionary ecology and vice versa. Most of our endeavour must be viewed as an attempt to place descriptive data in a standard theoretical framework which we hope leads naturally to the generation of hypotheses which examine the resilience of the framework and provide new directions in marsupial research.

Origins of theoretical ecology

Ernest Haeckel (1866) coined the term ‘Oekologie’ to embrace animal/environment relationships while discussing animal morphology in the light of Charles Darwin's new theory of evolution by natural selection. Despite the early importance of evolutionary theory in distinguishing ecology as a science, a theoretical basis for much of ecological research has been lacking. Mclntosh (1980) points out that there were only two references to theory and one to hypothesis in the pre-1950 cumulative indices of the major American ecological journals Ecology and Ecological Monographs, but that since that time a theoretical literature has burgeoned.

Recent historians of science have commented that this literature gives two distinct views of the organisation of ecosystems, with different historical bases (Ghiselin, 1974; MacFayden, 1975; F. E. Smith, 1975; Harper, 1977; Mclntosh, 1980; Simberloff, 1980).