Prado & El Hani suggested that use of the words ª populationº and ª communityº has not
retarded the development of ecology, and they may be right. However, those words have
outlived their usefulness in most applied research, and it is time to move forward. I am not
the only ecologist to question the usefulness of those terms, and the argument that many
people still employ them is not sufficient justification for their use in situations where
vague terms are prejudicial to conservation and sustainable development.