Are dabbling ducks main players or merely noise in limnic ecosystems?

For obvious reasons waterfowl ecologists consider ducks as focal organisms and main players when we study patterns and processes in wetland ecosystems. However, limnologists and fish biologists historically have ‘a bottom-up’ view of the same ecosystems, and they largely regard ducks and other waterbirds merely as ‘background noise’ much at the mercy of other and more powerful forces. Focussing on European studies of dabbling ducks I will review the evidence for and against these largely opposing views. I argue that a lot can be learned from using descriptive and pattern-oriented studies to produce explicit predictions that can be tested under more rigorous experimental circumstances. I will also explore why the lack of reliable information about annual variations in recruitment and harvest rates is a major obstacle for understanding population trajectories of dabbling duck populations. Finally, I will review the existing evidence for the major paradigms addressing population limitation in European dabbling ducks.