Ecological communities, I argue, are objective units of nature if they have
structure that regulates their membership. Evidence of such structure in c
ontemporary ecology is scant, but the palaeoecological phenomenon of co-ord
inated stasis is a prima facie example of internal regulation. I argue that
no individualist attempts to explain away the appearance of internal regul
ation succeeds. But no internalist model is fully satisfactory, either, in
explaining the contrast between pre and post Pleistocene ecology.