History of Ecology

1864 General Ecology | History of Ecology

History of Ecology F N Egerton, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha, WI, USA ª 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Introduction Natural History Specialized Sciences

Conclusion Further Reading

Introduction Ernst Haeckel in 1866 expressed the need for a science of ecology, and two aspects of it, limnology and plant ecology, were organized by the 1890s. However, ecological observations and ideas began with the ancient Greeks. Much ecological information was acquired in a broad science, natural history, which included plants, animals, rocks, and soils. After 1800, aspects of natural history gradually were absorbed into more specialized sciences.

Natural History Antiquity and Middle Ages The earliest ecological concept was the balance of nature, which arose from observations by Herodotus that predatory animals have fewer offspring than their prey and by Plato that each species has means to survive. Later, the sciences of zoology and botany were founded at Aristotle’s school, the Lyceum. Supposedly, Aristotle wrote the zoological treatises and Theophrastos the botanical treatises; more likely, Theophrastos organized and compiled all of them. In Roman times, these sciences were abstracted in Pliny’s Natural History and then remained part of a science of natural history. During the Middle Ages, ancient natural history knowledge was recovered and expanded. Emperor Friedrich II recorded careful observations on raptors and their prey in his treatise on falconry. Scholastic Albertus Magnus wrote two lengthy encyclopedias on the natural history of plants and on animals, synthesizing ancient Arabic and contemporary European knowledge (including his own observations). Scientific Revolution in the 1500s and the 1600s During the 1500s, Albertus’ encyclopedic tradition was continued by Italian, French, and German herbalists, and the Swiss scholar Conrad Gessner (Figure 1) wrote natural histories of both animals and plants but only published the former before he died of plague in 1565. Two Italian physicians made important contributions to contagion theory: Girolamo Fracastoro (Figure 2) published

Figure 1 Conrad Gessner (1516–65).

De contagione (1546) and Girolamo Gambuccini published the first book on parasitic worms (1547). Aldrovandi and Penny wrote encyclopedias on insects in the late 1500s which were published in the 1600s. Scientific societies arose in mid-1600s and published both books and periodicals which included natural history. Francesco Redi’s, John Ray’s, and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek’s publications were especially important for natural history (Figures 3–5). All three, for example, studied animal parasites. John Graunt, William Petty, and Matthew Hale advanced human demography in the late 1600s. The 1700s Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli published the first treatise on what we call ‘oceanography’ in 1725, Histoire physique de la mer, which included information on temperature, salinity,

General Ecology | History of Ecology

Figure 4 John Ray (1627–1705). Figure 2 Girolamo Fracastoro (c.1478–1553).

Figure 3 Francesco Redi (c.1626–98).

tides, currents, depth contours, and marine plants and animals. He realized that further studies required organized efforts. That began with Captain James Cook’s three world exploration voyages, 1768–79, with accompanying

Figure 5 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723).

1865

1866 General Ecology | History of Ecology

Figure 7 Carl Linnaeus (1707–78).

Figure 6 Rene´ Antoine de Re´aumur (1683–1757).

naturalists. Rene´ Antoine de Re´aumur (Figure 6) made detailed and precise studies of the life histories of insects and other invertebrates in his Histoire des insects (6 vols., 1734–42). The balance of nature concept was originally limited to animals. Carl Linnaeus (Figure 7) named the concept ‘economy of nature’ and broadened it to include plants – in dissertations which his students defended for their degrees, but which were essentially written by him. His Oeconomia Naturae (1749) was the first attempt to organize an ecological science. Linnaeus believed in the stability of species, and his economy of nature concept was not as dynamic as post-Darwinian ecology became, but he believed that members of each species flourish or not within a cycle of plant succession. In Philosophia Botanica (1751), he itemized 25 different stations (habitats) of plants. His contemporary, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (Figure 8), with collaborators, wrote a large Histoire naturelle (44 vols., 1749–1804, though his contributions ended with his death in 1788). Linnaeus and Buffon received many plants and animals from explorers in distant places, and they struggled to explain the similarities and differences among species. Buffon developed a speculative theory that a limited number of species arose initially in a small area, and as their populations increased, they spread out into the rest of the world and were modified into new species by their new surroundings. Clergyman Gilbert White (Figure 9) published The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne

Figure 8 Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–88).

(1789) that contains accurate observations on locations and habits of local plants and animals; it became the most widely read work on natural history. Investigators of different kinds of ‘airs’ tested them on plants and animals, beginning with Stephen Hales, the founder of plant physiology, and

General Ecology | History of Ecology

Figure 9 Gilbert White (1720–93).

culminating with Joseph Priestley and Jan Ingen-Housz, who discovered that plants in sunlight produce a gas (named ‘oxygen’ by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier) that animals need for respiration. This was new evidence of the balance of nature.

Figure 10 Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859).

Specialized Sciences The 1800s Early in the century, Alexander von Humboldt (Figure 10) became famous for his investigations and publications. He used inherited wealth to fund 5 years of exploration in Latin America, and then spent two decades in Paris, publishing his findings. ‘Humboldtian science’ involved correlations between plant associations (e.g., grasslands, rain forests, tundra) and environmental factors (e.g., temperature, precipitation, topography), which he carefully measured to understand the distribution and abundance of species of plants and animals. He was the effective founder of phytogeography, emphasizing distribution of vegetation rather than floristics. In 1809, Lamarck (Figure 11) published his theory of evolution, arguing that species do not become extinct; they become different species. August de Candolle (Figure 12), who rejected Lamarck’s theory, emphasized (1820) competition between species as important for determining distributions and extinctions. His writings

Figure 11 Jean Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829).

1867

1868 General Ecology | History of Ecology

Figure 12 August-Pyramus de Candolle (1778–1841). Figure 14 Charles Robert Darwin (1809–82).

Figure 13 Hewett Cottrell Watson (1804–81).

were used by geologist Charles Lyell (1832), who believed in the stability of species and that fossils do represent extinct species. Hewett C. Watson (Figure 13), founder of British phytogeography, was strongly influenced by Humboldt

and Lamarck but not by de Candolle. He investigated the variability of British plant species in different parts of their ranges, and also compared the British and Azores Island floras. Charles Darwin (Figure 14), who read widely, was already familiar with the argument for the importance of competition in nature before he read in 1837 Thomas R. Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population (1798, 5th edn. 1825). Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection focused attention on the struggle of organisms against biotic and abiotic environmental forces. In such a revolutionary book as On the Origin of Species (1859), one might expect Darwin to reject the balance of nature concept, since the struggle for existence can cause extinctions. However, his famous cats–mice–bees–clover story seemed to support the balance concept. It was Alfred Russel Wallace who, thinking of extinctions, asked ‘‘Where is the balance?’’ A Darwin disciple, Ernst Haeckel (Figure 15), in 1866 expressed the need for a new science, ‘oecology’. In 1870, he explained, ‘‘By oecology we mean the body of knowledge concerning the economy of nature – the investigation of the total relations of the animal both to its inorganic and to its organic environment.’’ It took about three more decades for ecological sciences to begin to organize, but meanwhile, various ecological

General Ecology | History of Ecology

Figure 15 Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (1834–1919).

ideas were elaborated. Darwin’s theory of evolution included positive relations between individuals and between species, but the emphasis seemed to be on the negative relations of competition, predation, and parasitism. Several authors explored positive relations: Anton de Bary coined the word ‘symbiosis’ and wrote a book on it (1869); P. J. van Beneden defined mutalism in his book Les commensaux et les parasites (1875); Alfred Espinas described diverse forms of mutualism in Des socie´te´s animals (1878); and Peter Kropotkin wrote on both animals and humans in Mutual Aid (1902). Parasitology and the germ theory of disease were important developments in the late 1800s, but their relevance for ecology was little developed. Edward Forbes (Figure 16) began studying marine animals in the 1830s and published many works concerning the distribution of species in relation to depth and other factors. He postulated the existence of an ‘azotic’ zone in the depths of the sea. J. J. Coste established a marine zoology laboratory at Concarneau, France, in 1859; more influential was Anton Dohrn’s Stazione Zoologica, established at Naples in 1872. The latter influenced Spencer Fullerton Baird to obtain funds for a US Fish Commission Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1884. In 1888, the independent Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution opened nearby. Charles Wyville Thomson (Figure 17) was the first student of deep oceanic life, and his book, The Depths of the Sea

Figure 16 Edward Forbes, Jr. (1815–54).

Figure 17 Charles Wyville Thomson (1830–82).

1869

1870 General Ecology | History of Ecology

Figure 18 Stephen Alfred Forbes (1844–1930). Figure 19 Franc¸ois Alphonse Forel (1841–1912).

(1872), helped him become head naturalist on the worldwide voyage of the HMS Challenger (1872–76), and later he directed publication of 50 large volumes of its scientific reports (1885–95). Impressive discoveries of this expedition inspired other countries to sponsor oceanographic voyages. Karl Mo¨bius (German 1877, English 1883) studied oyster beds to assist in their management. He argued that an oyster bed is a ‘‘community of living beings, a collection of species and a massing of individuals, which find here everything necessary for their growth and continuance.’’ His study was influential for developing the concept of a biotic community. American zoologist Stephen A. Forbes (Figure 18) wrote an influential essay, ‘The Lake as a Microcosm’ (1887), which may have been influenced by Mo¨bius’ essay, and which used the balance of nature concept to explain the apparent stability of species in a lake despite competition and predation. Meanwhile, since the 1860s, the Swiss zoologist Franc¸ois Alphonse Forel (Figure 19) devoted his research to the life in Lake Geneva and the environmental conditions. His studies culminated in a three-volume paradigm treatise on this research (1892– 1904), which he named as ‘limnology’, and he published the first textbook on it in 1901. Although Swiss botanist Carl Schro¨ter first introduced the terms ‘autecology’ and ‘synecology’ in 1910, those subjects already existed by the 1890s. A strong German tradition in plant physiology and phytogeography led to

the development of plant autecology, and when a botanical congress in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1893 adopted the term ‘ecology’, ‘autecology’ was meant. However, the first plant ecology treatise, by Eugenius Warming (Figure 20), Plantesamfund (1895), was on synecology, based on his lectures in the first course ever taught in ecology, at the University of Copenhagen. Also in 1895 S. A. Forbes claimed that ‘‘economic entomology is simply applied ecology.’’

The 1900s Specializations

Four specializations of ecology that emerged during the late 1800s – plant ecology, animal ecology, limnology, and marine ecology – persisted throughout the 1900s, but other specializations also arose, most notably population ecology and ecosystem ecology (Figure 21). Population ecology focused primarily on animals, but both plant and animal ecologists developed ecosystem ecology. American plant ecologists Frederic E. Clements and Henry Chandler Cowles (Figures 22 and 23) led the investigation of plant communities. Clements wrote the first ecology textbook in English (1905), which was used in the US and in the British Empire. Clements believed

General Ecology | History of Ecology

Figure 20 Johannes Eugenius Warming (1841–1924). Courtesy of Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.

plant communities were united into a ‘superorganism’, but in 1917 H. A. Gleason questioned the existence of biotic communities, and in 1926 he developed ‘The Individualistic Concept of the Plant Association’. Arthur G. Tansley (Figure 24) at Oxford University challenged the concept of a community being a superorganism in ‘The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms’ in 1935. Gleason’s perspective was adopted in the later 1940s by John T. Curtis (Figure 25) in his school of plant ecology at the University of Wisconsin, where they collected quantitative data for gradient analysis to document a ‘continuum’ of plant species distributions. In limnology there was a strong interest in classifying lakes according to their biological productivity and in measuring their physical and chemical qualities. American leadership was by Edward A. Birge and Chauncey Juday at the University of Wisconsin; for many Wisconsin lakes, they studied temperature stratification, light penetration, dissolved minerals, and hydrogen ion concentration. Arthur D. Hasler (Figure 26), who succeeded them, emphasized

1871

experimental limnology and fish ecology. G. Evelyn Hutchinson (Figure 27) of Yale University published an encyclopedic Treatise on Limnology (1957–67). In Europe, the leading limnologist was August Thienemann (Figure 28), at the Hydrobiologische Anstalt at Lake Plo¨n and at the University of Kiel. He studied the physical qualities of north German lakes and their invertebrate fauna, and in 1928–29, to make comparisons, he led an expedition to Indonesia to study life in tropical lakes. The first attempts to organize animal ecology was by Charles C. Adams, who taught animal ecology at the University of Illinois and published a Guide to the Study of Animal Ecology (1913), and by Victor E. Shelford (Figure 29), who taught animal ecology at the University of Chicago and published Animal Communities in Temperate America as Illustrated in the Chicago Region (1913). A more sweeping synthesis was by Charles Elton (Figure 30) of Oxford University, whose Animal Ecology (1927) explained the dynamics of food chains and transformed Joseph Grinnell’s descriptive concept (1917) of the niche of California thrashers into a functional concept. In 1939, Clements and Shelford collaborated on a textbook, Bio-Ecology, which sought to bridge the gaps between their specializations. It helped, though the specializations persisted. In 1949, five Chicago animal ecologists – Warder C. Allee, Alfred E. Emerson, Orlando Park, Thomas Park, and Karl P. Schmidt – collaborated on the most detailed and comprehensive synthesis ever written (including two historical chapters), Principles of Animal Ecology, which emphasized cooperation in nature. Marine ecology focused on estimating the abundance of plankton, at the bottom of the food chain, and fish at the top, seeking in both cases causes of fluctuation in abundance. Advances in commercial fishing technology after the Second World War created an industry that could deplete oceans and great lakes of their resources, and ecologists and fishery biologists were needed to explain the level of harvesting that can be sustained. The same is true for shellfish, which must also be protected from pollution. Hasler’s study of homing instinct in salmon facilitated development of ‘salmon farming’. Tansley named and defined the ‘ecosystem’ concept in 1935 but did not lay its foundation. (Instead, he completed his large monograph, The British Islands and Their Vegetation, in 1939.) Raymond L. Lindeman, a Midwestern postdoctoral student under Hutchison, developed the ecosystem concept in the most important ecological article ever published, ‘The Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology’ (1942). It includes both original research and a synthesis of previous literature. Lindeman died, but Hutchinson got it published. After the Second World War, the brothers Eugene and Howard Thomas Odum (Figure 31) led in studies on the productivity of ecosystems. Eugene Odum also published a very

1872 General Ecology | History of Ecology

Climatologie Écologie planétaire

Écologie des Cycles Écologie globale biogeochimiques populations May

Lovelock

Écologie systémique

Margalef

Boudyko Margulis Microbiologie

1950

Écologie génétique

1925

Géomorphologie Sukhatchev

Pearl

Pédologie russe

Ross

Podolinsky Agrochimie Boussingault

Cowles

Gleason

Clements

Boltzmann

Génétique

Warming schimper

Limnologie

Science du sol allemande

Haeckel Darwin wallace

Géobotanistes allemands

Géographie

Semper Physiologie végétale

Mobius

Liebig

Flahault Bonnier

Forbes Forel

Pédologie Braun-blanquet école de Zorichmontpellier

Écologie végétale

Ostwald

Van beneden

Fourier

Verhulst De saussure

Entomologie

Candolle

Humboldt

Malthus

1800

Lavoisier

Lamarck

Priestley L’ économie de la nature

Einar du rietz école d’uppsala

Transeau

Marchal

Thermodynamique

Pasteur

Dumas

Shelford

Écologie animale

Doukouchaev

1850 Racines de l’écologie

Elton

Altapov

Physique mathématique Révolution pastorienne

Kasharov

Lotka

Vernadsky

Arrhenius

Bertrand

McArthur

Lindeman

Tansley

Kostitzin Callendar

Écologie du paysage

Hutchinson

Poincaré Naissance de l’écologie 1900

McMillan

Odum

Gause Volterra

Biogéographie

Lack

Von neumann

Mathématique du chaos Écologie moderne

Phytosociologie

Physiocrates

Linné

Approche physico-chimique

Approche populationnelle

Insectologie Réaumur

Voyageurs naturalistes géobotanique Approche botanique

Figure 21 Some roots and branches of the tree of ecological knowledge (Dele´age 1992). It includes names of some ecologists not mentioned in this article. Courtesy of E´ditions la De´couverte.

Figure 22 Frederic Edward Clements (1874–1945). Courtesy of Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.

Figure 23 Henry Chandler Cowles (1869–1939).

General Ecology | History of Ecology

1873

Figure 24 Arthur George Tansley (1871–1955). Courtesy of Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.

popular textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology (1953, 3d edn. 1971) that publicized ecosystem concepts. His ecology school at the University of Georgia studied the ecosystem within the vast US Atomic Energy Commission’s Savannah River Installation Area. H. T. Odum pioneered ecosystem modeling, and today modeling is fully integrated into ecology and applied ecology due to important contributions from Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US. Recent integrated ecosystem theory is indebted to H. T. Odum (maximum power and energy), R. Ulanowicz (ascendency), B. C. Patten (network theory), and thermodynamics (S. E. Jørgensen). R. O’Neill and Tim Allen developed hierarchy theory. Population studies focused primarily on causes of fluctuations in abundance and on developing accurate mathematical models to describe and predict these fluctuations. The studies were mainly on mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Charles Elton led members of his Bureau of Animal Population (1932–67) into field work and theoretical debate at Oxford University. He discredited the notion of a balance of nature and replaced it with the idea of constant change. Aspects of ethology, the study of animal behavior, are relevant to animal ecology. The three founders of ethology in the 1930s (Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and Karl von Frisch) received a Nobel Prize in 1973. The Russian geochemist Vladı´mir Ivanovich Vernadsky (Figure 32) studied organisms as the source of atmospheric gases and founded the science of biogeochemistry, explained in La biosphe`re (Russian 1926, French 1929, English 1997). Biogeochemistry has remained a dominant

Figure 25 John Thomas Curtis (1913–61). Courtesy of Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.

aspect of Soviet/Russian ecology. A similar (but more radical) idea to Vernadsky’s is James Lovelock’s Gaia theory (1972), which postulates that the Earth is a superorganism that regulates its life forms to maintain an environment that supports life. Gaia theory has attracted popular support and continues to intrigue some Earth scientists, as seen in Scientists Debate Gaia (2004). Ramon Margalef became the leading ecologist of Spain and the Spanish-speaking world with his 950-page Ecologia (1974, 4th edn. 1986), though he also published papers and Perspectives in Ecological Theory (1968) in English. Michael H. Graham, Paul K. Dayton, and Robert T. Paine have debated in Ecology (June 2002) whether ecological concepts are advanced according to a Popperian or Kuhnian model of science or by evolution of a paradigm – showing that a definitive answer probably requires a book-length study.

1874 General Ecology | History of Ecology

Figure 26 Edward Asahel Birge (1851–1950), Chauncey Juday (1871–1944), and Arthur Davis Hasler (1908–2001).

Figure 27 George Evelyn Hutchinson (1903–91). Courtesy of Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Societies and journals

The founding of societies and journals is an important indicator of scientific progress. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, founded in 1902 with headquarters in Copenhagen, pioneered in relating oceanography to fisheries. Its publications were

Figure 28 August Friedrich Thienemann (1882–1960).

Journal du Conseil and Rapports et Proce´s Verbaux. The first ecological society arose in Britain. Tansley and William Smith had formed the British Vegetation Committee in 1904, which was very active but had difficulty finding funds to publish its memoirs and maps. They decided that an ecological society would be more successful in

General Ecology | History of Ecology

1875

Figure 31 Gene Elden Likens (1935– ), Howard Thomas Odum (1924–2002), Eugene Plesants Odum (1913–2002), and William Eugene Odum (1942–1991). Courtesy of Betty Jean Craige and University of Georgia Press.

Figure 29 Victor Ernest Shelford (1877–1968).

Figure 32 Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863–1945).

Figure 30 Charles Elton (1900–91).

attracting funds. The British Ecological Society held its first meeting on 12 April 1913, and the first issue of its Journal of Ecology was printed for that meeting. Tansley edited it, beginning from 1916. British animal ecology developed more slowly, and only in 1932 did the British Ecological Society begin publishing its Journal of Animal Ecology, edited by Elton. The Ecological Society of

1876 General Ecology | History of Ecology

America (encompassing USA and Canada) was founded in 1915; in 1917, it began publishing its Bulletin and in 1920 its main journal, Ecology. In 1922, Thienemann and Einar Naumann, a phytoplankton specialist at the University of Lund, founded the Internationale Vereinigung fu¨r Limnologie (later called Societas Internationalis Limnologiae), which meets biannually and publishes its proceedings. In 1936, Americans and Canadians founded the Limnological Society of America, which in 1948 became the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography. It began publishing Limnology and Oceanography in 1956. Since ecological papers were published in botanical, zoological, and general science journals, not all countries formed ecological societies, and some countries did so only later. Germany’s Gesellschaft fu¨r Okologie was founded in 1970 and Italy’s Societa` Italiana di Ecologia in 1976. More than a dozen specialized ecological journals in English have begun since 1960. The development of ecosystem models by H. T. Odum and his associates encouraged Sven Erik Jørgensen to lay the foundation for the journal Ecological Modeling in 1975. Volume 1 had 320 pages; current volumes contain some 4000 pages per year. This increase is illustrative of the explosion in all aspects of applied ecology since the last decades of the 1900s. Subjects initially published in Ecological Modeling soon acquired even more specialized journals: Ecological Economics (1988), Ecological Engineering (1992), Ecosystem Health (2001), Ecological Complexity (2004), Ecological Informatics (2006), and others.

(Becker and Egerton) at the University of WisconsinMadison; and Eugene Odum’s ecosystem school at the University of Georgia (Barrett and Barrett; Craige).

Environmentalism

After World War II, both conservationists and ecologists became concerned with negative aspects of the rapid human transformation of the environment. This was an opportunity for ecologists to advise on how to minimize environmental damage and preserve natural areas. This opportunity was first realized in the United Kingdom with the establishment of the Nature Conservancy in 1949. It both preserves natural areas and provides for ecological research in them. In the United States, the triple threats of atomic radiation, phosphate detergents, and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) insecticide transformed pre-war conservationists into post-war environmentalists. Barry Commoner led the fight against atomic radiation and phosphate detergents, and Rachel Carson (Figure 33) led the fight against DDT. The outcome was passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA, 1969), requiring environmental impact assessments before

Institutions

Ecology has flourished in both research institutions and university departments. The World Directory of Hydrobiological and Fisheries Institutions which Robert W. Hiatt compiled in 1963 provides information on hundreds of institutions, and their numbers have increased considerably since then. Recent lists of aquatic and terrestrial institutions are in Europa Publications’ annuals, entitled The World of Learning. Here are just two American examples: the Marine Biological Association of San Diego established its laboratory in 1903, and it became the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1925; the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1903 established the Carnegie Desert Botanical Laboratory outside Tucson; its funding declined during the Depression and in 1940 it was given to the US Forest Service, which sold it in 1960 to the University of Arizona. There are histories of several ecological schools: the plant ecology schools at the Universities of Nebraska and Chicago (Tobey); the Chicago animal ecology school (Mitman); each of the three schools at Oxford University: Tansley’s plant ecology school (Anker), Elton’s Population Bureau (Crowcroft), and Tinbergen’s ethology school (Kruuk, Thorpe); the schools of plant ecology (Fraelish et al.) and limnology

Figure 33 Rachel Louise Carson (1907–64).

General Ecology | History of Ecology

major projects modify natural areas, and presidential establishment of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 1970), which monitors compliance with environmental laws. Both of these require expert advice from ecologists. Other countries have more or less followed the British and American examples.

IBP

The success of research conducted during the International Geophysical Year (1957–58) inspired three prominent scientists in 1959 to begin planning the International Biological Program, organized by the International Union of Biological Sciences. Barton Worthington (Figure 34), head of Britain’s Nature Conservancy, became its scientific head. Nationally supported IBP research lasted from 1964 to 1974, and some projects continued beyond 1974. The projects were mainly ecological. In the United States, significant new funding enabled ecology to evolve into ‘big science’. George M. Van Dyne and others used a method of monitoring ecosystems with computers called ‘systems ecology’. Without new funds, the USSR contributed about as much IBP research and publications as did the USA. Worldwide, IBP held over 200 meetings, and its

1877

research cost over $40 million annually. The resulting publications were numerous and generally of high caliber.

Conclusion Ecology began with natural history observations and a balance of nature concept. It expanded cumulatively through the ages until Linnaeus and Buffon began to expand the theoretical aspects of natural history in mid1700s. During 1800s ecological disciplines began to emerge, beginning with Humboldt’s plant geography. Natural history was revolutionized by Darwin’s theory on the origin of species, leading to Haeckel’s coining of the word oecologie in 1866 and a gradual elaboration of limnology, marine biology, plant ecology, and animal ecology by the early 1900s. During the 1900s, additional specializations emerged (including population ecology and ecosystem ecology), ecological organizations and journals were founded, and ecological professorships were added by universities. A sophisticated science developed well before 2000. Ecology now has the broadest scope of all the sciences, and applied ecology specialties flourish. See also: Ecological Engineering: Overview; Empirical Models.

Further Reading

Figure 34 Edgar Barton Worthington (1905–2001).

Acot P (1994) Histoire de l’e´cologie, 2nd edn. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Acot P (ed.) (1998) The European Origins of Scientific Ecology (1800– 1901) Amsterdam: Editions des Archives Contemporaines/Gordon and Breach. Anker P (2001) Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire, 1895–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Barrett GW and Barrett TL (eds.) (2001) Holistic Science: The Evolution of the Georgia Institute of Ecology, 1940–2000. New York: Taylor and Francis. Beckel A and Egerton FN (1987) Breaking New Waters – A Century of Limnology at the University of Wisconsin. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Blair WF (1977) Big Biology: The US/IBP. Stroudsburg: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross. Bocking S (1997) Ecologists and Environmental Politics: A History of Contemporary Ecology. New Haven: Yale University Press. Brown MT and Hall CAS (eds.) (2004) Through the macroscope: The legacy of H. T. Odum. Ecological Modeling 178: 1–294. Burgess RL (1996) American ecologists: A biographical bibliography. Huntia 10: 5–116. Burkhardt RW, Jr. (2005) Patterns of Behavior: Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and the Founding of Ethology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cittadino E (1990) Nature as the Laboratory: Darwinian Plant Ecology in the German Empire, 1880–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Craige BJ (2001) Eugene Odum: Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalist. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Cramer J (1987) Mission-Orientation in Ecology: The Case of Dutch Fresh-Water Ecology. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

1878 General Ecology | History of Ecology Croker RA (1991) Pioneer Ecologist: The Life and Work of Victor Ernest Shelford, 1877–1968. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Croker RA (2001) Stephen Forbes and the Rise of American Ecology. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Crowcroft P (1991) Elton’s Ecologists: A History of the Bureau of Animal Population. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dajoz R (1984) Ele´ments pour une histoire de l’e´cologie: La naissance de l’e´cologie moderne au XIXe sie`cle. Histoire et Nature 24– 25: 5–111 þ 6 plates. Decacon M (1997) Scientists and the Sea, 1650–1900: A Study of Marine Science. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Dele´age J-P (1993) Histoire de l’e´cologie, 2nd edn. Paris: Seuil. Drouin J-M (1993) L’e´cologie et son histoire, 2nd edn. Paris: Flammarion. Egerton FN (1962) The scientific contributions of Franc¸ois Alphonse Forel, the founder of limnology. Schweizerische Zeitschrift fu¨r Hydrologie 24: 181–199. Egerton FN (1973) Changing concepts of the balance of nature. Quarterly Review of Biology 48: 322–350. Egerton FN (ed.) (1977) History of American Ecology. New York: Arno Press. Egerton FN (1983) The history of ecology: Achievements and opportunities (Part 1). Journal of the History of Biology 16: 259–311. Egerton FN (1985) The history of ecology: Achievements and opportunities (Part 2). Journal of the History of Biology 18: 103–143. Egerton FN (2001–) A history of the ecological sciences. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, quarterly; http://esapubs.org/ esapubs/journals/bulletin.htm (accessed January 2007). Egerton FN (2003) Hewett Cottrell Watson: Victorian Plant Ecologist and Evolutionist. Aldershot: Ashgate. Egerton FN (2007) Understanding food chains and food webs, 1700– 1900. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 88: 50–69. Fralish JS, McIntosh RP, and Loucks OL (eds.) (1993), John T. Curtis: Fifty Years of Wisconsin Plant Ecology. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Frey DG (ed.) (1963) Limnology in North America. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Golley FB (1993) A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hagen JB (1992) An Entangled Bank: The Origins of Ecosystem Ecology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Ho¨xtermann E, Kaasch J, and Kaasch M (eds.) (2001) Verhandlungen zur Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie, Vol. 7: Berichte zur Geschichte und Theorie der O¨kologie. Neuburg an der Donau: Deutsche Gesellschaft fu¨r Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie. Hutchinson GE (1979) The Kindly Fruits of the Earth. New Haven: Yale University Press. Joseph LE (1990) Gaia: The Growth of an Idea. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kingsland SE (1995) Modeling Nature: Episodes in the History of Population Ecology, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kingsland SE (2005) The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890–2000. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kormondy EJ and McCormick JF (eds.) (1981) Handbook of Contemporary Developments in World Ecology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Kruuk H (2003) Niko’s Nature: The Life of Niko Tinbergen and His Science of Animal Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kwa CL (1989) Mimicking Nature: The Development of Systems Ecology in the United States, 1950–1975. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam. Nicolson M (1990) Henry Allan Gleason and the individualistic hypothesis: The structure of a botanist’s career. Botanical Review 56: 91–161. McGinnies WG (1981) Discovering the Desert: Legacy of the Carnegie Desert Botanical Laboratory. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. McIntosh RP (1985) Background of Ecology: Concept and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mills EL (1989) Biological Oceanography: An Early History, 1870–1960. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mitman GA (1992) The State of Nature: Ecology, Community and American Social Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Palladino P (1996) Entomology, Ecology and Agriculture: The Making of Scientific Careers in North America, 1885–1985. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. Real LA and Brown JH (eds.) (1991) Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers with Commentaries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schlee S (1973) The Edge of an Unfamiliar World: A History of Oceanography. New York: Dutton. Sears M and Merriman D (eds.) (1980) Oceanography: The Past. New York: Springer. Sheail J (1987) Seventy-Five Years in Ecology: The British Ecological Society. Oxford: Blackwell. Shortland M (ed.) (1993). Science and Nature: Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences. Oxford: British Society for the History of Science. So¨derqvist T (1986) The Ecologists: From Merry Naturalists to Saviors of the Nation: A Sociologically Informed Narrative Survey of the Ecologization of Sweden, 1895–1975. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell. Steleanu A (1989) Geschichte der limnologie und ihrer grundlagen. Frankfurt am Main: Haag and Herchen. Thorpe WH (1979) The Origins and Rise of Ethology: The Science of the Natural Behaviour of Animals. London: Heinemann. Tobey RC (1981) Saving the Prairies: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895–1955. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Trepl L (1987) Geschichte der O¨kologie vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart Zehn Vorlesungen. Frankfurt am Main: Athena¨um. Weiner DR (1988) Models of Nature: Ecology, Conservation, and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Worster D (1994) Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Worthington EB (ed.) (1975) The Evolution of IBP. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Worthington EB (1984) The Ecological Century: A Personal Appraisal. Oxford: Clarendon.