Who first defined ecosystems?
Ecosystem
The term ecosystem was first used in 1935 in a publication by British ecologist Arthur Tansley. Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment. He later refined the term, describing it as "The whole system, ... including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment". Tansley regarded ecosystems not simply as natural units, but as "mental isolates". Tansley later defined the spatial extent of ecosystems using the term ecotope.
History of ecology
George “G” Evelyn Hutchinson was a 20th-century ecologist who is commonly recognized as the “Father of Modern Ecology”. Hutchinson is of English descent but spent most of professional career studying in New Haven, Connecticut at Yale University. Throughout his career, over six decades, Hutchinson contributed to the sciences of limnology, entomology, genetics, biogeochemistry, mathematical theory of population dynamics and many more. Hutchinson is also attributed as being the first to infuse science with theory within the discipline of ecology. Hutchinson was also one of the first credited with combining ecology with mathematics. Another major contribution of Hutchinson was his development of the current definition of an organism's “niche” – as he recognized the role of an organism within its community. Finally, along with his great impact within the discipline of ecology throughout his professional years, Hutchinson also left a lasting impact in ecology through his many students he inspired.
Human ecology
The term "human ecology" was published in 1907 in Ellen Swallow Richards work "Sanitation in Daily Life", defined there as "the study of the surroundings of human beings in the effects they produce on the lives of men". Richard's use of the term recognized humans as part of rather than separate from nature. The term made its first formal appearance in the field of sociology in the 1921 book "Introduction to the Science of Sociology", published by Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess (also from the sociology department at the University of Chicago). Their student, Roderick D. McKenzie helped solidify human ecology as a sub-discipline within the Chicago school. These authors emphasized the difference between human ecology and ecology in general by highlighting cultural evolution in human societies.
Microorganism
Archaea are prokaryotic unicellular organisms, and form the first domain of life, in Carl Woese's three-domain system. A prokaryote is defined as having no cell nucleus or other membrane bound-organelle. Archaea share this defining feature with the bacteria with which they were once grouped. In 1990 the microbiologist Woese proposed the three-domain system that divided living things into bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes, and thereby split the prokaryote domain.
Ecology
From Aristotle until Darwin, the natural world was predominantly considered static and unchanging. Prior to "The Origin of Species", there was little appreciation or understanding of the dynamic and reciprocal relations between organisms, their adaptations, and the environment. An exception is the 1789 publication "Natural History of Selborne" by Gilbert White (1720–1793), considered by some to be one of the earliest texts on ecology. While Charles Darwin is mainly noted for his treatise on evolution, he was one of the founders of soil ecology, and he made note of the first ecological experiment in "The Origin of Species". Evolutionary theory changed the way that researchers approached the ecological sciences.
History of ecology
20th century English zoologist and ecologist, Charles Elton, is commonly credited as “the father of animal ecology”. Elton influenced by Victor Shelford's "Animal Communities in Temperate America" began his research on animal ecology as an assistant to his colleague, Julian Huxley, on an ecological survey of the fauna in Spitsbergen in 1921. Elton's most famous studies were conducted during his time as a biological consultant to the Hudson Bay Company to help understand the fluctuations in the company's fur harvests. Elton studied the population fluctuations and dynamics of snowshoe hare, Canadian lynx, and other mammals of the region. Elton is also considered the first to coin the terms, food chain and food cycle in his famous book "Animal Ecology". Elton is also attributed with contributing to disciplines of: invasion ecology, community ecology, and wildlife disease ecology.
Socialism
In the late 19th century, there emerged [[anarcho-naturism]] as the fusion of anarchism and [[Naturism|naturist]] philosophies within [[individualist anarchist]] circles in France, Spain, Cuba and Portugal. [[Social ecology (theory)|Social ecology]] is closely related to the work and ideas of [[Murray Bookchin]] and influenced by anarchist [[Peter Kropotkin]]. Bookchin's first book, "[[Our Synthetic Environment]]," was published under the pseudonym Lewis Herber in 1962, a few months before [[Rachel Carson]]'s "[[Silent Spring]]". His groundbreaking essay "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" introduced ecology as a concept in radical politics. In the 1970s, [[Barry Commoner]], suggesting a left-wing response to the "[[Limits to Growth]]" model that predicted catastrophic [[resource depletion]] and spurred environmentalism, postulated that capitalist technologies were chiefly responsible for [[environmental degradation]] as opposed to [[Human overpopulation|population pressures]]. The 1990s saw the [[Socialist feminism|socialist feminists]] Mary Mellor and [[Ariel Salleh]] address environmental issues within an eco-socialist paradigm. With the rising profile of the [[anti-globalisation]] movement in the [[Global South]], an "environmentalism of the poor" combining ecological awareness and [[social justice]] has also become prominent. In 1994, David Pepper also released his important work, "Ecosocialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice", which critiques the current approach of many within [[green politics]], particularly [[Deep ecology|deep ecologists]]. Currently, many [[Green party|green parties]] around the world, such as the [[GreenLeft|Dutch Green Left Party]] (GroenLinks), contain strong eco-socialist elements. Radical [[red-green alliance]]s have been formed in many countries by eco-socialists, radical greens and other radical left groups. In [[Denmark]], the [[Red-Green Alliance (Denmark)|Red-Green Alliance]] was formed as a coalition of numerous radical parties. Within the [[European Parliament]], a number of far-left parties from Northern Europe have organised themselves into the [[Nordic Green Left Alliance]].
Natural environment
Central to the ecosystem concept is the idea that living organisms are continually engaged in a highly interrelated set of relationships with every other element constituting the environment in which they exist. Eugene Odum, one of the founders of the science of ecology, stated: "Any unit that includes all of the organisms (i.e.: the "community") in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic structure, biotic diversity, and material cycles (i.e.: exchange of materials between living and nonliving parts) within the system is an ecosystem."
Systems ecology
Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology, a subset of Earth system science, that takes a holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems. Systems ecology can be seen as an application of general systems theory to ecology. Central to the systems ecology approach is the idea that an ecosystem is a complex system exhibiting emergent properties. Systems ecology focuses on interactions and transactions within and between biological and ecological systems, and is especially concerned with the way the functioning of ecosystems can be influenced by human interventions. It uses and extends concepts from thermodynamics and develops other macroscopic descriptions of complex systems.
Ecosystem
G. Evelyn Hutchinson, a limnologist who was a contemporary of Tansley's, combined Charles Elton's ideas about trophic ecology with those of Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky. As a result, he suggested that mineral nutrient availability in a lake limited algal production. This would, in turn, limit the abundance of animals that feed on algae. Raymond Lindeman took these ideas further to suggest that the flow of energy through a lake was the primary driver of the ecosystem. Hutchinson's students, brothers Howard T. Odum and Eugene P. Odum, further developed a "systems approach" to the study of ecosystems. This allowed them to study the flow of energy and material through ecological systems.
Robert T. Paine (zoologist)
In a noteworthy 1966 paper, Paine described a rocky intertidal ecosystem in Makah Bay in Washington State, where top predator species help maintain biodiversity. This led to his 1969 paper in which he proposed the keystone species concept. This concept states that an ecosystem may experience a dramatic shift if a keystone species is removed, even though that species was a small part of the ecosystem by measures of biomass or productivity. It has become a very popular concept in conservation biology. Paine also coined the term "trophic cascade" to describe the top-down effects that occur in ecosystems when an important species is introduced or removed.
History of ecology
By the 19th century, ecology blossomed due to new discoveries in chemistry by Lavoisier and de Saussure, notably the nitrogen cycle. After observing the fact that life developed only within strict limits of each compartment that makes up the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere, the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess proposed the term biosphere in 1875. Suess proposed the name biosphere for the conditions promoting life, such as those found on Earth, which includes flora, fauna, minerals, matter cycles, et cetera.
Manfredi Nicoletti
Nicoletti is considered a pioneer in Bioclimatic urban and architectural design. In the 1970s his book "L'ecosistema urbano" (The Urban Ecosystem) - a term which he coined - creates a connection between environmental matters and psychological and cultural values. In this volume experts in various disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, biology, engineering, botanics, urban history, economy and acoustics contribute to open a rich discussion on the theme of urban ecosystems.
Arthur Tansley
William S. Cooper considered Tansley's most influential publications synthesised individual studies into a whole. In 1935 Tansley published "The use and abuse of vegetational terms and concepts" in which he introduced the ecosystem concept. In the 1930s ecological thinking was dominated by the work of Clements, who thought of ecological communities as organisms, and associations as superorganisms. Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment, regarding ecosystems as the basic units of nature.
Tansley's interest in teaching led to the production of the "Elements of Plant Ecology" in 1922, which was followed by "Practical Plant Ecology" in 1923 and "Aims and methods in the study of vegetation" in 1926, coauthored with Thomas Ford Chipp. The last book, edited for the British Empire Vegetation Committee, was extremely influential not just in defining ecological methods but in highlighting the need for a complete inventory of the empire's "vegetational assets". With this information, it would be possible to efficiently manage the vast natural resources of the empire. Tansley's most comprehensive work, "The British Islands and Their Vegetation" was published in 1939. In recognition of this achievement, he was awarded the Linnean Medal in 1941.
History of ecology
At the turn of the 20th century, Henry Chandler Cowles was one of the founders of the emerging study of "dynamic ecology", through his study of ecological succession at the Indiana Dunes, sand dunes at the southern end of Lake Michigan. Here Cowles found evidence of ecological succession in the vegetation and the soil with relation to age. Cowles was very much aware of the roots of the concept and of his (primordial) predecessors. Thus, he attributes the first use of the word to the French naturalist Adolphe Dureau de la Malle, who had described the vegetation development after forest clear-felling, and the first comprehensive study of successional processes to the Finnish botanist Ragnar Hult (1881).
Historical ecology
The idea of the cultural landscape is directly attributed to American geographer Carl Sauer. Sauer's theories developed as a critique of environmental determinism, which was a popular theory in the early twentieth century. Sauer's pioneering 1925 paper "The Morphology of Landscape" is now fundamental to many disciplines and defines the domain. In this, the term landscape is used in a geographical sense to mean an arbitrarily selected section of reality; morphology means the conceptual and methodological processes for altering it. Hence to Sauer, wherever humans lived and impacted the environment, landscapes with determinate histories resulted.
History of biology
The ecological succession concept, pioneered in the 1900s and 1910s by Henry Chandler Cowles and Frederic Clements, was important in early plant ecology. Alfred Lotka's predator-prey equations, G. Evelyn Hutchinson's studies of the biogeography and biogeochemical structure of lakes and rivers (limnology) and Charles Elton's studies of animal food chains were pioneers among the succession of quantitative methods that colonized the developing ecological specialties. Ecology became an independent discipline in the 1940s and 1950s after Eugene P. Odum synthesized many of the concepts of ecosystem ecology, placing relationships between groups of organisms (especially material and energy relationships) at the center of the field.
Biogeography
The first discoveries that contributed to the development of biogeography as a science began in the mid-18th century, as Europeans explored the world and discovered the biodiversity of life. During the 18th century most views on the world were shaped around religion and for many natural theologists, the bible. Carl Linnaeus, in the mid-18th century, initiated the ways to classify organisms through his exploration of undiscovered territories. When he noticed that species were not as perpetual as he believed, he developed the Mountain Explanation to explain the distribution of biodiversity. When Noah's ark landed on Mount Ararat and the waters receded, the animals dispersed throughout different elevations on the mountain. This showed different species in different climates proving species were not constant. Linnaeus' findings set a basis for ecological biogeography. Through his strong beliefs in Christianity, he was inspired to classify the living world, which then gave way to additional accounts of secular views on geographical distribution. He argued that the structure of an animal was very closely related to its physical surroundings. This was important to a George Louis Buffon's rival theory of distribution.
Anthropogenic biome
Anthropogenic biomes, also known as anthromes or human biomes, describe the terrestrial biosphere in its contemporary, human-altered form using global ecosystem units defined by global patterns of sustained direct human interaction with ecosystems. Anthromes were first named and mapped by Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty in their 2008 paper, "Putting People in the Map: Anthropogenic Biomes of the World". Anthrome maps now appear in numerous textbooks and in the National Geographic World Atlas
Ecological resilience
The concept of resilience in ecological systems was first introduced by the Canadian ecologist C.S. Holling in order to describe the persistence of natural systems in the face of changes in ecosystem variables due to natural or anthropogenic causes. Resilience has been defined in two ways in ecological literature:
History of zoology since 1859
Charles Elton's studies of animal food chains was pioneering among the succession of quantitative methods that colonized the developing ecological specialties. Ecology became an independent discipline in the 1940s and 1950s after Eugene P. Odum synthesized many of the concepts of ecosystem ecology, placing relationships between groups of organisms (especially material and energy relationships) at the center of the field. In the 1960s, as evolutionary theorists explored the possibility of multiple units of selection, ecologists turned to evolutionary approaches. In population ecology, debate over group selection was brief but vigorous; by 1970, most zoologists agreed that natural selection was rarely effective above the level of individual organisms.
Charles Sutherland Elton
In 1927, Elton published his now classic book "Animal Ecology". This book outlines the important principles of ecological studies of animal behaviour and life history, such as food chains, the size of food items, the ecological niche and the concept of a pyramid of numbers as a method of representing the structure of an ecosystem in terms of feeding relationships.
In later works on the niche theory, Elton's definition – the Eltonian niche – in terms of functional attributes of organisms (or its position in the trophic web), has been viewed by some authors as opposed to Joseph Grinnell's earlier definition emphasising states of the environment suitable for the species. However, others have argued that there are more similarities than dissimilarities between the two versions of the niche concept.
John Todd (Canadian biologist)
Todd and his colleagues were some of the first people to actually create miniature ecosystems, largely self-perpetuating, which applied ecological principles to address human needs. 
Todd's approach is one of biomimicry, in which a complex natural ecosystem such as a marsh is studied, recreated and adapted.
Learning from the natural system, the ecological designer combines micro-organisms, fish, and plants into a functionally complex system that is capable of carrying out tasks such as bioremediation and phytoremediation.
Eugenius Warming
Johannes Eugenius Bülow Warming (3 November 1841 – 2 April 1924), known as Eugen Warming, was a Danish botanist and a main founding figure of the scientific discipline of ecology. Warming wrote the first textbook (1895) on plant ecology, taught the first university course in ecology and gave the concept its meaning and content.
“"If one individual can be singled out to be honoured as the founder of ecology, Warming should gain precedence"”.
Invertebrate zoology
In 1735, the first edition of Carl Linnaeus' "Systema Naturae" was published; this work included information on both insects and intestinal worms. However, the tenth edition is considered the true starting point for the modern classification scheme for living things today. Linnaeus' universal system of classification made a system based on binomial nomenclature, but included higher levels of classification than simply the genus and species names. "Systema Naturae" was an investigation into the biodiversity on Earth. However, because it was based only on very few characters, the system developed by Linnaeus was an artificial one. The book also included descriptions of the organisms named inside of it.
Ecotope
The first definition of ecotope was made by Thorvald Sørensen in 1936. Arthur Tansley picked this definition up in 1939 and elaborated it. He stated that an ecotope is "the particular portion, […], of the physical world that forms a home for the organisms which inhabit it". In 1945 Carl Troll first applied the term to landscape ecology "the smallest spatial object or component of a geographical landscape". Other academics clarified this to suggest that an ecotope is ecologically homogeneous and is the smallest ecological land unit that is relevant.
Systems theory in anthropology
British anthropologist, Gregory Bateson, is the most influential and one of the earliest founders of System Theory in anthropology. He developed an interdisciplinary approach that included communication theory, cybernetics, and mathematical logic. In his collection of essays, "The Sacred Unity", Bateson argues that there are "ecological systems, social systems, and the individual organism plus the environment with which it interacts is itself a system in this technical sense." By adding environment with systems, Bateson closes the gap between the dualities such as subject and object. "Playing upon the differences between formalization and process, or crystallization and randomness, Bateson sought to transcend other dualisms–mind versus nature, organism versus environment, concept versus context, and subject versus object." Bateson set out the general rule of systems theory. He says:
Agroecology
Gliessman mentions that post-WWII, groups of scientists with ecologists gave more focus to experiments in the natural environment, while agronomists dedicated their attention to the cultivated systems in agriculture. According to Gliessman, the two groups kept their research and interest apart until books and articles using the concept of agroecosystems and the word agroecology started to appear in 1970.
Dalgaard explains the different points of view in ecology schools, and the fundamental differences, which set the basis for the development of agroecology. The early ecology school of Henry Gleason investigated plant populations focusing in the hierarchical levels of the organism under study.
Evolutionary ecology
The basis of the central principles of evolutionary ecology can be attributed to Charles Darwin (1809–1882), specifically in referencing his theory of natural selection and population dynamics, which discusses how populations of a species change over time. According to Ernst Mayr, professor of Zoology at Harvard University, Darwin’s most distinct contributions to evolutionary biology and ecology are as follows: “The first is the non-constancy of species, or the modern conception of evolution itself. The second is the notion of branching evolution, implying the common descent of all species of living things on earth from a single unique origin.” Additionally, “Darwin further noted that evolution must be gradual, with no major breaks or discontinuities. Finally, he reasoned that the mechanism of evolution was natural selection.”
Ecosystem ecology
Ecosystem ecology is philosophically and historically rooted in terrestrial ecology. The ecosystem concept has evolved rapidly during the last 100 years with important ideas developed by Frederic Clements, a botanist who argued for specific definitions of ecosystems and that physiological processes were responsible for their development and persistence. Although most of Clements ecosystem definitions have been greatly revised, initially by Henry Gleason and Arthur Tansley, and later by contemporary ecologists, the idea that physiological processes are fundamental to ecosystem structure and function remains central to ecology.
Theoretical ecology
If ecosystems are governed primarily by stochastic processes, through which its subsequent state would be determined by both predictable and random actions, they may be more resilient to sudden change than each species individually. In the absence of a balance of nature, the species composition of ecosystems would undergo shifts that would depend on the nature of the change, but entire ecological collapse would probably be infrequent events. In 1997, Robert Ulanowicz used information theory tools to describe the structure of ecosystems, emphasizing mutual information (correlations) in studied systems. Drawing on this methodology and prior observations of complex ecosystems, Ulanowicz depicts approaches to determining the stress levels on ecosystems and predicting system reactions to defined types of alteration in their settings (such as increased or reduced energy flow, and eutrophication.
Animal
In 1758, Carl Linnaeus created the first hierarchical classification in his "Systema Naturae". In his original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, the Chordata, while his Insecta (which included the crustaceans and arachnids) and Vermes have been renamed or broken up. The process was begun in 1793 by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, who called the Vermes "une espèce de chaos" (a sort of chaos) and split the group into three new phyla, worms, echinoderms, and polyps (which contained corals and jellyfish). By 1809, in his "Philosophie Zoologique", Lamarck had created 9 phyla apart from vertebrates (where he still had 4 phyla: mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish) and molluscs, namely cirripedes, annelids, crustaceans, arachnids, insects, worms, radiates, polyps, and infusorians.
Ecological land classification
American geographer Robert Bailey defines a hierarchy of ecosystem units ranging from micro-ecosystems (individual homogeneous sites, in the order of in area), through meso-ecosystems (landscape mosaics, in the order of ) to macro-ecosystems (ecoregions, in the order of ).
Organicism
Organicism is the philosophical perspective which views the universe and its parts as organic wholes and – either by analogy or literally – as living organisms. It can be synonymous with holism. Organicism is an important tradition within the history of natural philosophy where it has remained as a vital current alongside reductionism and mechanism, the approaches that have dominated science since the seventeenth century. Plato is among the earliest philosophers to have regarded the universe as an intelligent living being (see "Timaeus"). Organicism flourished for a period during the era of German romanticism during which time the new science of biology was first defined by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Within modern-day biological sciences organicism is the approach that stresses the organization (particularly the self-organizing properties), rather than the composition, of organisms. John Scott Haldane was the first biologist to use the term to describe his philosophical views in 1917, after which it was followed by certain other biologists in the 20th century.
Agroecology
The first mention of the term agroecology was in 1928, with the publication of the term by Bensin in 1928. The book of Tischler (1965), was probably the first to be actually titled 'agroecology'. He analysed the different components (plants, animals, soils and climate) and their interactions within an agroecosystem as well as the impact of human agricultural management on these components. Other books dealing with agroecology, but without using the term explicitly were published by the German zoologist Friederichs (1930) with his book on agricultural zoology and related ecological/environmental factors for plant protection, and by American crop physiologist Hansen in 1939 when both used the word as a synonym for the application of ecology within agriculture.
History of ecology
While Darwin focused exclusively on competition as a selective force, Eugen Warming devised a new discipline that took abiotic factors, that is drought, fire, salt, cold etc., as seriously as biotic factors in the assembly of biotic communities. Biogeography before Warming was largely of descriptive nature – faunistic or floristic. Warming's aim was, through the study of organism (plant) morphology and anatomy, i.e. adaptation, to explain why a species occurred under a certain set of environmental conditions. Moreover, the goal of the new discipline was to explain why species occupying similar habitats, experiencing similar hazards, would solve problems in similar ways, despite often being of widely different phylogenetic descent. Based on his personal observations in Brazilian cerrado, in Denmark, Norwegian Finnmark and Greenland, Warming gave the first university course in ecological plant geography. Based on his lectures, he wrote the book ‘Plantesamfund’, which was immediate translated to German, Polish and Russian, later to English as ‘Oecology of Plants’. Through its German edition, the book had an immense effect on British and North American scientists like Arthur Tansley, Henry Chandler Cowles and Frederic Clements.
Environmental education
One of the first articles about environmental education as a new movement appeared in the "Phi Delta Kappan" in 1969, authored by James A. Swan. A definition of "Environmental Education" first appeared in "The Journal of Environmental Education" in 1969, written by William B. Stapp. Stapp later went on to become the first Director of Environmental Education for UNESCO, and then the Global Rivers International Network.
Food web
Charles Elton pioneered the concept of food cycles, food chains, and food size in his classical 1927 book "Animal Ecology"; Elton's 'food cycle' was replaced by 'food web' in a subsequent ecological text. Elton organized species into functional groups, which was the basis for Raymond Lindeman's classic and landmark paper in 1942 on trophic dynamics. Lindeman emphasized the important role of decomposer organisms in a trophic system of classification. The notion of a food web has a historical foothold in the writings of Charles Darwin and his terminology, including an "entangled bank", "web of life", "web of complex relations", and in reference to the decomposition actions of earthworms he talked about "the continued movement of the particles of earth". Even earlier, in 1768 John Bruckner described nature as "one continued web of life".
Systems ecology
Systems ecology seeks a holistic view of the interactions and transactions within and between biological and ecological systems. Systems ecologists realise that the function of any ecosystem can be influenced by human economics in fundamental ways. They have therefore taken an additional transdisciplinary step by including economics in the consideration of ecological-economic systems. In the words of R.L. Kitching:As a mode of scientific enquiry, a central feature of Systems Ecology is the general application of the principles of energetics to all systems at any scale. Perhaps the most notable proponent of this view was Howard T. Odum - sometimes considered the father of ecosystems ecology. In this approach the principles of energetics constitute ecosystem principles. Reasoning by formal analogy from one system to another enables the Systems Ecologist to see principles functioning in an analogous manner across system-scale boundaries. H.T. Odum commonly used the Energy Systems Language as a tool for making systems diagrams and flow charts.
Organizational ecology
The first explicit formulation of a theory of population ecology, by Michael T. Hannan and the late John H. Freeman in their 1977 "American Journal of Sociology" piece "The population ecology of organizations" and later refined in their 1989 book "Organizational Ecology", examines the environment in which organizations compete and how a process like natural selection occurs. This theory looks at the death of organizations (firm mortality), the birth of new organizations (organizational founding), as well as organizational growth and change.
History of ecology
Alfred Russel Wallace, contemporary and colleague of Darwin, was first to propose a "geography" of animal species. Several authors recognized at the time that species were not independent of each other, and grouped them into plant species, animal species, and later into communities of living beings or biocoenosis. The first use of this term is usually attributed to Karl Möbius in 1877, but already in 1825, the French naturalist Adolphe Dureau de la Malle used the term "societé" about an assemblage of plant individuals of different species.
William Emerson Ritter
Ritter initiated and shaped the Marine Biological Association of San Diego (now Scripps Institution of Oceanography of UC San Diego) and the American Society for the Dissemination of Science (now the Society for Science and the Public and Science News). Innovative and entrepreneurial, with a deep desire for human service, he worked tirelessly to educate people in science thinking. He was the first biologist to propose a theory of systems, and seems to be the originator of the term organicism for biological purposes.
Anolis ecomorphs
The ecomorph concept is a term first coined by Ernest Edward Williams in 1972 which he defined as a “species with the same structural habitat/niche, similar in morphology and behavior, but not necessarily close phyletically.” Williams first applied this definition to the Greater Antillean anoles (especifically in Puerto Rico) upon observing their evolutionary radiation, although it has since been used widely elsewhere.
Ecosystem services
While the notion of human dependence on Earth's ecosystems reaches to the start of "Homo sapiens" existence, the term 'natural capital' was first coined by E.F. Schumacher in 1973 in his book "Small is Beautiful" "." Recognition of how ecosystems could provide complex services to humankind date back to at least Plato (c. 400 BC) who understood that deforestation could lead to soil erosion and the drying of springs. Modern ideas of ecosystem services probably began when Marsh challenged in 1864 the idea that Earth's natural resources are unbounded by pointing out changes in soil fertility in the Mediterranean. It was not until the late 1940s that three key authors—Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jr, William Vogt, and Aldo Leopold —promoted recognition of human dependence on the environment.
Systems ecology
Deep ecology is an ideology whose metaphysical underpinnings are deeply concerned with the science of ecology. The term was coined by Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, Gandhian scholar, and environmental activist. He argues that the prevailing approach to environmental management is anthropocentric, and that the natural environment is not only "more complex than we imagine, it is more complex than we can imagine." Naess formulated deep ecology in 1973 at an environmental conference in Budapest.
Engler system
One of the prime systems of plant taxonomy, the Engler system was devised by Adolf Engler (1844–1930), and is featured in two major taxonomic texts he authored or coauthored. His influence is reflected in the use of the terms "Engler School" and "Engler Era". Engler's starting point was that of Eichler who had been the first to use phylogenetic principles, although Engler himself did not think that his was.
Eco-cities
An eco-city or ecocity is "a human settlement modeled on the self-sustaining resilient structure and function of natural ecosystems", as defined by the Ecocity Builders (a non-profit organization started by Richard Register who first coined the term). Simply put, an eco-city is an ecologically healthy city. The World Bank defines eco-cities as “cities that enhance the well-being of citizens and society through integrated urban planning and management that harness the benefits of ecological systems and protect and nurture these assets for future generations”. Although there is no universally accepted definition of an 'eco-city', among available definitions, there is some consensus on the basic features of an eco-city.
Life
The first known attempt to classify organisms was conducted by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC), who classified all living organisms known at that time as either a plant or an animal, based mainly on their ability to move. He also distinguished animals with blood from animals without blood (or at least without red blood), which can be compared with the concepts of vertebrates and invertebrates respectively, and divided the blooded animals into five groups: viviparous quadrupeds (mammals), oviparous quadrupeds (reptiles and amphibians), birds, fishes and whales. The bloodless animals were also divided into five groups: cephalopods, crustaceans, insects (which included the spiders, scorpions, and centipedes, in addition to what we define as insects today), shelled animals (such as most molluscs and echinoderms), and "zoophytes" (animals that resemble plants). Though Aristotle's work in zoology was not without errors, it was the grandest biological synthesis of the time and remained the ultimate authority for many centuries after his death.
Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve
Often considered to be the birthplace of the modern science of ecosystem ecology, the research site tested the first radio collars for animal tracking in the 1960s and developed prescribed burning techniques for savannas. The claim is attributed to limnologist Raymond Lindeman (1915-1942) who performed his PhD research on the ecological dynamics of Cedar Bog Lake located in the reserve. Linking Sir Arthur Tansley's coined term "ecosystem" to field research, his studies were influential in forming modern ecosystem ecology.
Taxonomy (biology)
The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) ushered in a new era of taxonomy. With his major works "Systema Naturae" 1st Edition in 1735, "Species Plantarum" in 1753, and "Systema Naturae" 10th Edition, he revolutionized modern taxonomy. His works implemented a standardized binomial naming system for animal and plant species, which proved to be an elegant solution to a chaotic and disorganized taxonomic literature. He not only introduced the standard of class, order, genus, and species, but also made it possible to identify plants and animals from his book, by using the smaller parts of the flower. Thus the Linnaean system was born, and is still used in essentially the same way today as it was in the 18th century. Currently, plant and animal taxonomists regard Linnaeus' work as the "starting point" for valid names (at 1753 and 1758 respectively). Names published before these dates are referred to as "pre-Linnaean", and not considered valid (with the exception of spiders published in "Svenska Spindlar"). Even taxonomic names published by Linnaeus himself before these dates are considered pre-Linnaean.
Ecology
Ecosystems may be habitats within biomes that form an integrated whole and a dynamically responsive system having both physical and biological complexes. Ecosystem ecology is the science of determining the fluxes of materials (e.g. carbon, phosphorus) between different pools (e.g., tree biomass, soil organic material). Ecosystem ecologist attempt to determine the underlying causes of these fluxes. Research in ecosystem ecology might measure primary production (g C/m^2) in a wetland in relation to decomposition and consumption rates (g C/m^2/y). This requires an understanding of the community connections between plants (i.e., primary producers) and the decomposers (e.g., fungi and bacteria),
Jeremy Jackson (scientist)
Concerned about the increasing effect of human impacts on marine ecosystems, Jackson created what is now known as "historical ecology" of marine ecosystems. Using historical and ecological sources, Jackson demonstrated that green sea turtles in the pre-Columbian Caribbean used to exist by the tens of millions, greater than current populations. After that first attempt at understanding what pristine marine ecosystems looked like, Jackson assembled an international team of ecologists, anthropologists, archeologists, and historians, to reconstruct marine ecosystem dynamics from the last several hundred years.
Deep ecology
The phrase "deep ecology" was coined by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss in 1973. Næss rejected the idea that beings can be ranked according to their relative value. For example, judgments on whether an animal has an eternal soul, whether it uses reason or whether it has consciousness (or indeed higher consciousness) have all been used to justify the ranking of the human animal as superior to other animals. Næss states that from an ecological point of view "the right of all forms [of life] to live is a universal right which cannot be quantified. No single species of living being has more of this particular right to live and unfold than any other species."
Open and closed systems in social science
Anthropologist Gregory Bateson is the most influential and earliest founder of the system theory in social sciences. Bateson describes system as “any unit containing feedback structure and therefore competent to process information.” Thus an open system allows interaction between concepts and materiality or subject and the environment or abstract and real. In natural science, systems theory has been widely used approach. Bateson's work influenced major post-structuralist scholars especially Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. In fact, the very word 'plateau' in Deleuze and Guattari's magnum opus, A Thousand Plateaus, came from Bateson's work on Balinese culture. They wrote: "Gregory Bateson uses the word plateau to designate something very special: a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities whose development avoids any orientation toward a culmination point or external end.” Bateson pioneered an interdisciplinary approach in anthropology. He coined the term “ecology of mind” to demonstrate that what "goes on in one's head and in one's behavior" is interlocked and constitutes a network. Guattari wrote: Gregory Bateson has clearly shown that what he calls the “ecology of ideas” cannot be contained within the domain of the psychology of the individual, but organizes itself into systems or “minds”, the boundaries of which no longer coincide with the participant individuals.
Soundscape ecology
Soundscape ecology is the study of the acoustic relationships between living organisms, human and other, and their environment, whether the organisms are marine or terrestrial. First appearing in the "Handbook for Acoustic Ecology" edited by Barry Truax, in 1978, the term has occasionally been used, sometimes interchangeably, with the term acoustic ecology. Soundscape ecologists also study the relationships between the three basic sources of sound that comprise the soundscape: those generated by organisms are referred to as the biophony; those from non-biological natural categories are classified as the geophony, and those produced by humans, the anthropophony. Increasingly, soundscapes are dominated by a sub-set of anthropophony (sometimes referred to in older, more archaic terminology as "anthropogenic noise"), or technophony, the overwhelming presence of electro-mechanical noise. This sub-class of noise pollution or disturbance may produce a negative effect on a wide range of organisms. Variations in soundscapes as a result of natural phenomena and/or human endeavor may have wide-ranging ecological effects as many organisms have evolved to respond to acoustic cues that emanate primarily from undisturbed habitats. Soundscape ecologists use recording devices, audio tools, and elements of traditional ecological and acoustic analyses to study soundscape structure. Soundscape ecology has deepened current understandings of ecological issues and established profound visceral connections to ecological data. The preservation of natural soundscapes is now a recognized conservation goal.
Landscape ecology
The German term "Landschaftsökologie"–thus "landscape ecology"–was coined by German geographer Carl Troll in 1939. He developed this terminology and many early concepts of landscape ecology as part of his early work, which consisted of applying aerial photograph interpretation to studies of interactions between environment and vegetation.
Ecosophy
While a professor at University of Oslo in 1972, Arne Næss, introduced the terms "deep ecology movement" and "ecosophy" into environmental literature. Naess based his article on a talk he gave in Bucharest in 1972 at the Third World Future Research Conference. As Drengson notes in "Ecophilosophy, Ecosophy and the Deep Ecology Movement: An Overview", "In his talk Næss discussed the longer-range background of the ecology movement and its connection with respect for Nature and the inherent worth of other beings." Naess's view of humans as an integral part of a "total-field image" of Nature contrasts with the alternative construction of ecosophy outlined by Guattari.
Ecosystem
The Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study started in 1963 to study the White Mountains in New Hampshire. It was the first successful attempt to study an entire watershed as an ecosystem. The study used stream chemistry as a means of monitoring ecosystem properties, and developed a detailed biogeochemical model of the ecosystem. Long-term research at the site led to the discovery of acid rain in North America in 1972. Researchers documented the depletion of soil cations (especially calcium) over the next several decades.
Ecotoxicology
The term "ecotoxicology" was coined by René Truhaut in 1969 who defined it as "the branch of toxicology concerned with the study of toxic effects, caused by natural or synthetic pollutants, to the constituents of ecosystems, animal (including human), vegetable and microbial, in an integral context”
Natural environment
Biomes are terminologically similar to the concept of ecosystems, and are climatically and geographically defined areas of ecologically similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, often referred to "as" ecosystems. Biomes are defined on the basis of factors such as plant structures (such as trees, shrubs, and grasses), leaf types (such as broadleaf and needleleaf), plant spacing (forest, woodland, savanna), and climate. Unlike ecozones, biomes are not defined by genetic, taxonomic, or historical similarities. Biomes are often identified with particular patterns of ecological succession and climax vegetation.
History of ecology
In 1972, the United Nations held the first international Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, prepared by Rene Dubos and other experts. This conference was the origin of the phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally". The next major events in ecology were the development of the concept of biosphere and the appearance of terms "biological diversity"—or now more commonly biodiversity—in the 1980s. These terms were developed during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where the concept of the biosphere was recognized by the major international organizations, and risks associated with reductions in biodiversity were publicly acknowledged.
Biome
Robert G. Bailey nearly developed a biogeographical classification system of ecoregions for the United States in a map published in 1976. He subsequently expanded the system to include the rest of North America in 1981, and the world in 1989. The Bailey system, based on climate, is divided into seven domains (polar, humid temperate, dry, humid, and humid tropical), with further divisions based on other climate characteristics (subarctic, warm temperate, hot temperate, and subtropical; marine and continental; lowland and mountain).
Ecological genetics
Although work on natural populations had been done previously, it is acknowledged that the field was founded by the English biologist E.B. Ford (1901–1988) in the early 20th century. Ford was taught genetics at Oxford University by Julian Huxley, and started research on the genetics of natural populations in 1924. Ford also had a long working relationship with R.A. Fisher. By the time Ford had developed his formal definition of genetic polymorphism, Fisher had got accustomed to high natural selection values in nature. This was one of the main outcomes of research on natural populations. Ford's magnum opus was "Ecological genetics", which ran to four editions and was widely influential.
Conservation management system (United Kingdom)
As a British idea the concept of a national conservation management system may be traced to an upsurge of sentiment after the Second World War that the world should be made a better place. It was the botanist Arthur Tansley who pleaded for organised nature conservation on the double ground of scientific value and beauty. He had advanced the concept of the ecosystem in 1935, and a number of key ideas of relevance to nature conservation stem from this. In the immediate post-war years, he hoped for an 'Ecological Research Council', and a 'National Wildlife Service'. In this context, the idea of national standards of conservation management can be traced to the formation of the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC), and its great survey of habitats and species, the Nature Conservation Review, published in 1977. From this time there was general agreement that the common purpose of conservation management systems was to transform situations of ecological confrontation between humans and non-humans into a system of mutual accommodation. The NCC's first guidelines for managing its national resource was a pro forma to accommodate a description of the site, the goals of management, and a prescriptive section, in which the objectives of management were to be interpreted in a practical manner. Central to the latter section were lists of codified jobs to help wardens abide by best practice. The major shortcoming of the guidelines was the lack of a business philosophy to track value for the inputs of effort and resources.
The Biosphere Rules
The Biosphere Rules emerged from a research program established through a 2005 partnership between the renowned eco-designer William McDonough and the Center for Eco-Intelligent Management at IE Business School, a top-ranked European management institute. The research program identified the attributes of natural systems that allowed for the closed-loop production of organisms in the biosphere. These attributes were then used as a framework for analyzing concrete company examples in the program’s second phase. Case studies of first mover companies adopting closed loop or cradle-to-cradle design for product development found common elements that made closed-loop systems viable in a business context. Importantly, the identified elements were similar to the principles seen in natural systems, mapped onto human manufacturing approaches.
Ecosystem Functional Type
Shugart (1997) was one of the first authors that used the term EFT as “aggregated components of ecosystems whose interactions with one another and with the environment produce differences in patterns of ecosystem structure and dynamics”. Walker (1997) proposed the use of a similar term, vegetation functional types, for groups of PFTs in sets that constitute the different states of vegetation succession in non-equilibrium ecosystems. The same term was applied by Scholes et al. (1997) in a wider sense for those areas having similar ecological attributes, such as PFTs composition, structure, phenology, biomass or productivity. Several studies have applied hierarchy and patch dynamic theories for the definition of ecosystem and landscape functional types at different spatial scales, by scaling-up emergent structural and functional properties from patches to regions. Valentini et al. (1999) defined land functional units by focusing on patches of the land surface that are able to exchange mass and energy with the atmosphere and show a coordinated and specific response to environmental factors.
Howard T. Odum
In his 1950 Ph.D. thesis, H.T.Odum gave a novel definition of ecology as the study of large entities (ecosystems) at the "natural level of integration". Hence, in the traditional role of an ecologist, one of Odum's doctoral aims was to recognize and classify large cyclic entities (ecosystems). However another of his aims was to make predictive generalizations about ecosystems, such as the whole world for example. For Odum, as a large entity, the world constituted a revolving cycle with high stability. It was the presence of stability which, Odum believed, enabled him to talk about the teleology of such systems. Moreover, at the time of writing his thesis, Odum felt that the principle of natural selection was more than empirical, because it had a teleological, that is a "stability over time" component. And as an ecologist interested in the behavior and function of large entities over time, Odum therefore sought to give a more general statement of natural selection so that it was equally applicable to large entities as it was to small entities traditionally studied in biology.
Ecology
Definitions of the niche date back to 1917, but G. Evelyn Hutchinson made conceptual advances in 1957 by introducing a widely adopted definition: "the set of biotic and abiotic conditions in which a species is able to persist and maintain stable population sizes." The ecological niche is a central concept in the ecology of organisms and is sub-divided into the "fundamental" and the "realized" niche. The fundamental niche is the set of environmental conditions under which a species is able to persist. The realized niche is the set of environmental plus ecological conditions under which a species persists. The Hutchinsonian niche is defined more technically as a "Euclidean hyperspace whose "dimensions" are defined as environmental variables and whose "size" is a function of the number of values that the environmental values may assume for which an organism has "positive fitness"."
Bioecological model
The bioecological model is a theoretical model of gene–environment interactions in human development. This model, first proposed by Urie Bronfenbrenner and Stephen J. Ceci, in 1994, is an extension of Bronfenbrenner's original theoretical model of human development, called ecological systems theory. Bronfenbrenner developed the bioecological model after recognizing that the individual was overlooked in other theories of human development, which were largely focused on the context of development (e.g., the environment).
Anthroposystem
The term anthroposystem is used to describe the anthropological analogue to the ecosystem. In other words, the anthroposystem model serves to compare the flow of materials through human systems to those in naturally occurring systems. As defined by Santos, an anthroposystem is "the orderly combination or arrangement of physical and biological environments for the purpose of maintaining human civilization...built by man to sustain his kind." The anthroposystem is intimately linked to economic and ecological systems as well.
Both the anthroposystem and ecosystem can be divided into three groups: producers, consumers, and recyclers. In the ecosystem, the producers or autotrophs consist of plants and some bacteria capable of producing their own food via photosynthesis or chemical synthesis, the consumers consist of animals that obtain energy from grazing and/or by feeding on other animals and the recyclers consist of decomposers such as fungi and bacteria.
August W. Eichler
The Eichler System divided the plant kingdom into non-floral plants (Cryptogamae) and floral plants (Phanerogamae). It was the first to accept the concept of evolution and therefore also the first to be considered phylogenetic. Moreover, Eichler was the first taxonomist to separate the Phanerogamae into Angiosperms and Gymnosperms and the former into Monocotyledonae and Dicotyledonae.
Ecological civilization
Two years later, the concept of ecological civilization was picked up in China, and was first used by Ye Qianji (1909–2017), an agricultural economist, in 1987. Professor Ye defined ecological civilization by drawing from the ecological sciences and environmental philosophy.
Ecosystem management
A variety of definitions exist: Robert T. Lackey defined ecosystem management as "the application of ecological and social information, options, and constraints to achieve desired social benefits within a defined geographic area and over a specified period." F. Stuart Chapin and coauthors define it as "the application of ecological science to resource management to promote long-term sustainability of ecosystems and the delivery of essential ecosystem goods and services", while Norman Christensen and coauthors defined it as "management driven by explicit goals, executed by policies, protocols, and practices, and made adaptable by monitoring and research based on our best understanding of the ecological interactions and processes necessary to sustain ecosystem structure and function" and Peter Brussard and colleagues defined it as "managing areas at various scales in such a way that ecosystem services and biological resources are preserved while appropriate human use and options for livelihood are sustained".
The Ecologist
"The Ecologist" emerged from the first wave of environmental awareness that followed the seminal book "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, which highlighted the dangers of bio-accumulative pesticides within food chains, and that culminated in the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm in 1972. This period also saw the establishment of leading environmental organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
History of ecology
Ecology became a central part of the World's politics as early as 1971, UNESCO launched a research program called "Man and Biosphere", with the objective of increasing knowledge about the mutual relationship between humans and nature. A few years later it defined the concept of Biosphere Reserve.
Free-market environmentalism
Recent arguments in the academic literature have used Friedrich Hayek's concept of a spontaneous order to defend a broadly non-interventionist environmental policy. Hayek originally used the concept of a spontaneous order to argue against government intervention in the market. Like the market, ecosystems contain complex networks of information, involve an ongoing dynamic process, contain orders within orders, and the entire system operates without being directed by a conscious mind. On this analysis, species takes the place of price as a visible element of the system formed by a complex set of largely unknowable elements. Human ignorance about the countless interactions between the organisms of an ecosystem limits our ability to manipulate nature. Since humans rely on the ecosystem to sustain themselves, it is argued that we have an obligation to not disrupt such systems. This analysis of ecosystems as spontaneous orders does not rely on markets qualifying as spontaneous orders. As such, one need not endorse Hayek's analysis of markets to endorse ecosystems as spontaneous orders.
Howard T. Odum
Odum used an analog of electrical energy networks to model the energy flow pathways of ecosystems. Odum's analog electrical models had a significant role in the development of his approach to systems and have been recognized as one of the earliest instances of systems ecology.
William Beebe
William Beebe was a pioneer in the field now known as ecology. His theory that organisms must be understood in the context of the ecosystems they inhabit was completely new for its time, and has been highly influential. The method he invented of methodically analyzing all organisms within a small area of wilderness has become a standard method in this field. Beebe was also a pioneer in the field of oceanography, setting a precedent with his Bathysphere dives which many other researchers would follow.
Biological integrity
Today, the accepted definition is "the capability of supporting and maintaining a balanced, integrated, adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to that of the natural habitat of the region." This definition was adapted from Frey (1977). The implications of this definition are that living systems have a variety of scales relative to which they exist, that one can quantify the parts that sustain or contribute to a system's functioning and that all systems must be seen in the context of their environments and evolutionary history. This term primarily refers to aquatic environments because the vocabulary is derived from the Clean Water Act, but the concepts can be applied to other ecosystems.
Oral ecology
Oral ecology refers to the organisms that live in a mouth. Bacteria in biofilm were first detected under the microscopes of Antony van Leeuwenhoek in the 17th century. Various bacteria and saliva are two of the major components in oral microbiology, having the capability to be harmful, but also performing beneficial and necessary roles in the immune system. Proper oral hygiene aims to control the harmful effects and prevent disease transmission.
History of ecology
Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish naturalist, is well known for his work with taxonomy but his ideas helped to lay the groundwork for modern ecology. He developed a two part naming system for classifying plants and animals. Binomial Nomenclature was used to classify, describe, and name different genera and species. The compiled editions of "Systema Naturae" developed and popularized the naming system for plants and animals in modern biology. Reid suggests "Linnaeus can fairly be regarded as the originator of systematic and ecological studies in biodiversity," due to his naming and classifying of thousands of plant and animal species. Linnaeus also influenced the foundations of Darwinian evolution, he believed that there could be change in or between different species within fixed genera. Linnaeus was also one of the first naturalists to place men in the same category as primates.
Marine Biological Laboratory
Ecosystems research became a year-round commitment at the MBL in 1962 with the founding of the Systematics-Ecology program, under the direction of Melbourne R. Carriker. In 1975, the MBL's Ecosystems Center was established, with George Woodwell as director. The original research focus was on the global carbon cycle, an emphasis maintained today. The Ecosystems Center has a year-round staff of more than 40 scientists who study a variety of ecosystems and their responses to human activities and environmental changes. The center is located in Woods Hole yet has a global reach, with active research sites in the Arctic tundra; in forest, coastal and marine sites in New England, Sweden and Brazil. The Ecosystems Center is home to two of the 26 U.S. Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites: Toolik Lake, Alaska; and Plum Island, Massachusetts. Scientists in the Ecosystems Center study the effects of forest clearance and land-use change on atmospheric chemistry, watershed processes and coastal ecology, the global-scale anthropogenic enrichment of the nitrogen cycle, and ecosystem responses to global warming. The interim director of the Ecosystems Center is Anne Giblin. Former directors of the Center who are still active on the scientific staff are Jerry Melillo, who studies the biogeochemistry of terrestrial ecosystems, and John Hobbie, a microbial ecologist. The Ecosystems Center is founded on a vision of collaborative, interdisciplinary science; shared lab facilities and instrumentation; and a long-term, large-scale, systems-wide view of ecosystem processes.
Biotope
The concept of a biotope was first advocated by Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), a German zoologist famous for the recapitulation theory. In his book "General Morphology" (1866), which defines the term "ecology", he stresses the importance of the concept of habitat as a prerequisite for an organism's existence. Haeckel also explains that with one ecosystem, its biota is shaped by environmental factors (such as water, soil, and geographical features) and interaction among living things; the original idea of a biotope was closely related to evolutional theory. Following this, F. Dahl, a professor at the Berlin Zoological Museum, referred to this ecological system as a "biotope" (biotop) (1908).
Ecological pyramid
The concept of pyramid of numbers ("Eltonian pyramid") was developed by Charles Elton (1927). Later, it would also be expressed in terms of biomass by Bodenheimer (1938).
Ecosystem model
One of the earliest, and most well-known, ecological models is the predator-prey model of Alfred J. Lotka (1925) and Vito Volterra (1926). This model takes the form of a pair of ordinary differential equations, one representing a prey species, the other its predator.
E. B. Ford
Ford was an experimental naturalist who wanted to test evolution in nature. He virtually invented the field of research known as ecological genetics. His work on the wild populations of butterflies and moths was the first to show that the predictions made by R.A. Fisher were correct. He was the first to describe and define genetic polymorphism, and predicted that human blood group polymorphisms might be maintained in the population by providing some protection against disease. Six years after this prediction it was found to be so, and furthermore, heterozygous advantage was decisively established by a study of AB x AB crosses. His magnum opus was "Ecological Genetics", which ran to four editions and was widely influential. He laid much of the groundwork for subsequent studies in this field, and was invited as a consultant to help set up similar research groups in several other countries.
Food web
Food webs serve as a framework to help ecologists organize the complex network of interactions among species observed in nature and around the world. One of the earliest descriptions of a food chain was described by a medieval Afro-Arab scholar named Al-Jahiz: "All animals, in short, cannot exist without food, neither can the hunting animal escape being hunted in his turn." The earliest graphical depiction of a food web was by Lorenzo Camerano in 1880, followed independently by those of Pierce and colleagues in 1912 and Victor Shelford in 1913. Two food webs about herring were produced by Victor Summerhayes and Charles Elton and Alister Hardy in 1923 and 1924. Charles Elton subsequently pioneered the concept of food cycles, food chains, and food size in his classical 1927 book "Animal Ecology"; Elton's 'food cycle' was replaced by 'food web' in a subsequent ecological text. After Charles Elton's use of food webs in his 1927 synthesis, they became a central concept in the field of ecology. Elton organized species into functional groups, which formed the basis for the trophic system of classification in Raymond Lindeman's classic and landmark paper in 1942 on trophic dynamics. The notion of a food web has a historical foothold in the writings of Charles Darwin and his terminology, including an "entangled bank", "web of life", "web of complex relations", and in reference to the decomposition actions of earthworms he talked about "the continued movement of the particles of earth". Even earlier, in 1768 John Bruckner described nature as "one continued web of life".
Plant ecology
Starting in the 1870s, Swiss botanist Simon Schwendener, together with his students and colleagues, established the link between plant morphology and physiological adaptations, laying the groundwork for the first ecology textbooks, Eugenius Warming's "Plantesamfund" (published in 1895) and Andreas Schimper's 1898 "Pflanzengeographie auf Physiologischer Grundlage". Warming successfully incorporated plant morphology, physiology taxonomy and biogeography into plant geography to create the field of plant ecology. Although more morphological than physiological, Schimper's has been considered the beginning of plant physiological ecology. Plant ecology was initially built around static ideas of plant distribution; incorporating the concept of succession added an element to change through time to the field. Henry Chandler Cowles' studies of plant succession on the Lake Michigan sand dunes (published in 1899) and Frederic Clements' 1916 monograph on the subject established it as a key element of plant ecology.
Ecosystem services
In 1956, Paul Sears drew attention to the critical role of the ecosystem in processing wastes and recycling nutrients. In 1970, Paul Ehrlich and Rosa Weigert called attention to "ecological systems" in their environmental science textbook and "the most subtle and dangerous threat to man's existence... the potential destruction, by man's own activities, of those ecological systems upon which the very existence of the human species depends".
Ecological systems theory
Ecological systems theory, also called development in context or human ecology theory, identifies five environmental systems with which an individual interacts. The theory offers a framework through which community psychologists examine individuals' relationships within communities and the wider society. Ecological systems theory was developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner. The theory is also commonly referred to as the ecological/systems framework.The person's own biology may be considered part of the microsystem; thus the theory has recently sometimes been called Bioecological model.
Ecocentrism
The ecocentric ethic was conceived by Aldo Leopold and recognizes that all species, including humans, are the product of a long evolutionary process and are inter-related in their life processes. The writings of Aldo Leopold and his idea of the land ethic and good environmental management are a key element to this philosophy.
Ecocentrism focuses on the biotic community as a whole and strives to maintain ecosystem composition and ecological processes. The term also finds expression in the first principle of the deep ecology movement, as formulated by Arne Næss and George Sessions in 1984
which points out that anthropocentrism, which considers humans as the center of the universe and the pinnacle of all creation, is a difficult opponent for ecocentrism.
History of science in early cultures
Theophrastus wrote some of the earliest descriptions of plants and animals, establishing the first taxonomy and looking at minerals in terms of their properties such as hardness. Pliny the Elder produced what is one of the largest encyclopedias of the natural world in 77 AD, and must be regarded as the rightful successor to Theophrastus.
Life
In the past, there have been many attempts to define what is meant by "life" through obsolete concepts such as odic force, hylomorphism, spontaneous generation and vitalism, that have now been disproved by biological discoveries. Aristotle was the first person to classify organisms. Later, Carl Linnaeus introduced his system of binomial nomenclature for the classification of species. Eventually new groups and categories of life were discovered, such as cells and microorganisms, forcing dramatic revisions of the structure of relationships between living organisms. Though currently only known on Earth, life need not be restricted to it, and many scientists speculate in the existence of extraterrestrial life. Artificial life is a computer simulation or man-made reconstruction of any aspect of life, which is often used to examine systems related to natural life.
Ecological stability
The term 'oekology' was coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866. Ecology as a science was developed further during the late 19th and the early 20th century, and increasing attention was directed toward the connection between diversity and stability. Frederic Clements and Henry Gleason contributed knowledge of community structure; among other things, these two scientists introduced the opposing ideas that a community can either reach a "stable climax" or that it is largely "coincidental and variable". Charles Elton argued in 1958 that complex, diverse communities tended to be more stable. Robert MacArthur proposed a mathematical description of stability in the number of individuals in a food web in 1955. After much progress made with experimental studies in the 60's, Robert May advanced the field of theoretical ecology and refuted the idea that diversity begets stability. Many definitions of ecological stability have emerged in the last decades while the concept continues to gain attention.
Agroecology
This concept was proposed by political ecologist Josep Garí to recognise and uphold the integrated agro-ecological practices of many indigenous peoples, who simultaneously and sustainably safeguard, manage and use ecosystems for agricultural, food, biodiversity and cultural purposes at the same time. Indigenous agroecologies are not systems and practices halted in time, but keep co-evolving with new knowledge and resources, such as that provided by development projects, research initiatives and agro-biodiversity exchanges. In fact, the first agro-ecologists were indigenous peoples that advocated development policies and programmes to support their systems, rather than replacing them.
Taxon
Although preceded by Linnaeus's system in "Systema Naturae" (10th edition, 1758) and unpublished work by Bernard and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, the notion of a unit-based "natural system" of biological classification was first made widely available in 1805 through the publication, as the introduction to the third edition of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's "Flore françoise", of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle's "Principes élémentaires de botanique", an exposition of a system for the "natural classification" of plants. Since then, systematists have striven to construct an accurate classification encompassing the diversity of life; today, a "good" or "useful" taxon is commonly taken to be one that reflects evolutionary relationships.
Biocoenosis
An ecosystem, originally defined by Tansley (1935), is a biotic community (or biocenosis) along with its physical environment (or "biotope"). In ecological studies, biocenosis is the emphasis on relationships between species in an area. These relationships are an additional consideration to the interaction of each species with the physical environment.
Ecology
Ecology is as much a biological science as it is a human science. Human ecology is an interdisciplinary investigation into the ecology of our species. "Human ecology may be defined: (1) from a bioecological standpoint as the study of man as the ecological dominant in plant and animal communities and systems; (2) from a bioecological standpoint as simply another animal affecting and being affected by his physical environment; and (3) as a human being, somehow different from animal life in general, interacting with physical and modified environments in a distinctive and creative way. A truly interdisciplinary human ecology will most likely address itself to all three." The term was formally introduced in 1921, but many sociologists, geographers, psychologists, and other disciplines were interested in human relations to natural systems centuries prior, especially in the late 19th century.
Tundi Spring Agardy
In 2001, shortly after founding Sound Seas, Agardy began brainstorming with colleagues from the World Resources Institute about how to recognize the value of natural ecosystems for humanity. This led to her involvement with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), which in 2005 published the first global evaluation of the status of ecosystems in relation to human well-being. Agardy headed the coastal portion of this comprehensive assessment, and was co-author of the summary document “Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Biodiversity Synthesis".
Stephen Alfred Forbes
Stephen Alfred Forbes (May 29, 1844 – March 13, 1930) was the first chief of the Illinois Natural History Survey, a founder of aquatic ecosystem science and a dominant figure in the rise of American ecology. His publications are striking for their merger of extensive field observations with conceptual insights. Forbes believed that ecological knowledge was fundamental for human well being. Forbes was important to the development of ecological theory. He was acknowledged by the National Academy of Sciences as "the founder of the science of ecology in the United States".
Ecological literacy
Ecological literacy (also referred to as "ecoliteracy") is the ability to understand the natural systems that make life on earth possible. To be ecoliterate means understanding the principles of organization of ecological communities (i.e. ecosystems) and using those principles for creating sustainable human communities. The term was coined by American educator David W. Orr and physicist Fritjof Capra in the 1990s- thereby a new value entered education; the “well-being of the earth”.