Michael J. Lannoo
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226358475
- eISBN:
- 9780226358505
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226358505.003.0004
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Nature
In the chapter I discuss the development of ecology in America. Our first ecologist was Stephen A. Forbes, who worked in Illinois. In his wake, “ecology became self-conscious” and the four great ...
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In the chapter I discuss the development of ecology in America. Our first ecologist was Stephen A. Forbes, who worked in Illinois. In his wake, “ecology became self-conscious” and the four great early ecological schools—the Nebraska school of plant ecology, the Chicago schools of plant and animal ecology, and the Wisconsin school of limnology—were established. These schools emphasized organisms having interactions with each other and their environments. Later, G. Evelyn Hutchinson would define ecology as interactions having organisms, with the result that ecology frequently became a theoretic academic exercise divorced from societal concerns about conservation and preservation. It would take the environmental movement, with its legislative emphasis on organisms and the funding that followed, to re-establish interest and respect for organismal-based ecology.Less
In the chapter I discuss the development of ecology in America. Our first ecologist was Stephen A. Forbes, who worked in Illinois. In his wake, “ecology became self-conscious” and the four great early ecological schools—the Nebraska school of plant ecology, the Chicago schools of plant and animal ecology, and the Wisconsin school of limnology—were established. These schools emphasized organisms having interactions with each other and their environments. Later, G. Evelyn Hutchinson would define ecology as interactions having organisms, with the result that ecology frequently became a theoretic academic exercise divorced from societal concerns about conservation and preservation. It would take the environmental movement, with its legislative emphasis on organisms and the funding that followed, to re-establish interest and respect for organismal-based ecology.
JOE C. TRUETT
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520258396
- eISBN:
- 9780520944527
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520258396.003.0003
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
This chapter narrates how the author has been influenced by Frederic E. Clements, an ecologist who developed a theory of community ecology. According to Clements, a plant community resembles in some ...
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This chapter narrates how the author has been influenced by Frederic E. Clements, an ecologist who developed a theory of community ecology. According to Clements, a plant community resembles in some ways a community of people, consisting of plants that coexist and interact. He called this theory community succession, in which each plant community started from bare ground and over time the community advances through a series of successional stages until finally it enters into the climax. Many ecologists in Clements's day believed that nature strived constantly toward climax, the ultimate endpoint, guided by an Invisible Hand or Divine Purpose. Philosophers have called this view determinism while some people now might call it Creationism. At the height of Clements's influence in the mid-1900s, ecologist Frank Egler criticized the unquestioning acceptance of succession theory, however, Clements's views prevailed for most of the century.Less
This chapter narrates how the author has been influenced by Frederic E. Clements, an ecologist who developed a theory of community ecology. According to Clements, a plant community resembles in some ways a community of people, consisting of plants that coexist and interact. He called this theory community succession, in which each plant community started from bare ground and over time the community advances through a series of successional stages until finally it enters into the climax. Many ecologists in Clements's day believed that nature strived constantly toward climax, the ultimate endpoint, guided by an Invisible Hand or Divine Purpose. Philosophers have called this view determinism while some people now might call it Creationism. At the height of Clements's influence in the mid-1900s, ecologist Frank Egler criticized the unquestioning acceptance of succession theory, however, Clements's views prevailed for most of the century.
Nathan F. Sayre
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226083117
- eISBN:
- 9780226083391
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226083391.001.0001
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cultural and Historical Geography
This book tells the history of scientific efforts to understand and manage rangelands—the grasslands, shrublands, savannas, tundra, steppe and deserts that comprise some two-fifths of Earth’s land ...
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This book tells the history of scientific efforts to understand and manage rangelands—the grasslands, shrublands, savannas, tundra, steppe and deserts that comprise some two-fifths of Earth’s land surface. Beginning around the turn of the twentieth century, the United States Forest Service employed scientists in hopes of rapidly discovering ways to heal damage from overgrazing, maximize the production of forage and livestock, and resolve conflicts about the use of public lands. But the scale and variability of rangelands defied the logics of capital, the state and science alike. Exterminating rodents and predators, suppressing wildfire, and assigning carrying capacities to fenced areas of rangelands were all imposed on western public lands for political and economic reasons, with science serving to justify these measures as apolitical and “natural.” Frederic Clements’ theory of plant succession dominated the discipline for most of the twentieth century, even as early range scientists recognized its flaws and attempted to voice their objections. Perennial conflicts between US federal land management agencies, ranchers, and environmentalists reflect their shared adherence to Clementsian ideas, which were displaced among scientists only after the Western Range model failed, repeatedly and conspicuously, in pastoral development projects in the Third World. Across the West today, community-based conservation initiatives suggest the promise of more collaborative, multi-scaled approaches to managing rangelands.Less
This book tells the history of scientific efforts to understand and manage rangelands—the grasslands, shrublands, savannas, tundra, steppe and deserts that comprise some two-fifths of Earth’s land surface. Beginning around the turn of the twentieth century, the United States Forest Service employed scientists in hopes of rapidly discovering ways to heal damage from overgrazing, maximize the production of forage and livestock, and resolve conflicts about the use of public lands. But the scale and variability of rangelands defied the logics of capital, the state and science alike. Exterminating rodents and predators, suppressing wildfire, and assigning carrying capacities to fenced areas of rangelands were all imposed on western public lands for political and economic reasons, with science serving to justify these measures as apolitical and “natural.” Frederic Clements’ theory of plant succession dominated the discipline for most of the twentieth century, even as early range scientists recognized its flaws and attempted to voice their objections. Perennial conflicts between US federal land management agencies, ranchers, and environmentalists reflect their shared adherence to Clementsian ideas, which were displaced among scientists only after the Western Range model failed, repeatedly and conspicuously, in pastoral development projects in the Third World. Across the West today, community-based conservation initiatives suggest the promise of more collaborative, multi-scaled approaches to managing rangelands.
JOE C. TRUETT
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520258396
- eISBN:
- 9780520944527
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520258396.003.0011
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
This chapter focuses on range management plans. It begins by discussing a range management built on the notion of community succession and climax as laid out by Frederic Clements. It then describes ...
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This chapter focuses on range management plans. It begins by discussing a range management built on the notion of community succession and climax as laid out by Frederic Clements. It then describes the analysis of brush encroachment. Reasons for brush encroachment vary, but cessation of fire tops most lists. On many of the more arid ranges, grazing and the fire reduction that results from grazing stand as the prime collaborators in brush encroachment.Less
This chapter focuses on range management plans. It begins by discussing a range management built on the notion of community succession and climax as laid out by Frederic Clements. It then describes the analysis of brush encroachment. Reasons for brush encroachment vary, but cessation of fire tops most lists. On many of the more arid ranges, grazing and the fire reduction that results from grazing stand as the prime collaborators in brush encroachment.
Nathan F. Sayre
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226083117
- eISBN:
- 9780226083391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226083391.003.0001
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cultural and Historical Geography
Rangelands comprise between one-third and one-half of all the ice-free land on Earth, one-and-a-half times the area of all forests and two-and-a-half times greater than croplands. But rangelands and ...
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Rangelands comprise between one-third and one-half of all the ice-free land on Earth, one-and-a-half times the area of all forests and two-and-a-half times greater than croplands. But rangelands and the science of rangelands have remained remarkably invisible to the general public and scholars alike. The introduction gives an overview of the history of efforts to understand rangelands scientifically, and it proposes an argument for the importance of rangelands that can also account for their obscurity. Rangelands are vast, sparsely inhabited, and relatively unproductive, qualities that have discouraged or made difficult sustained scholarly research and resulted in a generalized public indifference to these lands. And yet it is precisely rangelands’ manifold marginality that enables them to defy and disrupt social forces that elsewhere seem so powerful, and to thereby illuminate core tendencies, contradictions and limitations in modern ways of knowing, using and governing land and people.Less
Rangelands comprise between one-third and one-half of all the ice-free land on Earth, one-and-a-half times the area of all forests and two-and-a-half times greater than croplands. But rangelands and the science of rangelands have remained remarkably invisible to the general public and scholars alike. The introduction gives an overview of the history of efforts to understand rangelands scientifically, and it proposes an argument for the importance of rangelands that can also account for their obscurity. Rangelands are vast, sparsely inhabited, and relatively unproductive, qualities that have discouraged or made difficult sustained scholarly research and resulted in a generalized public indifference to these lands. And yet it is precisely rangelands’ manifold marginality that enables them to defy and disrupt social forces that elsewhere seem so powerful, and to thereby illuminate core tendencies, contradictions and limitations in modern ways of knowing, using and governing land and people.
Daniel B. Botkin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199913916
- eISBN:
- 9780190267919
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199913916.003.0006
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
This chapter examines the organic view of Earth in comparison with the scientific and technology-age perception of the planet. It first charts the history of the organic view of Earth before ...
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This chapter examines the organic view of Earth in comparison with the scientific and technology-age perception of the planet. It first charts the history of the organic view of Earth before discussing its essence: an idealized (that is, perfect) organism passes through the major life stages from birth to youth, maturation, maturity, reproduction, old age, senility, and death. In particular, it considers the idea that adaptation did not have to be symmetrical and beautiful to be the creation of God, and that God was the only way that such adaptations could come about, in relation to the theological design argument. It also explores Henry David Thoreau's views about nature, the philosophical-religious doctrine of transcendentalism, and his experience in climbing Mount Katahdin in Maine. Finally, the chapter analyzes Frederic Edward Clements's concept of nature as superorganisms.Less
This chapter examines the organic view of Earth in comparison with the scientific and technology-age perception of the planet. It first charts the history of the organic view of Earth before discussing its essence: an idealized (that is, perfect) organism passes through the major life stages from birth to youth, maturation, maturity, reproduction, old age, senility, and death. In particular, it considers the idea that adaptation did not have to be symmetrical and beautiful to be the creation of God, and that God was the only way that such adaptations could come about, in relation to the theological design argument. It also explores Henry David Thoreau's views about nature, the philosophical-religious doctrine of transcendentalism, and his experience in climbing Mount Katahdin in Maine. Finally, the chapter analyzes Frederic Edward Clements's concept of nature as superorganisms.
