Ecological Rock Stars

Symposium 8 " What makes an ecological icon? Tuesday, August 8, 2006, 1:30 " 5:00 PM, Cotton Row, Mezzanine Level, Cook Convention Center, Memphis, TN.

Newswise — Contrary to popular public perception that the field of ecology arose in the 1960s, the science of ecology can be traced back to the mid-1800s. Reflecting the Society's 2006 Annual Meeting theme, the symposium, 'What makes an ecological icon?' will journey through history to highlight ecologists who helped shape the field. Speakers will include both historians and ecologists who will draw on examples from terrestrial, aquatic, and marine systems, spanning organisms to ecosystems.

Twentieth Century ecologists who enhanced understanding of marine intertidal zones through influential studies including competition, predation, and food web research will be illuminated by Jonathan Fisher (University of Pennsylvania). Fisher plans to also address how online services can facilitate rediscovery of even obscure works that may have been overlooked.

Frank Egerton (University of Wisconsin-Parkside) will explore the icons of food chains and food webs starting with Richard Bradley's presentation of hyper-parasitism in the early 1700s to George Woodwell and Clive Edward's diagrams of DDT pathways in 1967 and 1970 respectively. Victor Shelford's 1913 portrayal of aquatic and terrestrial food webs and Howard Odum's depiction of humans' roles in ecosystems through flow chart schema he borrowed from engineering electrical circuit diagrams will also be featured.

James Carlton (Williams College) will examine the early thoughts of those ecologists who speculated that humans had altered the distribution of species in the world's oceans centuries ago. While terrestrial ecologists tended to embrace the viewpoint that people had affected the distributions of thousands of species, freshwater and marine ecologists were more hesitant to accept this premise.

The perhaps surprisingly old tensions between advocacy and scientific work will be addressed by Sara Tjossem (Columbia University). Tjossem will scroll back to the early 1900s to highlight examples of ecologists who urged action to stem the loss of nature and those who maintained that only scholarly pursuits were appropriate for ecologists. This early debate led to the formation of both the Ecological Society of America (1915) and The Nature Conservancy (1951).

Eugene and Howard Odum, as key architects of ecosystem ecology in the 1950s and 60s, and their ambitions to liberate ecology from traditional biology will be highlighted by Joel Hagen (Radford University).

Saran Twombly (National Science Foundation) will show that while Evelyn Hutchison was ultimately eclipsed as an icon by others who demonstrated his theory mathematically or empirically, Hutchison deserves the credit for advancing the then-radical explanation of nonequilibrium theory. The 'balance of nature' was the prevailing viewpoint in the early 1940s when Hutchison first proposed his theory. Hutchison's ideas took over 30 years to gain true momentum once nonlinear mathematics, long-term datasets, and expanded computing capabilities backed up his theory on nonequilibrium. Rounding out the session, Paul Dayton (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) will discuss current norms of scholarship and publication and how the mechanics of citation and on-line searching play into the creation of new ecological icons. Among other things, Dayton will argue that the efforts of "procedural zealots" who force researchers to use particular methods of scholarship curtail the types of questions ecologists ask and stymie intellectual diversity.

For more information about this session and other ESA Meeting activities, visit: http://www.esa.org/memphis/. The theme of the meeting is "Icons and Upstarts in Ecology" and some 3,000 scientists are expected to attend.

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a scientific, non-profit, 9500-member organization founded in 1915. Through ESA reports, journals, membership research, and expert testimony to Congress, ESA seeks to promote the responsible application of ecological data and principles to the solution of environmental problems. ESA publishes four scientific, peer-reviewed journals: Ecology, Ecological Applications, Ecological Monographs, and Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. For more information about the Society visit http://www.esa.org.