External Influences on Ecological Theory: Report on Organized Oral Session 80 at the 100th Anniversary Meeting of the Ecological Society of America

Abstract

The 100-year history of the Ecological Society of America spans most of the major advances in the field of ecology, from the “niche” of Grinnell and others, to Lotka and Volterra's models of predation and competition based on the logistic growth equation, to the concept of competitive exclusion developed from experimental ecology, to genetics and evolutionary ecology and all the ramifications and specializations of these topics over the rest of the 20th and into the 21st century.

The objective of this session, sponsored by the Historical Records Committee of the ESA, was to explore how ecological concepts have been shaped and changed by influences that are external to the scientific method, such as funding priorities, ideology, politics, personalities, and differences between the ecosystems where influential ecologists developed their ideas. Among the many memorable quotations of the philosopher/poet George Santayana (1863–1952) is the often quoted and misquoted observation, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

With more than a century behind us, it seems appropriate to look back on the history of our field to examine how the important concepts have developed and changed over time so that we can move forward to solve the major new problems facing our planet, rather than reinventing the old ideas that have been (or perhaps should not have been and were not) included in our canon Show more