Lecture 95 September 13

Post WW2

• Interest in ecology was primarily academic
• Economic forces favor development and not long-term concern
• Mid to late sixties concern with population growth. Paul Ehrlick publish book, The Population Bomb. That and other work by ecologists gave them the title of the gloom and doom boys
• The advent of the space race in the late fifties and early sixties foster the growth and development of computers. Many techniques used in the electronics industry came to be applied in ecology, particularly systems analysis. Early work in the area was done by the Odum brothers at Silver Springs in Florida.
• IBP program in late sixties early seventies continued this thrust with the development of large scale biological models. Although the IBP was discontinued, today, similar work is carried out at LTER sites (Long Term Ecological Research Sites). Hubbard Brook, just up the road from Plymouth, is a LTER site along with other experimental forest and grassland belong to the U. S. Forest Service
  

  Thrusts in other areas

  • Heirarchical arrangement of levels of function, eg.,
    1. Earth
    2. Ecosystems
    3. Communities
    4. Populations
    5. Individuals
    6. Body Systems
    7. Body Organs
    8. Tissues
    9. Cells
    10. Cellular Organelles
    11. Macromolecules
  • Many recent studies at levels other than Community and Ecosystem
    1. Guild theory
    2. Optimal Foraging Strategy
    3. Island Biogeography
    4. Energy and time budgets
  • Present "bandwagon" is species diversity
    1. Other areas of interest are:
    2. Ecosystem sensitivity to perturbations
    3. Ecosystem stability
    4. Movement away from endangered species to endangered ecosystems.