Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 3.1 Iconic ecologists
and their emphases on the
attributes of successional
systems
Increasing Level of Holism
H.A. Gleason
E.P. Odum
A.G. Tansley
A.S. Watts
R.A. Slatyer
J. Connell
F.E. Clements
H.C. Cowles
All of these scientists are holistic in that they focused on the larger system
behavior of ecological systems. The most holistic of these scientists would see the
community as a highly organized, perhaps highly coevolved systems described as
an abstract community in the definition section of this paper (above). They also vary
on the degree to which they emphasize feedbacks between the organisms and their
environment.
F.E. Clements
The iconic scientists in
Fig. 3.1
represent different points of view in the formative
debates on the nature of ecological succession in the formative period in the first
third of the twentieth century. Clements was in some sense the dominant figure in
these discussions. A.G. Tansley who represented strong opposition to many of
Clements' fundamental concepts, wrote Clements obituary [
12
] for
The Journal
of Ecology
,
Though out of accord with many American ecologists, Clements had, throughout his career,
a devoted following of younger men, and besides exercising a worldwide influence through
his theory of vegetation, he directly inspired a great deal of American ecological research.
This was partly due to his powerful personality. He was decidedly puritan, even ascetic (he
neither drank nor smoked, and it gave him real pain to see other people doing so), and his
manner was apt to be tinged with a certain arrogance. These things naturally antagonized
many people; but at the same time his capacity for hard work, his intense and complete
devotion to his subject, his powerful intellect and unremitting search for fresh knowledge
and satisfactory formulations, could not fail to inspire the highest respect.
