The History of Vegetation Ecology in The American Midland Naturalist

Background/Question/Methods In honor of 100 years of publishing by The American Midland Naturalist (AMN), I attempt here the task of scribing the history of vegetation ecology during that period. An understanding of previous works is necessary for improvement of a scientific discipline and “a periodic inspection of foundations is most desirable” (Cooper 1926). The American Midland Naturalist was founded in 1910 by botantist Reverend Julius Arthur Nieuland C.S.C. Reverend Nieuland held doctoral degrees in philosophy and science. His keen interest in taxonomy, anatomy, and the history of botany are elucidated in his frequent contributions to the journal. Prior to 1900, ecological discussions were embedded within a context of classification and description of species. Even prior to 1800, however, some notable ecological concepts began to emerge, including plant-climate interactions, plant distributions, phenology, carrying capacity, and life history characteristics. I used the subject matter of plant-related publications in the AMN to develop a time-line of vegetation ecology, focusing on the general trends of research emphasis. Plant ecology seems to have gone from a descriptive and exploratory phase, followed by deductive and now applicative phase.
Results/Conclusions

Vegetation ecology was in a descriptive mode at the turn of the 20^th century. Prior to 1920, plant contributions to the AMN were dominated by taxonomic studies (80%), including species descriptions and clarifications of generic relationships. Reproductive ecology was the second most common study topic published (8%). Plant publications dominated the journal through the 1920s, making up approximately 50%, but subsequently dropped to less than 40%, and have not dominated since. In 1948, H.M Raup became the first associate editor of plant ecology for AMN. In the middle of the nineteenth century, AMN publications were dominated by taxonomic studies that more often related taxa to their environment, had more refined descriptions of natural history, and included increasingly more ecologically-specific concepts. Work involving interactions between two taxa, especially plant and animal, were becoming more common. From 1970 to 2000, the field of ecology was burgeoning. Natural history and descriptive studies were rare, and taxonomic studies made up less than 10% of AMN publications. Plant ecology had grown to asking more specific questions. In the present decade, while studies of disturbance and applications of ecology each made up about 20% of The AMN publications, species interaction studies dominated at over 30%.