NUMBERS From Nature - A History of Field Ecology

Background/Question/Methods

Coming from a background in secondary education in the UK and, before that, from an ecological education, which came at about the middle of the century of ecology, I wanted to explore the people, the places and the history of the development of ecology in the field.  To this end, and for the last three years, I have been travelling to the sites of those major ecological researches that were judged by Real and Brown (1991) as ‘laying the foundations of modern ecology’.   In addition, I have added some further studies to extend the reach to the very beginning of ecology and into some areas which Real and Brown perhaps neglect (most particularly plant population work and ecological genetics).

The question is, to what extent did the people, the places and the time (in the sense of development of ecological thought) influence the work that was done in the field and its importance in the subsequent development of ecology?

Results/Conclusions

At the moment the results are in the form of digital photographs and videos, notes from interviews with relevant people and from literature research  The poster will display some of this.

Hopefully in time for 2015 the results of my work will be presented in the form of:

a website  featuring:

photographs  of the key sites as they are today. These are every level from general panoramas to the organisms involved, where this was possible.

archival photographs  of the site at the relevant date (where available)

videos  giving a tour of the sites

a book entitled ‘Numbers from Nature’ will be written and (hopefully) published in which the main findings will be reported.  The structure of this will be a chapter per study, together with an introduction, which will deal with field observations and experiments (both ‘natural’ and devised).  The book will feature some of the photography.  It will be aimed at the intelligent end of the popular market for science writing.

Google Earth will be used to set up a Virtual Green Plaque Scheme to put the work, literally, on the map.

The 'take home message' will be please, look out photographs, think about reminiscences and if you have anything else to offer about the places, the work and the people I have chosen to focus on.

Ref.

Real, L and Brown, J (1991).  Foundations of Ecology, University of Chicago Press