How are place-based research communities created? Insights from two historical cases.

Background/Question/Methods

Ecology, being interdisciplinary, has always experienced difficulty establishing its identity as a separate discipline.  Creating field stations and fostering semi-permanent research communities has been an important reason for the discipline’s growth and coherence.  But why and how do research communities form?  This problem can be approached historically by examining the complex motives underlying certain place-based initiatives.

Results/Conclusions

Important centers for place-based research in ecology sometimes owed their existence to a fortuitous convergence of interests that were scientific, economic, and military.  Two historical examples illustrate this point: the Carnegie Institution’s Desert Botanical Laboratory (1903-1940), which was one of the “hot spots” for ecological research in the U.S. in the decade preceding the formation of the ESA; and the Arctic Research Laboratory created in the late-1940s at Point Barrow, Alaska, which was one of the first sponsored research activities of the Office of Naval Research.  In recognizing the importance of intellectual communities as a force for the development of ecology, we  might bear in mind the broader societal reasons for their creation, which may extend beyond the intellectual goals of advancing ecological science.