the rise of ecology natural history - new mexico state ...biology-web.nmsu.edu/~boecklen/history of...
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Natural HistoryThe Rise of Ecology
Ecology
MedicinePollutionExplorationEconomics
Romans (AD 230) had rudimentary life expectancy tables for selling annuities to defer burial expenses. Average life-expectancy was 20-30 yrs.
Demography
Thomas Malthus - population growth Essay on the Principle of Population (1789)
two principle hungers that nature has instilled in man: that forfood and that for sex
Thomas Malthus (1766 - 1834)economist and demographerpopulation growth - An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)“Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.”
“This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.”
major impetus for the concept of “Struggle for Existence”
Natural HistoryThe Rise of Ecology
Ecology
MedicinePollutionExplorationEconomicsScientific InfluencesBeginning in the 18th century a transformation of Natural History from a static disciple to one emphasizing the importance of spatial (environmental) and temporal change on organisms
Natural HistoryScientific Influences on Natural History
Ecology
Systematics
Carl Linnaeus
Georges-Louis Le Clerc de Buffon
Major conceptual change regarding the “fixity of species”
Jean Baptiste Lamarck
Étienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire
Erasmus Darwin
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778)system of bionomial nomenclature
initially believed that the species were unchangeable
observed plant hybridization – produced forms which looked like new species
suggested that some -- perhaps most -- species in a genus might have arisen after the creation of the world, through hybridization
theorized that plant species might be altered through the process of acclimatization
This might be the first centers-of-origin concept.
Linnaeus and NoahLinnaeus proposed in 1744 that the animals were preserved on Mt. Ararat during the Flood, rather than in the Ark, and that they dispersed from there to all regions of the globe.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)French naturalist, mathematician, biologist, cosmologist and author. Buffon's views influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin.
Major work: Histoire Naturelle (1749-1778: in 36 volumes, 8 additional volumes published after his death)
Buffon's Law - widely considered the first principle of Biogeography
species must have both "improved" and "degenerated" (evolved) after dispersing away from a center of creation
climate change must have facilitated the worldwide spread of species from their center of origin
Buffon’s Law
That climatologically similar, but geographically separate regions of the world has distinct biotic assemblages. Suggested "centre of origin" for earth’s biota was in the far north when climates were more benign, biotas changed and diversified as they colonized southward into present day North America and Eurasia.
Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802)Charles Darwin's grandfatherrespected physician, a well known poet, philosopher, botanist, and naturalist
one of the first formal theories on evolutionZoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life (1794-1796)
life evolved from a single common ancestor, forming "one living filament"
sexual selection - "The final course of this contest among males seems to be, that the strongest and most active animal should propogate the species which should thus be improved"
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/Edarwin.html
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)"Do we not therefore perceive that by the action of the laws of organization . . . nature has in favorable times, places, and climates multiplied her first germs of animality, given place to developments of their organizations, . . . and increased and diversified their organs? Then. . . aided by much time and by a slow but constant diversity of circumstances, she has gradually brought about in this respect the state of things which we now observe. How grand is this consideration, and especially how remote is it from all that is generally thought on this subject!“
Text of a lecture given by Lamarck at the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, May 1803
"The external world is all-powerful in alteration of the form of organized bodies.. . these [modifications] are inherited, and they influence all the rest of the organization of the animal, because if these modifications lead to injurious effects, the animals which exhibit them perish and are replaced by others of a somewhat different form, a form changed so as to be adapted to the new environment."
Étienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1772-1844)
yes, he saw all vertebrates as modifications of a single archetype
"Can the organization of vertebrated animals be referred to one uniform type?"
Vestigial organs and embryonic transformations might serve no functional purpose, but they indicated the common derivation of an animal from its archetype
Influence du monde ambiant pour modifier les formes animales (1833)
Homologous structures
Natural HistoryScientific Influences on Natural History
Ecology
SystematicsBiogeography
Major conceptual change regarding the distributions of species, especially with respect to the role of the environment
Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798)
depauperate islands
sailed with Cook
world biotic regions
floristic zonation with latitude
regional flora linked to environment
latitudinal diversity gradient – heat
higher species diversity in tropics
species diversity correlated with island size
distributions of mammals can not be sufficiently explained by climate - explained by the history of earth
land bridges theory to explain why continents and islands share the same fauna
considered the father of historical biogeography
Major Work: Specimen Zoologiae GeographicaeQuadrupedum
Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmerman (1743-1815)
Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812)one of the first phytogeographers
major synthesizer of plant geography
mentor to Alexander von Humboldt
many sites of origin
plant distribution patterns changed over time
new plant species could arise and that many previously existing ones had gone extinct
plant assemblages respond to climate
Augustin Pyramus De Candolle (1778-1841)
one of the first important plant geographers
associated plant distribution with soil conditions
one of the first to attempt to quantify diversity
distinguish the concepts of habitat (geographic range) and station (habitat)
considered questions of scale in phytogeography
Island species richness = f (size & age, isolation, disturbance)
Joachim Frederik Schouw (1789-1852)
first comprehensive textbook on plant geography – 1822
role of environmental factors on plant distribution - temperature
August Heinrich Rudolf Grisebach (1814-1879)
concept of integrated communities of organisms
coined the term "Geobotanik" (geobotany)
relation of climate to floral assemblages
described more than 50 major vegetation formations worldwide in modern physiognomic terms
first global overview of vegetation with a vegetation map
Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911)
species richness = f (habitat richness)
friend of Darwin
sailed with Ross - Antarctica
phytogeography
land bridges – vicariance biogeography
island biogeography
The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya
Carl Georg Lucas Christian Bergmann (1814 – 1865)
heat balance and body size with animals
Bergmann’s Rule - among mammals and birds, individuals of a particular species in colder areas tend to have greater body mass than individuals in warmer areas
Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger (1803 - 1863)
influence of climatic conditions on the geographical differences among species
pioneer in the study of bird conservation, especially as related to the law
Gloger’s Rule -within a species of endotherms, more heavily pigmented forms tend to be found in more humid environments
Natural HistoryScientific Influences on Natural History
Ecology
SystematicsBiogeography
Major conceptual changes regarding the age of the Earth, mechanisms of inheritance and evolutionary change (Natural Selection), and the role of the environment in species evolution.
Evolutionary Biology
AGE OF THE EARTH
3641 BCE - February 10 Mayans4004 BCE - October 23 James Ussher in 1658
Date of creation3926 BCE - October 26 John Lightfoot in 1644
96,670 yrs George-Louis Leclerc in 1778Age calculations
experiments with iron spheresobserved rates of sedimentation and proposed (posthumously) estimates as long as 3 billion yrs
24 – 400 million yrs William Thomson in 1862
rates of cooling of a molten EarthLord Kelvin
James Hutton (1726 - 1797)father of modern geology
Theory of Uniformitarianism
processes occurring in the present were the same processes that had operated in the past, and would be the processes that operate in the future
Hutton's Unconformity, Siccar Point, Scotland
Devonian Old Red Sandstone
Ordovician shale
"...if an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among the individuals of that species, we must be assured, that, on the one hand, those which depart most from the best adapted constitution, will be the most liable to perish, while, on the other hand, those organised bodies, which most approach to the best constitution for the present circumstances, will be best adapted to continue, in preserving themselves and multiplying the individuals of their race." – Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge, Volume 2
Charles Lyell (1797 - 1875)Uniformitarianism – “the present is the key to
the past”extinction + creation episodes
climate, sea level, terrain are mutable - but not species
divided geological time according to proportion of recent to extinct species of shells - Pleistocene, Older Pliocene, Miocene and Eocene
rock cycle
Major Work: Principles of Geology (1833)
giraffe's neck example
Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884)
inheritance of traits in pea plants
Experiments on Plant Hybridization (1866)
work was rediscovered by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns in 1900
R. A. Fisher (1918) analyzed Mendel’s results and found them to be implausibly close to the exact ratio of 3 to 1
father of genetics
Anton Joseph Kerner von Marilaun (1831-1898)
work was well known to both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace
transplant gardens in Tyrolean Alps (300 species) - distinguished heritable from environmentally-affected factors
plant succession
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)Voyage of the Beagle (1831 - 1836)
Natural Selection
Ostrich Greater Rhea Lesser Rhea
Variation in Large Flightless Birds
Charles Darwin Galápagos Mockingbirds
Closely related Mockingbirds on different islands had inhabited different niches.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
“In this archipelago there are two distinct faunas… yet there is nothing on the map or on the face of the islands to mark their limits.”
Wallace in Singapore in 1862
independently proposed a theory of natural selection
““On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type.from the Original Type.””
father of modern biogeography
one of the earliest voices in the scientific community to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity
Wallace's Line - Malay Archipelago (1854 - 1862)125,660 specimens, 1000 new species
Wallace’s Faunal Regions - The Geographical Distribution of Animals (1876)
Natural HistoryScientific Influences on Natural History
Ecology
SystematicsBiogeography
Major conceptual changes regarding the role of the environment on the form and function of organisms
Evolutionary BiologyPhysiology
Justus von Liebig (1803-1873)
discovery of nitrogen as an essential plant nutrient
father of the fertilizer industry
Law of the Minimum
a plant's development is limited by the one essential mineral that is in the shortest relative supply
Limiting Factors
Carl Gottfried Semper (1832-1893)
comparative anatomy and physiology
Major work: Animal Life as Affected by the Natural Conditions of Existence (1881)
animal physiological ecology
physiological approaches to explain particulars of distribution, adaptation, and morphology
Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper (1856 - 1901)
first to describe chloroplasts
starch is a source of stored energy for plants
father of synecology – vegetation typestropical rain forest
physiological ecology - temperature and moisture and morphological adaptations
Major Work: Pflanzengeographie auf Physiologischer Grundlage (1898)
Die epiphytische Vegetation Amerikas (1888)
Joel Asaph Allen (1838-1921)one of America's leading naturalists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
detailed data on character traits variation –geographic variation
early concept of life zones
one of the first leaders of the American conservationist movement - bison
physical environment, especially climate, was the most importantforce promoting evolutionary change - neo-Lamarckian
bird migration patterns are related to climate shifts initiated by the glacial epochs
Allen’s Rule
From the northern arctic hare (L. arcticus) through the more southerly desert jackrabbit (L. alleni), members of the genus Lepus show progressively longer extremities (legs & ears) and leaner bodies.
The Rise of “Self-Conscious” Ecology1866 Ernst Haeckel – “oekologie”
Morphology of Organisms
1893 John Scott Burdon-SandersonBritish Association for the Advancement of Science
ecology was a branch of biology coequal with morphology and physiology
Johannes Eugenius Bülow Warming (1841 – 1924)
first textbook on plant ecology Plantesamfund (1895)
father of plant ecology – first ecology course
morphological and anatomical adaptations to various environments
divided plants into four “life-forms”: hydrophytes, mesophytes, xerophytes, and halophytes
ecological plant geography
SELF-
CONSCIOUS
ECOLOG
Y
1897 chair of ecological botany established at Uppsala University
1902 funding from the Carnegie Institution
1905 Frederic Clements - ecology textResearch Methods in Ecology
1913 Journal of Ecology
1913 Charles Christopher AdamsGuide to the Study of Animal Ecology
1916 Ecological Society of America
1920 Ecology