Ecosystems Analysis and Population Biology: Lessons for the Development of Community Ecology

Abstract

Before 1950 research in community and ecosystem ecology was dominated by descriptive studies of particular plant and animal communities, and so it tended to emphasize specific detail over potential generalities. As early as 1942, Raymond Lindeman had pioneered the trophic-dynamic approach to ecosystems analysis, but studies of spatial patterns of organization continued to be the dominant interest in community ecology. In particular, extensive analyses of species composition and species distribution in space and time emphasized taxonomy and composition of the community and the diversity of life forms, as well as the climax concept. Plant ecologists are prominent in this kind of research (Cain 1944, Clements 1936, 1939, Dansereau 1957, Goodall 1952, Raunkiaer 1934, Watt 1947, Whittaker 1975). The development of trophic dynamics (e.g., Odum 1957, Odum and Odum 1956, Teal 1962), the adoption of systems analysis in ecology (e.g., Odum and Pidgeon 1970, Patten 1971 et seq., Watt 1966), and several attempts to deduce general behaviors in communities (Margalef 1963, 1968, Odum 1969) placed new emphasis on developing hypotheses about ecological processes in general and community structure and function in particular. The application of systems analysis to ecological problems has created some unique research problems. To study relatively high levels of organization