Holism and Reductionism in Community Ecology

Abstract

This paper focuses on the interaction between the design of the ecological research and the use of either holism or reductionism in explaining the results. The goals are to discover more productive avenues of research design and to clarify the particular utility and appropriateness of each approach. The primary source of information for this essay was a telephone survey conducted during the summer of 1986. Researchers active in community-level projects (most as researchers, some as directors) were chosen to represent major subject-areas. A total of 27 ecologists were interviewed; 6 aquatic ecologists, 6 specialists in plant/animal interactions, 6 who work with various communities in terrestrial ecosystems, 5 plant community ecologists, 2 microbial ones and 2 who research primarily through mathematical/theoretical approaches. Constraints of time and access to researchers during the field season limited the number contacted and affected the distribution of interviews among subject-areas. This potential bias, plus the fact that some personal interpretation was necessary in recording and summarizing responses, imparts considerable subjectivity to the survey. Nevertheless, the ideas expressed in the interviews provide an informative synthesis of the ways that ecologists view the process of conducting research which can aid fellow researchers in finding alternative project designs. Further, the interpretation of these ideas is based largely on information gained through observations of hundreds of research proposals submitted to the Ecology Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). A summary of responses to the 5 survey questions follows, along with interpretative thoughts.