Introduction

Abstract

The year 1985 was a landmark in Canadian biology, for it witnessed both the first Canadian Congress of Biology and the 80th birthday of Professor Vladimir Joseph Krajina. Because Krajina's work has had an impact on more than one biological discipline, we believed that the congress would be an appropriate forum to pay tribute to one of Canada's premier ecologists and botanists. Krajina has done much to awaken Canada's environmental consciousness and shape its ecological thinking and, in the process, has made major contributions to the international discipline of ecology.Professor Krajina was born in 1905 in Slavice, a small Moravian village in Czechoslovakia. Historians of science have characterized 1905 as “the miraculous year.” That was the year Albeit Einstein published the theory of relativity and George Santayana began his book The Life of Reason with the following first line printed in boldface, “Man affects his environment, sometimes to good purpose.” E. M. Forster published his Where Angels Fear to Tread, Vladimir Lenin his Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, and Sigmund Freud his Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex. That year, the English novelist and science educator C. P. Snow was born, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were formed.It was a very significant year for ecology as well. The first American textbook, Research Methods in Ecology, was published by a then little-known ecologist named Frederick E. Clements. Carl Raunkiaer in Denmark published his Types biologiques pour la géographie botanique, later to be cited in ecological literature as Raunkiaer's system of life forms and biological spectra. In addition, Karel Domin, who would become Krajina's mentor, published Das böhmische Mittelgebirge in Czechoslovakia.Krajina received his doctorate at the age of 22 from Charles University in Prague. There, he rose to become Professor of Botany and Head of the Department of Plant Sociology and Ecology. Krajina was a major force in the Second World War. A champion of democracy and possessing immense foresight and fortitude, he provided strategic information to the Allies, not without great personal hardship. This aspect of his life is beyond the scope of this review, but many volumes are available that document his indomitable courage and his contributions (see, for example, J. Korbel, The Communist Subversion of Czechoslovakia, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1959). After the war, he received both military and civilian medals and was elected to the Czechoslovakian parliament.He arrived in Vancouver in 1949. Not in possession of his transcripts or even a reprint of his own work, he joined the University of British Columbia as Lady Davis Foundation Fellow and Special Lecturer, and later attained the rank of full professor. It was here that he developed the ecological schema that bear his imprint and guided 33 students through their doctoral and master's programs. Highly respected as a teacher and researcher, he has left an indelible mark on Canadian ecology. His contributions have been recognized by honorary degrees from major universities, by medals of honor from many societies, and in several feature films on environment from the National Film Board of Canada. Even today, he remains active in finalizing his massive treatise on the ecology of British Columbia vegetation.In presenting this series of papers as a tribute to Professor Krajina, it was the intention of the organizers to reflect on two contemporary topics of ecology, rather than present a comprehensive overview or a complete documentation of Krajina's contributions. What is presented here, therefore, is a series of ecological vignettes on community organization and ecosystem conservation, areas of science in which Professor Krajina has played a major role.The organizers extend their warm thanks to Professor Jennifer Shay of the University of Manitoba for her help and assistance, to Professor Jack Major for writing the epilogue, to Professor Taylor A. Steeves, who encouraged the publication of this symposium, and to Professor Paul F. Maycock, Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Botany, who edited this series of articles.