Stephen Forbes, Jacob Reighard, and the emergence of aquatic ecology in the Great Lakes region

Abstract

Ecology emerged as a scientific discipline in North America between 1880 and 1910. As several historians have noted, the schools of plant ecology at the Universities of Nebraska and Chicago were very significant in this process.' However, there also developed in the American Midwest an interest in aquatic ecology. This was reflected in the establishment in the 1890s of several research stations and programs in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. Set up by universities, by state natural history surveys, and by federal and state fish commissions, these were the first centers devoted, at least in part, to aquatic ecology in North America. Two of the most active centers of research were at the University of Illinois, directed by Stephen Forbes, and at the University of Michigan, led by Jacob Reighard. Forbes began his aquatic ecological research with studies in the 1 880s of the food of fish, and surveys of their geographic distribution across the state. In the mid-1890s, a new research station on the Illinois River provided the setting for studies of river ecology, including Charles Kofoid's five-year quantitative study of the river plankton. Reighard, with Henry Ward, also studied plankton using quantitative methodology: on Lake St. Clair in 1893, on Lake Michigan the following year, and on Lake Erie from 1898 to 1902. Between 1898 and 1902 Reighard's colleagues studied other aspects of the biology of Lake Erie, including the rooted plants, algae, and protozoa, in part at a summer station on Lake Erie. What is most striking in comparing Forbes and Reighard is how