The Interplay Between Natural History and Field Experimentation

Abstract

Abstract Modern ecology can be considered the “new natural history.” It emerged from the fusion of elements from classical natural history and physiology (McIntosh 1985) and is the progeny of the marriage of two nineteenth-century traditions: the systematic, detailed cataloging of facts and a reductionist experimental approach to understanding function. As a result, experimentation and mathematical modeling emerged as useful tools to uncover the effects of discrete variables and processes on observed patterns, avoiding mere speculation. However, an extreme (or naive) acceptance of these new approaches could promote misinterpretation of ecological phenomena. McIntosh (1985) points out that Hutchinson ‘‘noted the need to temper mathematical abstraction with sound knowledge of natural history.” Clearly, experimentalists as well as mathematically inclined theoreticians must not forget ecology’s roots in basic natural history. As field experimentation becomes common and is no longer considered innovative, the danger increases that eagerness to conduct experiments will lead to field manipulations as irrelevant as some elegant sets of differential equations.