V. I. Vernadsky and development of the theoretical foundations of ecology

Abstract

150-years have passed since the birth of famous Ukrainian and Russian scientist, academician V. I. Vernadsky (1863–1945) – the founder and the first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAS), as well as the first scientific library in Ukraine. The genius of scientific predictions of V. I. Vernadsky is undeniable: he is the founder of geochemistry, biochemistry and genetic mineralogy; the doctrine about living substance and its role in the evolution of the biosphere and the noosphere theory; the reasoning of the concept of the biosphere – the sphere of living organisms, their place and role in placental scope; the development of biogeochemistry. "There is no more stable "acting" chemical force on the Earth than all the living organisms" – V. I. Vernadsky pointed (Vernadsky, 1965). The scientist pointed that even in the early stages of life nascence the populations and communities always have been evolved. Thus, there is a set of organisms that are closely interacted with each other and with inanimate nature has arisen. According to Vernadsky, from the very beginning of the emergence of the biosphere, the living components (biomonomers and biopolymers) were differed by a great variety. Without such an initial heterogeneity of living systems on Earth, the conversion of solid, liquid and gaseous substances could not be carried out. Thus, the heterogeneity of the biosphere correlated with a variety of physical and chemical organization of different parts of the earth's surface. The chemical elemental composition of the earth's surface as well as elemental composition of living organisms, which are directly involved in chemical transformations on Earth, have never been significantly changed during whole geological history. "The variety of living substance, and life have always performed various biogeochemical functions at the same time" – V. Vernadsky pointed. The chemical transformations, the circulation of substance are evolving in the same time, they are interconnected with the circulation of chemicals, which in turn depend on rain, seasonal and other cyclic changes of light, temperature, pressure – meaning the chronoperiodic changes – V. I. Vernadsky followed the idea of continuity of living substance in outer space. Both – tasks and methodological bases of geochemistry and biogeochemistry were based in the theoretical ecology – environmental aspects of evolution, the principles of systemic analysis, biocenology problems, mathematical modeling, chronoperiodic reaction etc. Theoretical principles of ecology, developed by V. I. Vernadsky, their practical solution in some sections of biology led to the formation of different ecological areas: animal’s, plant’s and microorganism’s ecology, engineering ecology and others. Scientist drew the great attention to human ecology. With the changing of socio-economic formations, a role of a human in biosphere life has increased, especially in an era of scientific and technological revolution. The human activities as a source of energy, the active economic activity of Homo sapiens, the appearance of chemicals of anthropogenic origin, – these and many other directions of human activity allowed V. I. Vernadsky substantiate the place and role of new environmental factor – the noosphere, and hence a new research area – noospherology. Theoretical bases of ecology, developed by V. I. Vernadsky, find their practical implementation in medicine: the development of molecular genetics, genomic medicine, and detection of genetic predisposition to many diseases, so-called multifactorial diseases, environmental protection, the formation of new medicine areas – predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory one. Nowadays, the biomedical community, motivated by works of V. I. Vernadsky, feces the new horizons of therapy, diagnostics and prevention of diseases, based on the environmental factors.