The original query was posted by someone forging another person's
name and has been deleted from the ECOLOG-L archive, but as the
responses may be of interest, I'm summarizing them here.
David Inouye, list owner and moderator
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From: "Foley, Patrick" <[email protected]>
Off the top of my head:
Island biogeography including species-area curves
Metapopulation theory (originally applied to pest control)
Extinction Theory due to environmental and/or demographic stochasticity
Optimal foraging theory
Optimal Life History theory
Predator-prey models to explain wildlife and insect cycles
Host-parasitoid dynamics in biological control
Behavioral ecology based on deterministic and stochastic approaches
Diffusion modeling of invasions
Assembly rule analysis in community ecology
Wildlife disease models to explain epidemics and endemic persistence
Applications in conservation biology, pest control, invasive
organisms, wildlife management, fisheries management.
Patrick Foley
bees, fleas, flowers, disease
[email protected]
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From: "William Silvert" <[email protected]>
As to whether ecological theory has done anything, everyone can
decide that for him/herself. Just go to a library and browse the many
journals and books that deal with the subject and see whether any of
it is of any use.
The underlying issue is not what ecological theory has done, but the
reluctance of ecologists to accept the need for theory. Almost no
theoretical work has been widely accepted by the ecological
community. The only theoretical concept that seems to have much of an
impact is that of trophic levels and the associated concept of food
chains and food webs. Other attempts to put forth general theoretical
ideas have met with massive resistance. The niche concept has
tremendous potential value for understanding the dynamics of
ecosystems, but as recent discussion on this list has shown, few
ecologists feel that they should pay much attention to it. Many, led
by the late Rob Peters, attacked its underpinnings to such an extent
that it is now virtually unused.
Even something as fundamental as conservation principles are not well
accepted in ecology. Lawrence Slobodkin once complained that
theorists should not apply conservation laws to living creatures.
Once when I took part in a workshop to analyse data from an ecosystem
study and I raised the issue of transport since the secondary
production was higher than primary production, none of my colleagues
seemed to understand why I felt that secondary production should be
less than primary production in the absence of inputs.
I recall that a colleague at Dalhousie used to advertise his course
as "real biology, no models".
Of course part of the problem is that since most ecologists are not
interested in learning any theory, they are unable to cast a critical
eye on any theoretical work that comes their way and thus a lot of
really bad theoretical work gets accepted and gives the field a bad
name. For me the classic example of this was the Port Hastings
project in Australia, where a "biological modeller" was hired to
synthesize all the data. His models kept getting worse and worse - it
turns out that his background was in pharmacokinetics, where all
processes are linear, and he had no knowledge of ecology and no
understanding of the need for nonlinear models (he evidently had not
even heard of the Lotka-Volterra equations).
Coming back to the question of whether "ecological theory has
accomplished anything" I won't try to answer that, but if the answer
is no, I suspect that much of the problem is not that theoretical
ecologists have never done anything useful, but that the ecological
community as a whole has been unwilling to accept it.
Bill Silvert
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From: William Espenshade <[email protected]>
Hi,
I am wondering how you parsed out so significant a difference between the
two, ecology and evolution. Over time organisms evolve to be better at (a
result of) the ecology of their situation. That is the basis of a recent
"niche" thread for those who are Hutchinsonites. One species evolves, to
best exploit their niche - which could be thought of as the optimal use of
the here and now environment.
Molecular people can trace the change in the DNA over species and time, but
it is for the result of living here and now i.e. the ecology of the
organism? Doesn't the here and now as it changes over time result in
evolution?
So wouldn't evolution theory and ecology theory just be a matter of space
and time scales for the question being addressed?
How did you separate the two?
Will Espenshade
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From: malcolm McCallum <[email protected]>
It sounds like you are making a false dicotomy.
Evolutionary biology is essentially biology. Its a broader field and
encompasses ecology. However, evolution itself was and is, in my
opinion, and ecological theory, or at least the theories of natural
selection and sexual selection certainly fall here. However, I
suspect you are really making a dicotomy between genetics and
molecular biology vs other areas of biology. Certainly, the human
genome project can be given sole credit. It flooded the market with
molecular biologist, created hoards of molecular biology jobs, and it
was tightly tied to human health...so it got LOTS-O-MONEY!
I look at molecular biology and see a field that has now come into its
own and is certainly integrated into every other field of biology.
However, ecology and environment has not received near the attention
nor the funds. Furthermore, if the ecological experiment takes place
in the field it can require as many years to complete as the entire
human genome project!
There is an added factor here. New fields grow rapidly and then level
off. Molecular biology is very new and is now leveling off. People
are no longer excited simply because you know how to do PCR, heck, who
doesn't?? They are doing it freshman year at some schools!!!! Clearly
there is a little more to it than a freshman classroom activity, but
the point is made. IT is not unlike being one of the first experts in
spreadsheets, they were important. Now, spreadsheet experts provide
free information on the web via help forums! A PCR expert will
certainly follow the spreadsheet expert in another few decades.
Bioinformatics is certainly less of an advance by evolutionary biology
than it is an advance by computer science and mathematicians. We
mostly hear about its role in clinical biology and systematics, but it
has very important roles as ecological informatics as well, however,
there is a lot more data already available for clinical and
phylogenetic bioinformatics work than there is for large scale
ecological studies. In fact, it takes decaades to collect sufficient
data to apply these techniques to ecology, genetics is much faster!
So, if your question was really addressing molecular vs nonmolecular
It think this is a fair answer, the prior had more opportunity to move
faster with the Human Genome. (It also tends to be more proximate in
its findings than ultimate). However, I see it slowing down as other
areas become more imperative. I recall an article on science careers
about 5-6 maybe 10 years ago predicting that environmental science and
bioinformatics were the two hotest up and coming fields in science.
It also suggested lightly that bioinformatics was not so certain
because it might be a fad. Of course, it was not a fad and both
exploded out of the box. One closely related to molecular biology,
the other closely related to ecology. I'm not sure where it will go,
I'm not a fortune teller. But, I do believe that both fields are
moving fast, are thriving, and leave a lot left to discover. It just
happens that ecology is older and reached its plateau for some time,
whereas molecular work was new and growing and now has also certainly
plateaued, but their most important findings may be, in general, a
little newer due to the age of the field.
*******************************************************************************
From: "Wayne Tyson" <[email protected]>
Ecolog:
Since I do not want to be presumptuous or appear "mad" in my
response, I think it would be useful if [the author] would, for
starters, provide some basic foundational information to minimize
misunderstanding/ruckus.
1. A brief statement of what [he] hinks ecological theory is and what
its "purpose" is.
2. What [he] thinks ecological theory might accomplish that it hasn't.
3. Some idea of the basis for his conclusion, or a confirmation that
it was based solely upon the information supplied in the initial post.
With this kind of foundation, a more useful discussion might be
generated, rather than launching fishing expeditions trying to figure
out what [he] hopes to hear beyond howls of pain from those gored by
his "thought" or hooked by his bait. I am not trying to cause a
ruckus here or to make anyone mad. I am only interested.
WT
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From: Andre Felton <[email protected]>
You pose an interesting question that still isn't fully described as
mutually exclusive in many ecology courses to date. At the moment as
I don't have fully time to respond accordingly to your question, I
can suggest a paper that would probably answer your question (if not
give you a better understanding of the present situation in that
debate). I posted the citation below:
Scheiner, S. M., and M.R. Willig. 2008. A general theory of ecology.
Theoretical Ecology 1:21-28
All the best,
~Andre
Andre Felton, M.S.
Doctoral Student
Multicultural Fellow
Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
University of Connecticut
Storrs, Connecticut
***********************************************************************************
From: "Edwards, Ivan" <[email protected]>
"It is generally acknowledged that all organic beings have been
formed on two great laws - Unity of Type, and the Conditions of
Existence. .[]... the law of the Conditions of Existence is the
higher law; as it includes, through the inheritance of former
variations and adaptations, that of Unity of Type"
Charles Darwin, Origin, Chap. VI. (Unity of Type = evolutionary
biology. Conditions of Existence = ecology).
Motto seen over a Graduate Student's office: "Ecology + time = Evolution"
I'm sorry to read of a split at [your university]. To me,
Evolutionary Ecology is where it's at.
Ivan Edwards
-------------------------
Ivan P. Edwards, PhD,
Senior Research Fellow,
University of Michigan,
School of Natural Resources & Environment,
G540b Dana Building, 440 Church Street,
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1041
Phone: (734) 763-8003
******************************************************************************************
From: Asaf Sadeh <[email protected]>
Surely ecological processes and evolutionary processes are
intertwined in reality. But the observation that evolutionary theory
and ecological theory do not share the same degrees of unity and
generality is more than a false dichotomy. Note that some of the
replies to the original questions included a "grocery list" of
ecological concepts. A highly relevant papers is Roughgarden's:
Roughgarden J (2009) Is there a general theory of community ecology?
Biology & Philosophy 24:521-529. BTW, regarding that grad student's
motto at U of M, another one that I've encountered is: "
Integral(Ecology)dt = Evolution " Cheers, Asaf
*****************************************************************************************
From: Val Smith <[email protected]>
Dear Dr. [X]:
I strongly agree with Wayne Tyson: it would be extremely helpful for
you to provide ECOLOG readers with additional information about 1.
What you think ecological theory is and what its "purpose" is; What
you think ecological theory might accomplish, that it has not; and 3.
Some idea of the objective data that stimulated your original
conclusion, or a confirmation that it was an opinion
that was based solely upon the somewhat limited information that was
supplied in your initial post.
Patrick Foley has captured a number of important theoretical advances
in the field of ecology, many of which are extremely applicable to
the dynamics of pests and infectious disease. Not mentioned,
however, are three additional theories: (1) resource limitation
(including Liebig's Law of the Minimum, and Tilman's resource-ratio
theory), and (2) trophic cascades (top-down vs. bottom-up control of
food webs, including the seminal work by Stephen Carpenter and
co-workers, and by Robert Paine). In addition, regime-shift theory
(which also draws upon concepts from economics, and has been nicely
advanced and promoted by Stephen Carpenter) appears to have broad
applicability across both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and
perhaps even among human-dominated systems such as cities.
I thus cannot agree in any way that ecological theory is purely
esoteric, nor can I agree that it has accomplished nothing. Please
have a look at the literature on eutrophication and its practical
control, which has been a success story in the history of applied
ecology, and at the literature on marine fisheries, which has used
principles of population ecology to help inform the management and
harvesting of the world's fish stocks.
Val H. Smith
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Kansas
