History of ecology

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The history of ecology as a scientific discipline within biology begins in the early 19th century, when researchers with different orientations, such as the natural traveler Alexander von Humboldt , the chemist Justus von Liebig or the biologist Charles Darwin, developed numerous new insights and connections in nature were. As a result, ecology as a science continued to develop, but remained a discipline that was only familiar to special academic circles until the 1960s. This changed in the 1970s, when dealing with nature and the environment, which was overloaded by humans, became a central human task.

Early uses of the term ecology

Insight into the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem , Australia

For a long time it was assumed that the German biologist Ernst Haeckel coined the word “ecology” in 1866 and was the first to use it and introduce it into scientific language. Research into the history of words shows, however, that the term appeared in at least three important German-language encyclopedias between 1838 and 1850, albeit with a different meaning: it is related to human medicine and culture and is based on the actual meaning of the originally ancient Greek word for house (οἶκος) at. “Ecology” was understood to mean “the teaching of the construction of apartments, of course also only with regard to hygiene”.

The inclusion of the term ecology in three general and specialist encyclopedias suggests that the word was used in parallel or even earlier in other scientific publications, since lexical terms are usually only included when they have become used to a certain extent. Even if such a proof has not yet been successful, the quotations mentioned suggest that in the thirties to fifties of the 19th century "Oecologie" in the meaning mentioned here was at least one that was introduced and in his Meaning reasonably clearly defined term acted even before Haeckel's definition found its way into scientific linguistic usage. It is unclear whether Haeckel was aware of the use of the term at the time when he redefined it for his purposes.

From individual observations to ecological science

Painting of a migratory locust in the burial chamber of Horemhab ( Egypt , 15th century BC)

Research and implementation that can be described as "ecological" from today's perspective have existed since ancient times. The historical descriptions of the mass reproductions of migratory locusts and their effects on agriculture in early civilizations were about ecological observations, the causes of which, however, were mostly seen in supernatural, divine phenomena.

Aristotle (384–322 BC) and his student Theophrastus (around 371–287 BC) observed and described organisms in direct connection with their habitat and also with other species. Pliny the Elder (23 / 24-79) described biological-ecological nature observations, such as those about the summer sleep of snails in the Mediterranean area and about the coexistence of the mussel guardians ( Nepinnotheres ), a genus of crustaceans, and the pen mussel ( Pinna nobilis ). Albertus Magnus (around 1200–1280) received the works of Aristotle in the Middle Ages with his own comments on the way of life of animals. The number of nature observers known to us has increased noticeably in modern times: Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof (1705–1759), Jacob Christian Schäffer (1718–1790) and above all Carl, who became known as a taxonomist von Linné (1707–1778) and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1727–1775) added information on the ecology of plants and animals to their works. The general natural history by Lorenz Oken (1779-1851) and on a more popular scientific level Das Thierleben by Alfred Brehm (1829-1884) contained numerous ecological descriptions of the organisms treated.

Natural history in the 19th century

The geographer and natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) analyzed the spatial distribution of rock formations, plants and animals and tried to establish connections, often on a statistical basis. His five-year excursion (1799 to 1804) to the South American continent helped to show how humans and other organisms are adapted to the respective environmental conditions and how they influence one another. In doing so, he also developed findings that can be assigned to today's disciplines of ecology or biogeography .

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) had a great influence on ecological thinking and ecological research , who published a wealth of ecological descriptions in his travelogue The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle and other writings and much in his evolution theory published in On the in 1859 origin of species incorporated. The concept of "natural selection" ( natural selection ) that the "struggle for existence" ( struggle for life is marked) of constant interaction with the environment, was presented by the book widely and as Darwinism popular. Other of his ecological works concerned the pollination of plants by insects, carnivorous plants and soil formation by the activity of earthworms .

The natural history work Man and Nature (1864) by George Perkins Marsh , in which he deals with the consequences of historical and current human interference by agriculture and industry in nature, had a great influence on ecological research and conservation in the United States.

Ernst Haeckel's definition of the term and the consequences

The first definition of the term “ecology” in today's understanding comes from Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), who did not work ecologically himself, but was a leading zoologist and representative of Darwinism in Germany:

“By ecology we mean the entire science of the relationships between the organism and the surrounding outside world, where we can count all 'conditions of existence' in a broader sense. These are partly organic and partly inorganic in nature. "

- Ernst Haeckel 1866
Ernst Haeckel in 1874, professor at the University of Jena

Haeckel grabbed the definition of ecology in this and several subsequent works again and again and modified it several times, especially in light of the theory of evolution, which he developed the principles of the 20th century evolutionary ecology already anticipated in part. Two essential components of ecology can already be recognized in Haeckel's representations, for which Carl Schroeter introduced the terms “ autecology ” (ecology of organisms) and “ synecology ” (ecology of living communities) in a work on the vegetation of Lake Constance in 1902 .

Although the term was coined in 1866, ecology did not establish itself as a comprehensive discipline until much later. At first it was understood - mainly due to the strict academic separation between zoology and botany - rather as the scientific natural history of animals (animal ecology) and as such had only a very bad status in the established sciences. Although a number of scientists recognized the importance of ecology as a science and valued it accordingly, the majority of the established disciplines of the natural sciences devalued it as purely descriptive natural history. Charles Sutherland Elton defined animal ecology in his work Animal Ecology in 1927 as "scientific natural history" , which he reinforced this point of view.

The plant ecology and the deduced direction of Geobotany developed largely separately therefrom. Another branch that developed in the 19th century was also hydrobiology , which dealt with the living conditions of aquatic organisms in their environment, while animal and plant ecology were mainly limited to the terrestrial habitat, i.e. ecological problems on the mainland.

Development of scientific animal ecology

Schwerdtfeger published two large studies in 1932 and 1935 on the way of life of the pine owl ( Panolis flammea ).

Haeckel's ecological term was applied almost exclusively to the ecology of animals in the early days. This early animal ecology was primarily concerned with the descriptive representation of the life requirements of individual species (autecology) and was only expanded (for terrestrial communities) in the 1920s to include the consideration of communities in the sense of a synecology.

The latter developed together with the approaches of population ecology, called demecology by Schwerdtfeger , which has its roots in this time and in the 1960s became known and developed further mainly through the textbooks of forest ecologist Fritz Schwerdtfeger . Many population ecologists dealt with practically applicable knowledge, especially in the field of pest control in agriculture and forestry, in the fishing industry and in medicine, especially in parasitology . The areas of forest ecology, agroecology and fishery biology have become separate areas of science. The connection of ecology with behavioral biology (ethology) also led to behavioral ecology , and the connection with evolutionary biology to evolutionary ecology , which began later (from the 1970s) .

Plant ecology, forestry and vegetation science

In parallel with animal ecology, plant ecology developed as an independent research area, whereby its origins in the form of ecological location information also go back to antiquity. Here, too, the focus was on the environmental requirements of the individual species, i.e. the auto-ecology. These were often linked to issues of distribution and thus plant geography , the beginnings of which, however, go back to Carl von Linné , Alexander von Humboldt and Georg Forster at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. Alphonse de Candolle established the physiological orientation of plant ecology in his work Géographie botanique raisonnée in 1855 .

Already in the early 18th century, in the course of the traditional forestry sustainability principle, the connection between practical forestry and the "biology of plants" (the earlier term for plant ecology) was researched primarily by Heinrich Cotta , who studied ecology intensively who dealt with forests and decisively established forest science as a scientific discipline and founded modern silviculture . Wilhelm Pfeil developed the maxim of the influence of the local. He emphasized that it is not possible to manage all forests rigidly according to the same general rules, but that the location , i.e. the soil and climatic conditions and their consequences, must be taken into account when making forest decisions. This led to the development of the site-specific forestry represented by the so-called "Eberswalder Schule". Gottlob König , who was the first to use the term “forest location studies”, was a firm advocate of the connection between economy and ecology. The first to go into detail on the influence of forests on the well-being and prosperity of people was Carl Heinrich Edmund Freiherr von Berg . In his Handbuch Staatsforstwirtschaftslehre from 1850, the purely economic consideration of the forest, such as sustainable wood production, was secondary to its welfare effects. According to von Berg, the state government must therefore primarily pursue this goal:

"The preservation of the forests to such an extent, in such a distribution in the country and in the localities, that their beneficial influences on the climate, fertility, health and beauty of the country appear to be secured."

Around the middle of the 19th century, the science of plant communities developed with the ideas of the mutual influence between species and vegetation with the soil. The vegetation science based on this was significantly influenced in southern and central Europe by the work of Oswald Heer , Otto Sendtner , Joseph Roman Lorenz and Anton Kerner von Marilaun . In Northern Europe, Hampus von Post , Ragnar Hult , Rutger Sernander and Aimo Kaarlo Cajander have contributed essential methodological foundations to modern vegetation ecology.

By Simon Schwendener , which dealt mainly with the physical principles of plant construction and lichens for the first time as a symbiosis between fungi and algae realized basic descriptions come to understand the histological structure of the plants and the relationship with the living conditions of the plants. His work was deepened and continued by Alexander Tschirch , Emil Heinricher , Georg Volkens , Heinrich Schenck and in particular Gottlieb Haberlandt as the founder of physiological plant anatomy , whose research focused primarily on plants in extreme habitats such as aquatic plants and xerophytes . Ernst Stahl began clarifying the physiological aspects around the same time and introduced experimental working methods into ecology ( experimental ecology ). In this way he investigated the influence of light on the plant and later the defense mechanisms of the plants against animal consumers. In 1900 he discovered the symbiosis between mycorrhiza , a network of fungi in the root area of ​​trees, and forest trees. Fundamental knowledge about mycorrhizal formation in forest trees also contributed Robert Hartig , after whom the "Hartig network" was later named. In 1890, Anton Kerner von Marilaun summarized the anatomical-histological and physiological results with further findings on the ecology of plants (e.g. flower ecology, fruit and seed distribution) in his main work, Plant Life.

At the turn of the 20th century, the term plant ecology appeared for the first time in publications, with Johannes Eugenius Bülow Warming , Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper , Frederic Edward Clements and Oscar Drude being particularly noteworthy. The works of Schimper also represent a starting point for the development of modern physiological ecology , while Josias Braun-Blanquet developed the sociology of plants into a separate field of research in vegetation science . Also within geobotany , which regards the plant as part of the life communities of the earth, there was a further splitting into phytogeography , general and special geobotany.

In the second half of the 20th century, Heinz Ellenberg played a major role in the further development of plant ecology in Central Europe and beyond by making contributions to almost all areas of this research area.

Development of hydrobiology and limnology

Weinfelder Maar in the Eifel

Researchers working on water systems have produced important findings for ecology. They included Karl August Möbius (1825–1908), François-Alphonse Forel (1841–1912) and August Thienemann (1882–1960). The first worked on the North Sea, the second on Lake Geneva and the third on the maars of the Vulkaneifel , and later also on the Holstein lakes. While studies, which at the same time placed the aquatic organisms in the center of attention, continued to be called hydrobiology , Forel and Thienemann in particular were pioneers in aquatic ecosystem research, which was now called limnology . Aquatic systems, especially in the form of freshwater lakes, are recognizable and measurable much more secluded habitats and ecosystems than land systems or marine systems. Therefore, they were also the first to be investigated "holistically" including physical, chemical and biological characterization.

In his work Die Auster und die oysterwirtschaft in 1877 Karl August Möbius first coined the term “living community” (as “living community” or “biocenosis”) and presented the connection between organisms and external conditions. He thus laid the foundation for marine biology Research. In 1885 the village pond was characterized as a self-contained community by the educator Friedrich Junge , while Stephen A. Forbes in the USA described the lake as a microcosm in 1887. François-Alphonse Forel created a large, limnologically oriented monograph on Lake Geneva in the Swiss-French border region from 1892–1901 , and for the first time presented in detail the physical properties of a lake and aspects of the material balance.

A basket net , one of Hensen's inventions , to collect plankton

August Thienemann also worked on physical and chemical measurements on the maars of the Vulkaneifel and related the findings to the characteristics of the lake and the organisms living in the lake, especially the various species of mosquito larvae. Later he was head of the Max Planck Institute for Limnology in Plön. In Austria, at the same time as Thienemann Franz Ruttner (1882–1961) conducted research at the Biological Station in Lunz am See ; Until the second half of the 20th century, he was known to numerous students for his "Outline of Limnology" (1st edition 1940, last edition 1962).

At the same time as freshwater biology, marine biology developed, which initially concentrated primarily on the investigation of the seabed near the coast ( Benthal ). The exploration of the open water areas ( pelagic ) was introduced from 1845 mainly by Johannes Müller , who developed his own fishing gear in the form of plankton nets to catch the organisms floating in open water ("buoyancy", today " plankton ") . The scientific discipline of plankton research that emerged from this in 1846 on the then British island of Helgoland resulted in a school of marine biologists working in fauna and their work in 1892 in the establishment of the "Royal Prussian Biological Institute on Helgoland", today's Biological Institute Helgoland . The net catching technique was subsequently also used in the limnic area. Victor Hensen coined the term plankton for the small organisms that can be caught with the help of the net.

Research focus between around 1920 and 1970

In Germany, ecology tried to establish itself as a scientific field of research as early as the 1920s and to acquire more research funds based on the blood-and-soil rhetoric of the Nazi era. From a scientific point of view, different approaches in ecology developed between Central European and German research, which was strongly oriented towards inventory and classification, and approaches in the Anglo-Saxon area, where there was a stronger search for functional relationships.

The later modern ecology was formed as a fusion of animal ecology, plant ecology and hydrobiology / limnology in the 1930s to 1950s between the introduction of the ecosystem concept by Arthur George Tansley in his journal article The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms and the established dissemination of the Concept by Eugene P. Odum in his Fundamentals of ecology 1953. The core of this concept is the assumption of definable functional units of the biosphere , which are determined by the interaction of the organisms contained therein and the inanimate environment (ecosystems). The individual ecosystems come into contact with one another and accordingly form a global ecosystem.

Since this concept affects both plants and animals, it broke through the separation of the original disciplines and led to a holistic and interdisciplinary view of nature. In accordance with this claim, the investigation of land habitats, inland waters and seas began after 1960 in interdisciplinary teams, which include animal and plant ecologists as well as population ecologists , microbiologists , climatologists , soil scientists , physicists and chemists as well as computer scientists for data processing.

Modern developments in ecology concentrate on increasingly replacing the originally descriptive ecology with models and laws, and rely on the field of theoretical ecology. This tries to explain the ecological relationships through modeling and to make them tangible. Another very new field is human ecology , which looks at the interactions between people and with the nature around them and is accordingly in parts closely based on sociology .

Politicization and popularization of ecology from around 1970

From around 1970 ecological research was in some cases heavily promoted and expanded. Newer research fields included the interaction of environmental pollution and ecological communities, the application of ecological knowledge in practical nature and species protection, the importance of biological diversity and climate change for ecosystems. Mutual fertilization with other branches of research, including biochemistry and evolutionary biology, now became central research topics.

The historic Blue Marble photo that helped bring environmental protection to the wider public

At the same time, however, ecology was promoted as a science and (with a certain change in meaning) also as a maxim of sustainable care for the environment and human health. With regard to the associated change in the meaning of ecological knowledge and the change in the use of the terms “ecology” and “ecological” in everyday language and in politics, see ecology .

Literature on the history of ecology

  • Hartmut Bick: Basics of Ecology. 3. Edition. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-437-25910-5 .
  • CJ van der Klaauw: On the history of the definitions of ecology, especially on the basis of the systems of the zoological disciplines. In: Sudhoffs Archiv 29, 1936, pp. 136–177 (= ecological studies and reviews , 2).
  • Günther Leps: Ecology and Ecosystem Research. In: Ilse Jahn (Ed.): History of Biology. 3. Edition. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-8274-1023-1 , pp. 601-619. (Nikol-Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-937872-01-9 )
  • Joachim Radkau : The Era of Ecology. A world story. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61372-2 .
  • Ludwig Trepl : History of Ecology. From the 17th century to the present . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-610-04070-X .

Individual evidence

  1. Hachmann, Gerhard & Koch, Rainer: 150 years of ecology - a natural science shapes nature conservation: Notes on the history and use of the terms "ecology" and "species protection" . In: Nature and Landscape . tape 91 , no. 12 . Stuttgart, 2016, ISSN  0028-0615 , p. 587-589 ( https://haferklee.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/naturschutzgeschichte-3/ [Postprint]).
  2. ^ Keyword "ecology". In: biological-concepts.com. Retrieved January 17, 2017 .
  3. a b c d e f g h i j k History of Ecology. In: Hartmut Bick: Basics of Ecology. 1998, pp. 1-7.
  4. Hans Gebhard et al. (Ed.): Geography: physical geography and human geography. Spektrum, Akad. Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8274-1543-1 , pp. 72f.
  5. ^ Charles Darwin (ed.): The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle . Smith, Elder & Co. , London 1838-1843. (digitized version)
  6. ^ Charles Darwin : On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life . John Murray, London 1859. (digitized version)
  7. ^ Charles Darwin : On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilized by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing . John Murray, London 1862. (digitized version)
  8. ^ Charles Darwin : Insectivorous Plants . John Murray, London 1875. (digitized version)
  9. ^ Charles Darwin : The formation of vegetable mold, through the action of worms, with observations on their habits . John Murray, London 1881. (digitized version)
  10. Ernst Haeckel : General Morphology of Organisms. General principles of the organic science of forms, mechanically founded by the descent theory reformed by Charles Darwin. Vol. 2, Berlin 1866, p. 286. (Download in the Biodiversity Heritage Library)
  11. ^ A b Günther Leps: Ecology and Ecosystem Research. 2000, p. 601.
  12. a b c d e f Vera Eisnerova: Evolution theory and ecology in botany. In: Ilse Jahn (Ed.): History of Biology. 3. Edition. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 2000, pp. 322–323. (Edition Nikol-Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-937872-01-9 )
  13. ^ Karl Hasel , Ekkehard Schwartz : Forest history. A floor plan for study and practice . Kessel, Remagen 2002, ISBN 3-935638-26-4 , pp. 344-345.
  14. ^ Karl Hasel: Wilhelm Pfeil in the mirror of the critical sheets for forest and hunting science . In: General forest and hunting newspaper. 149th year, issue 5/1978; Pp. 126-127.
  15. ^ Karl Hasel, Ekkehard Schwartz: Forest history. A floor plan for study and practice . Kessel, Remagen 2002, ISBN 3-935638-26-4 , p. 348.
  16. quoted from Walter Kremser : Niedersächsische Forstgeschichte. An integrated cultural history of north-west German forestry . (Rotenburger Schriften, special volume 32). Heimatbund Rotenburg / Wümme, Rotenburg (Wümme) 1990, pp. 491-492.
  17. ^ Klaus Dierssen: Introduction to Plant Sociology (Vegetation Science). Knowledge Buchges., Darmstadt 1990.
  18. a b Astrid Schwarz: Water desert - microcosm - ecosystem. A story of the conquest of the water space. Rombach-Verlag, Freiburg 2003.
  19. Joachim Radkau, Frank Uekötter (Ed.): Nature conservation and National Socialism. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-593-37354-8 .