S8.2 Lefroy: Supersites and superorganisms: recurring themes in 85 years of ecosystem science
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Play, download and edit the free video S8.2 Lefroy: Supersites and superorganisms: recurring themes in 85 years of ecosystem science.
Biography
Adjunct Prof Ted Lefroy, Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania.
Abstract:
The word ecosystem arose out of a dispute between two schools of thought amongst ecology’s twentieth century pioneers. Should communities of plants and animals be seen as naturally ordered superorganisms, or loose collections of species and their environment intelligible through the application of reductionist science? Arthur Tansley coined the term in 1935 in support of the latter view. Tansley never carried out ecosystem studies, and until Ray Lindeman published his attempt to track the flow of energy through a North American lake 7 years later, no one in the English speaking world was quite sure what ecosystem science might look like. Large multidisciplinary studies of terrestrial ecosystems received a major boost with the International Biological Program (IBP) in the 1970s, particularly in North America where research was stimulated by increases in science funding and questions about the biological effects of nuclear radiation, with the IBP later extended through its successor the Long Term Ecological Research network (1980-present). The superorganism concept resurfaced in popular culture In 1979 as the Gaia hypothesis. Rejected in its strong form by the scientific community on evolutionary grounds, Gaia has since been invoked in the peer reviewed literature to describe proposed mechanisms of self-regulation. This paper reflects on three recurring themes in the history of ecosystem science; the influence of politics and national interests, the tension between continuity and flexibility, and the elusive nature of general principles.
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