2. Ecology

Question 1

When did ecology develop and how did this happen?

Answer 1

1. 18thC natural history saw nature as balanced, static and preserved by Providence
2. Paley wanted to explore divine creation and believed God created and favoured balance over disturbance
3. The regularity of distribution of species (Humboldt, Lamarkian + Darwinian studies) set the tone for ecology
4. Darwin applied the work of Malthus to question the interaction of species in an area
5. The interest in organismal interactions described above occurred across different disciplines and countries ATST (Bramwell, 1989)
6. The study of ethology was important too (Bramwell, 1989)
7. Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) described these things as Oekologie in his book in 1866

Question 2

How was Ernst Haeckel influential in ecology and its politics?

Answer 2

1. Haeckel and others believed science could reorganise politics (Bramwell, 1989)
2. His books raised political awareness through sciencde (Bramwell, 1989)
3. He was not religious, and believed in monism (Bramwell, 1989)
4. He believed the universe is a super-organism and man and animal are morally equal (Bramwell, 1989)
5. He also believed the study of nature led to truth, and society should be reorganised to fit the ideals found in nature (Bramwell, 1989)
6. His stance against anthropocentrism influenced Lorenz and others (Bramwell, 1989)

Question 3

Who was Karl Mobius?

Answer 3

1. Mobius (1825-1908) was a German zoologist
2. He realised oysters formed communities and abiotic factors influenced them, and wrote the 1870 book on this that introduced the idea of a biocenose/biotic community
3. this led to the development of biocoenosis, which is often described in terms of food chains

Question 4

Who was Eugenius Warming?

Answer 4

1. A plant ecologist and materialist
2. Warming (1841-1924) argued against holistic unity of nature
3. Believed no community is a natural occupant of an area, as community may migrate, die, change or be attacked
4. Defined ecology as relations between animals and plants in a commmunity

Question 5

Who was Frederick Clements?

Answer 5

1. American scientist, wrote influential Research Methods in Ecology (1905)
2. Clemets (1874-1926) believed plant community is a super organism
3. assumed self-healing - of there is a disturbance, vegetation eventually returns to climax community via serial development
4. Thought species and surrounding multiple species were dependent on each other, similar to organ and organism
5. This was challenged by Henry Gleason (1926), who thought associations were coincidental, not required

Question 6

Who was George Perkins Marsh?

Answer 6

1. Marsh (1801-1882) was a philologist and diplomat
2. In 1864, he wrote ‘Man and Nature’, in which he claimed deforestation led to desertification
3. Appreciated the huge environmental impact of humans
4. Advocated for resource planning management
5. Resource scarcity, a problem of the time, due to overuse, not under-supply

Question 7

Who was Vladimir Vernadsky?

Answer 7

1. Ukrainian mineralogist and chemist (1863-1945)
2. Said noosphere follows geosphere and biosphere in earth’s history
3. Human cognition led to changes in the biosphere and environment
4. Acknowledged humans as a geological force

Question 8

Who was Arthur Tansley?

Answer 8

1. Defined the word ecosystem, but argued no purely natural ecosystem
2. Tansley (1871-1955) implied that it was to be expected that humans impact ecosystems, as we are fundamentally biotic (1935)

Question 9

What are some important questions about the place of humans in nature?

Answer 9

1. Is human activity within or outside nature?
2. Are the consequences of human activity always negative?
3. Have modern human activities become quantitatively different from past ones?
4. All life affects its environment (Lynn White Jr, 1967)
5. Many ‘natural’ areas are man-made eg. lower banks of the Nile (Lynn White Jr, 1967).

Question 10

Who was Detwyler?

Answer 10

1. Argues in 1971 that a change in academic approach is necessary to appreciate the place of humans in nature
2. Said most sciences, incl. climate science, act as if humans have not altered nature
3. The environment is artificially divided into components for study
4. Human-environment research neglected since 1930s due to environmental determinism

Question 11

What are Pierre Dansereau’s seven principles and what do they show?

Answer 11

1. Dansereau was a an early Canadian ecologist (1911-2011)
2. Developed principles in 1966
3. Law of inoptimum - species never encounter optimum conditions
4. Law of aphasy - evolution is slower than environmental change, causing migration
5. Law of tolerance - species limited by tolerable environmental extremes
6. Law of persistence - many species survive when habitat no longer ideal
7. Law of factorial control - some factors more important than others
8. Law of irreversibility - some resources non-renewable as process no longer occurs there
9. Law of domestication - domesticated species find it hard to survive in the wild
10. These show that ecology does apply to the human-environment complex

Question 12

What factors must be present for an ecological crisis to emerge?

Answer 12

1. Environment changes in a way that destabilises survival
2. Decrease in necessary resources
3. Change in abiotic conditions
4. Increase in predation
5. Overpopulation
6. The human ecological crisis fulfills these factors

Question 13

How old is the human-ecological crisis?

Answer 13

1. Very old - humans have always impacted environment and all cultures have been aware of imbalances
2. In the 15thC, European science and tech were the best and allowed colonisation
3. 17/18thC - deforestation, agriculture, smoke, malaria (putrefaction), filth
4. 19thC - concern that artificial is undesirable and factories cause disease
5. George Marsh, 1864 - destroyed balance of nature and man
6. J. Chisholm, 1810 - large space affected

Question 14

Describe the early attempts at environmental action.

Answer 14

1. 19thC public health movement
2. 19thC nuisance acts: litigation (lawsuits) and legislation again nuisance producers
3. Limited popular protest at the time
4. First environmental litigation of Robert Angus Smith in Liverpool, 1857
5. People began to want more action as problem is costly and affects health and labour
6. Economic argument that pollution decreases value of commodities, land and urban infrastructure
7. Others argued reduction of pollution is expensive and no benefit to economy
8. 1905: Willian Nicholson, chief smoke inspector, argued that a world with no pollution would have more poverty, so its necessary
9. Since 1830s, people were aware that cities had different atmospheric condition, or urban climates

Question 15

How are the environment and the economy interlinked?

Answer 15

1. Ecological damage can be an economic externality
2. A positive externality eg. clean up benefits society but doesn’t increase profits
3. A negative externality eg. pollution - company destroyed habitats with no financial repercussions, but society suffers and pays
4. Oil price drop in 80s caused abandonment of successful energy consumption reduction techniques in the USA (Shaeffer, 2005)
5. Use of better energy saving technology in rich countries reduces the cost, making it available to poor countries (Shaeffer, 2005)
6. Cow farming produces methane, but it is cheaper as it requires fewer workers than crops, so its used and leads to deforestation in order to pay Latin American debt (Shaeffer, 2005)
7. Synthetic fertilisers contain NO, which contributes to climate change, but removal takes away 1/3 of world’s food (Schaeffer, 2005)
8. Reducing harmful CO2 emissions in America is difficult as there is a lack of public transport (Schaeffer, 2005)