{"id":10826,"date":"2014-12-03T14:14:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T19:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=10826"},"modified":"2014-12-03T14:14:52","modified_gmt":"2014-12-03T19:14:52","slug":"what-are-the-big-ecological-innovations-of-the-last-century-esa100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2014\/12\/03\/what-are-the-big-ecological-innovations-of-the-last-century-esa100\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the big ecological innovations of the last century? #ESA100"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In December 2015, the Ecological Society of America will celebrate a big birthday: 100 years since the first group of botanists and zoologists, parasitologists, geologists, physiologists, and marine biologists <a href=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/1914-the-beginning\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gathered<\/a> in Columbus, Ohio, to unite their shared interest in the relationships of the great diversity of living organisms to each other and their surroundings.<\/p>\n<p>To kick off our centennial year, we are holding a blog and social media carnival today, asking ecologists to tell us about the<strong> ideas and discoveries that have had the biggest influence on the field of ecology<\/strong> over the last century.<\/p>\n<p>The conversation continues on twitter under the centennial hashtag <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/esa100\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#ESA100<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Blog &amp; social media Roundup <\/strong>(don\u2019t miss the comment sections):<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201c<strong>The pervasiveness of pyramids: ecological milestones across the curriculum<\/strong>\u201d Chris Buddle, Scilogs\u2019 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scilogs.com\/expiscor\/the-pervasiveness-of-pyramids-ecological-milestones-across-the-curriculum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Expiscor<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u201c<strong>What ideas or discoveries have had the greatest impact on the science of ecology?<\/strong>\u201d Amy Parachnowitsch and Terry McGlynn, <a href=\"http:\/\/smallpondscience.com\/2014\/12\/03\/what-ideas-or-discoveries-have-had-the-greatest-impact-on-the-science-of-ecology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Small Pond Science<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u201c<strong>#ESA100 \u2013 big concepts and ideas in ecology for the last 100 years<\/strong>\u201d Brian McGinn, <a href=\"http:\/\/dynamicecology.wordpress.com\/2014\/12\/03\/esa100-big-concepts-and-ideas-in-ecology-for-the-last-100-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dynamic Ecology<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u201c<strong>#ESA100 : Statistical Steps to Ecological Leap<\/strong>s\u201d Marc Cadotte and Caroline Tucker, the <a href=\"http:\/\/evol-eco.blogspot.com\/2014\/12\/esa100-statistical-steps-to-ecological.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EBB and Flow<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.metafilter.com\/145038\/Ecological-differentiation-is-the-necessary-condition-for-coexistence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Metafiler <\/a>thread: \u201c\u2018<strong>Ecological differentiation is the necessary condition for coexistence<\/strong>\u2018\u201d, started by dialeteia, with 18 comments<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The conversation, Storified:<\/p>\n<div class=\"storify\">\n[<a href=\"\/\/storify.com\/ESA_org\/what-are-the-big-ecological-ideas-and-discoveries\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">View the story \u201cWhat are the big ecological ideas and discoveries of the last 100 years?\u201d on Storify<\/a>]<\/div>\n<p><strong>Chris Buddle<\/strong> looked at the question from the perspective of education at his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scilogs.com\/expiscor\/the-pervasiveness-of-pyramids-ecological-milestones-across-the-curriculum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Expiscor <\/a>blog on Scilogs. What concepts do kids (and undergraduates) readily absorb?<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div id=\"attachment_10828\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog-preprod\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2014\/12\/141203-Chris-Buddle-pond-food-chain.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10828\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-10828 img-fluid\" alt=\"An elementary school student imagines a food chain. &lt;i&gt;Chris Buddle&lt;\/i&gt;.\" src=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/141203-Chris-Buddle-pond-food-chain-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10828\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An elementary school student imagines a food chain. <i>Chris Buddle<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cKids learn, very early on, about \u2018energy pyramids\u2019 and food chains. They learn about things like producers, consumers and about energy loss associated with \u2018moving up\u2019 the food chain. The sun gives energy to plants: this energy gets passed along to the next character in the food chain, the herbivore. In turn, the herbivore gets eaten by a predator. This predator is typically larger-bodied than the prey. I posit that almost everyone learns about a \u2018pyramid of numbers\u2019 before they are 10 years old<strong>. This \u2018pyramid of numbers\u2019 is a concept forwarded by Charles Elton in 1927: it\u2019s an ecological milestone.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Elton might not have been entirely correct, Buddle says, but he doesn\u2019t see it as a problem. The simplified vision of food webs featured in textbooks is a memorable model that gives students a starting point for more complex questions.<\/p>\n<p>At <a href=\"http:\/\/smallpondscience.com\/2014\/12\/03\/what-ideas-or-discoveries-have-had-the-greatest-impact-on-the-science-of-ecology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Small Pond Science<\/a>, <strong>Amy Parachnowitsch<\/strong> is thinking about the discoveries that have influenced her work on the evolution and ecology of flowers: the idea of connecting ecology to evolution in the field by\u00a0measuring natural selection, and techniques for quantifying the chemistry and color of life (including the look and smell of flowers, which make powerful impressions on pollinators as well as people).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c\u2026the idea of studying the link between ecology and evolution was what first excited me to go on to a masters and I continue to try to understand how ecological interactions lead to evolutionary change. I\u2019m not sure what exactly I would be doing now if it wasn\u2019t for the influential paper and the work it inspired, but I\u2019m pretty sure I wouldn\u2019t be <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/evoecoamy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@EvoEcoAmy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Her colleague <strong>Terry McGlynn<\/strong> expands on Amy\u2019s thoughts on unification, pointing to the\u00a0modern synthesis of genetics with evolutionary theory, the development of the holistic approach of systems ecology, and Keeling\u2019s measurements of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. He also\u00a0argues for the centrality of Biological Field Stations.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt\u2019s no accident that the biggest advances in ecology and evolution have come\u00a0from people who combined observations from a variety far-flung locations with careful observations in one-place over a long period of time. To put new ideas together in ecology requires a deep view of the spatial distributions of organisms, and an understanding of\u00a0temporal processes that change the composition of populations and communities.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>At <a href=\"http:\/\/dynamicecology.wordpress.com\/2014\/12\/03\/esa100-big-concepts-and-ideas-in-ecology-for-the-last-100-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dynamic Ecology<\/a>, <strong>Brian McGill <\/strong>broke his ideas down by concepts, tools, and eras, noting that he has likely omitted some important ideas due to his own particular knowledge base. He wasn\u2019t afraid to mention a few useful things that he thinks <em>aren\u2019t<\/em> core concepts or tools:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div id=\"attachment_10831\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog-preprod\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2014\/12\/141203-Brian-McGill-wordle-top200_2012.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10831\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-10831 img-fluid\" alt=\"Wordle of the titles of the 200 most cited ecology papers of 2012, by Brian McGill.\" src=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/141203-Brian-McGill-wordle-top200_2012-150x150.png\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10831\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wordle produced from the titles of the 200 most cited ecology papers of 2012, by <i><a href=\"http:\/\/dynamicecology.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/26\/25-years-of-ecology-whats-changed\/\">Brian McGill<\/a><\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a pretty firm believer that e<a title=\"Statistical machismo?\" href=\"http:\/\/dynamicecology.wordpress.com\/2012\/09\/11\/statistical-machismo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cology should be in the driver\u2019s seat and statistics is just a tool<\/a>. The same with big data. Any number of topics I mentioned above intersect with big data (all the way back to von Humbold and Kleiber!). But I just don\u2019t see discussion of big data in isolation as a useful way forward \u2013 big data is just a tool\u00a0letting us finally crack controls of species richness, biodiversity trends, etc.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Stay tuned to #ESA100 at Dynamic Ecology for more on this topic from Brian\u2019s fellow bloggers, Meg Duffy and Jeremy Fox.<\/p>\n<p>But at The <a href=\"http:\/\/evol-eco.blogspot.com\/2014\/12\/esa100-statistical-steps-to-ecological.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EBB and Flow<\/a>, <strong>Marc Cadotte and Caroline Tucker<\/strong>\u00a0are thinking about the role of statistics in ecology from a different perspective. They write about the development of standards for experimental and observational evidence from p-values and hypothesis testing through Bayesian modeling.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe most cited paper in ecology and evolutionary biology is a methodological one (Felsenstein\u2019s 1985 paper on phylogenetic confidence limits in Evolution \u2013 cited over 26,000 times). Statistics is the backbone that ecology develops around. Every new statistical method potentially opens the door to new ways of analyzing data and perhaps new hypotheses. To this end, we show how seven statistical methods changed ecology.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As long as you are thinking about history, you might want to check out the fantastic <a href=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/esa-through-the-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">interactive timeline<\/a> built by <strong>ESA\u2019s Historical Records Committee\u00a0<\/strong>marking milestones in the history of the society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe history of ecology reminds us that some of our greatest scientists \u2014 Pasteur and Darwin come to mind \u2013 were great because they could think ecologically,\u201d said\u00a0Committee Chair Sharon Kingsland.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In December 2015, the Ecological Society of America will celebrate a big birthday: 100 years since the first group of botanists and zoologists, parasitologists, geologists, physiologists, and marine biologists gathered in Columbus, Ohio, to unite their shared interest in the relationships of the great diversity of living organisms to each other and their surroundings. To kick off our centennial year,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":10828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1727,24,2],"tags":[1725,1726,1728,1729],"class_list":["post-10826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-centennial-2","category-ecology-in-the-news","category-research","tag-big-ideas","tag-centennial","tag-esa100","tag-milestones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}