Ecology, a Romantic Science?

CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 11 ARTICLES

ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

Josep M. Camarasa*

Ecology is an unusual scientific discipline with characteristics which it shares with very few others (it is, for example, a science of synthesis, its multiple roots, holistic focus, etc.). These characteristics and the history of the discipline show ecology to be a science which is deeply marked by the Romantic thought of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and which has reached its high points in periods which coincided with a flourishing of Romantic thought –understood as a critique of contemporary civilisation from within, or a critique of modernity.

Contents

1. Justification 2. ‘Normal’ science and scientific revolutions 3. Ecology, a Romantic science? A science that differs from others Romanticism and modernity: an ongoing dialectic Science and Romanticism: the emergence of ecology 4. Holism and reductionism in the history of ecology The protohistory of ecology: from Humboldt to Haeckel Ecology’s view of itself: from the name to the thing The ecology of the inter-war period: the emergence of key concepts The ecological revolution of the 1950s and 1960s: matter, energy and information Not yet a fully? ‘normal’ science: recent developments 5. What now? When is the next revival due?

* Josep M. Camarasa is an advisor to the Scientific Secretariat of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.

6 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

1. Justification ceda with Romanticism, not to mention Schubert, Schumann, Gericault and C. D. Friedrich. Howev- Ecology as a Romantic science? This affirmation er, few would manage to name even one Romantic will, no doubt, be greeted by many with a smile of scientist, despite the fact that the period generally condescension, confirming them in their view that associated with the Romantic movement (late 18th ecology is not a ‘serious’ science. Others, howev- century and the first half of the 19th century) pro- er, for a variety of reasons will choose to disagree. duced many outstanding scientists. Who, for ex- In all likelihood, few ecologists will agree; some will ample, would succeed in naming Alexander von hold that the last thing their field needs is such a Humboldt, Sadi Carnot, Richard Owen or Hans dismissal. The academic world in general will, at Christian Oersted, to name but a handful of the very least, have reservations, or at worst, will reject most distinguished scientists of that time, as Ro- it outright. More than a few readers will no doubt mantic scientists? Darwin himself, in his life and be surprised to find the name of a scientific discip- work, was a Romantic, albeit restrained in his later line in such close company with an adjective deriv- years by the staid hypocrisy of Victorian society. ing from a social, cultural and artistic movement of the past, held, by the majority, to be anti-scientific or, at least, concerned with issues far removed from the realm of science. Perhaps, there would be Few people would manage to name even one wider acceptance for the view that ecology is a science with Romantic roots; however, as will be- Romantic scientist. come clear below, the discipline has myriad and diverse roots, most of which date further back than the Romantic movement, although the Romantic period was perhaps the time when all these roots Perhaps we should not find this so unusual. For met and the discipline began to crystallise. most people would also be hard put to name one classical, modern, neo-positivist or post-modern However, any shock generated by the above affirm- scientist. For the majority of our society, the image ation is unnecessary to say the least. While true of science is that of a phenomenon without a histo- that in layman’s language the term ‘romantic’ has ry or, at most, with a history presented in terms of come to mean prone to sentiment and novella-like, indefinite progress, forever moving in the same and nothing could be further removed from a sci- well-defined direction, from which but a handful of ence –a body of methodically ordered doctrine heretics stray from time to time. Indeed, the image constituting a given field of knowledge, yet, any of science conveyed by academic and scientific in- reasonably well– educated person realises that this stitutions and by scientists as a collective in gener- is not what is meant by Romantic literature, music al is an anti-historic image which divests science of or painting, or Romantic philosophy. He or she will, its past development and ‘cleans’ it of any possible to some extent, succeed in relating names such as impurities associated with its origins, providing an Chateaubriand, Schiller, Lord Byron and Espron- image of a coherent, definitive body of theories,

7 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 11 ARTICLES

knowledge and techniques –solid, free of fissures demic norms, that the work is by its nature unfin- and devoid of history. Or if it has history, it is a histo- ished and always liable to further modification, ry with a set purpose, endeavouring since its in- the title tends to be interpreted in the sense of ception to reach the point it now occupies, a view THE vegetation or THE fauna (as if unique and which ignores the inherent contingency of any phe- cast in stone) of a given location, now and for nomenon developing over the course of time. One ever. The work however is merely an abstraction need only look at how any scientific manual pre- of the given moment in time in which the work sents its subject matter. Subject areas are never re- was written and published (dates that rarely co- lated to each other in terms of how discoveries in incide), and of the methods used in studying or one area stimulated research which led to further gathering data. Such an interpretation overlooks discoveries in another or the same area. Subject the following facts: matter is invariably ordered by means of more or less logical schema, discarding chronology and 1. That one thousand years ago (or ten thousand the personality of those who have contributed to years ago, or last month, or in one hundred the development of theories or descriptions. Only in years’ time) the vegetation or fauna or the loca- highly public cases (Darwin and evolution; Pasteur tion in question may have been or may be differ- and microbes; Einstein and relativity) do we find ent, given that all living things have a history. ‘heroes’ in science. Indeed, this often occurs in mistaken contexts; Darwin’s evolution, for exam- 2. That the interpretation of phenomena or ob- ple, is frequently presented in the context of popu- jects could be different if other criteria or meth- lation genetics which Darwin himself could not ods were used (for example, increased focus on even have dreamt of, or Pasteur is alluded to in a certain groups of animals rather than others or discussion on prokaryotic cell morphology, a con- use of more qualitative than quantitative meth- cept which was to emerge years after the French ods, or vice-versa). chemist’s death. In other words, if humans have a history, nature and all of its components also have a history, and science, like all human endeavour, has a future, Nature and all of its components also have a which makes it contingent; in other words, it is conditioned by what has gone before. history, and science, like all human endeavour, has a future, which makes it contingent. 2. ‘Normal’ science and scientific revolutions

Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that humans, This holds true both in Physical and Mathematical, despite the growing evidence to the contrary, are and Life and Earth Sciences. Take a book title still all too ready to see themselves as conceptu- such as The Vegetation of Andorra or The Fauna ally outside nature and it is therefore difficult for of Minorca, in which regardless of the fact that them to conceive themselves as part of it. This the authors warn us, in compliance with aca- applies to learning about nature, to mastering it,

8 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

exploiting or destroying it, protecting it and (in the The scientific revolution seems to be the price to supreme example of presumption) saving it. be paid in order to avoid the stagnation of research (or its becoming merely formalistic and All this despite the fact that centuries have passed monotonously repetitive). However, as in the case since Descartes observed, admittedly from a pure- of all revolutions, the process is not without casu- ly mechanicist perspective, that the movement of alties. Knowledge which, for one reason or an- the mechanism of a watch was no less ‘natural’ other, is not incorporated into the new corpus than the flight of migrating swallows.1 bound to the new paradigms is soon marginalised and destined to oblivion.2 However, the advance of knowledge and the transmission of this knowledge to society is not a simple process; it is neither linear nor accumu- 3. Ecology, a Romantic science? lative, but complex and subject to the general historical circumstances of a given period, not to However, let us ask again: can a science be ter- mention the specific circumstances of the scien- med Romantic (or Classical, or Post-modern, or tific community, at both local and global level. It Baroque)? More specifically, is there any justification is now some years since Thomas S. Kuhn for saying that ecology is Romantic? What does this (1922-1996), the North American science histor- science do that makes it different to others? ian, pointed out that the history of science (i.e., the history of the production of knowledge) com- A science that differs from others prises periods of two main types: The history of science shows ecology to be - Periods of what Kuhn refers to as normal science, characterised by a number of unique features. As in which knowledge is built up in line with the gen- remarked by Margalef (1974), the history of ecology erally accepted theories and methodologies of a «differs from that of other sciences for the latter in given discipline or field of research. These com- general tend towards analysis, circumscription and mon guidelines, shared by a scientific community, division of their field of study, while ecology is a sci- are what Kuhn terms paradigms. ence which synthesises, combining material from different disciplines under its own points of view.» To - Scientific revolutions, in which the prevailing rework a metaphor coined by Margalef –it is not so paradigms are questioned, leading to the much a branch emerging from a common trunk emergence of new paradigms, which are also shared with other linked disciplines as a trunk com- the subject of debate until some of them are prising various different, independent roots. Ecol- consolidated, and all the knowledge in the rele- ogy is the result of the confluence and synthesis of vant discipline is reordered in terms of the new knowledge from a range of diverse sciences, and paradigms. from fields which are not even scientific.3

1 «[…] And it is entirely true that all the laws of mechanics pertain to physics, in such a way that all things that are artificial, are also natural. […] And, undoubtedly, when the swallows come in spring, their action is like that of the watches.» 2 KUHN, 1962. 3 MARGALEF, 1974.

9 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

What are these roots, then? Margalef sets out four; plethora of specialised sub-areas and schools, al- four «directions of study» which converged to form though nowadays it is essentially unified in terms of a new discipline towards the end of the 19th centu- concepts (ecosystem, succession, competition, ry. Firstly, description and classification of the geo- etc.) and theory. All of these factors have hindered graphical landscape; secondly, the practical fields coherent, clear and orderly historical reconstruction of agriculture, livestock farming, fishing, and so on; of the routes that led to our present-day knowledge third, physiology and etology, and finally, demogra- of the structure and functions of ecosystems, both phy and its associated mathematical perspective. at planetary and other levels. Margalef observed that the catalyst may have been the working together of scientists from different Romanticism and modernity: an ongoing fields in large-scale expeditions and laboratories, dialectic such as the first oceanographic or limnological stations. Perhaps, we could now add a further con- However, to answer the other two questions tributing field, the recognition of global biogeo- satisfactorily a number of issues require clarifica- chemical cycles at planetary level which underlies tion. Firstly, what should we understand by Roman- the emerging field of global ecology, to be de- ticism and, secondly, to what extent has Romanti- scribed below. cism infiltrated the roots of ecology and caused it to differ from other, more ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’ disciplines?

The caractheristics of Romanticism which have With regard to our understanding of what is meant a bearing on scientific endavour are: the by Romanticism, perhaps the most pertinent reflec- hostility towards the mechanicist natural tion in terms of scientific thought is that of Löwy and philosophy and descriptive natural history, Sayre in their Revolte et mélancolie. Le romantisme a contrecourant de la modernité.4 These authors the preference for dynamic and synthetic admit at the outset that the term ‘romantic’ seems approaches as opposed to static or analy- to defy all attempts at analysis, given the diversity tical ones, and the defence of the intuitive as and apparent contradictions it embodies, nor, they opposed to rational dimension of knowledge. hold, is any overall analysis of the Romantic phenomenon covering its entire range and diversity.

And, it must be added, from the perspective of the In addition, partly as a result of the diverse back- history of science, when such attempts at compre- grounds of the scholars and the diversity of the hensive analysis have taken place, it has proven media, organisms and reciprocal relations being extremely difficult to draw generally applicable con- studied, ecology, both over the course of its conclusions. For example, in the above-mentioned solidation as an independent discipline and even monograph given over to Romanticism and the today, has by nature been fragmented into a Sciences, and extending over more than 300

4 LÖWY & SAYRE, 1992.

10 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

pages, both the editors and the contributors shy chronology of Romanticism undoubtedly contin- away from offering a definition of Romanticism and ues to the present day in the shape of opposition to limit themselves to a simple description –albeit an globalisation, which, heralded in as the culmination accurate one– of certain of its characteristics of the development of modern capitalism by its de- which have a bearing on scientific endeavour (hos- fenders, is resisted on the basis of values that tility towards the mechanicist natural philosophy could be associated with any religious beliefs (defi- and descriptive natural history which characterised nitely premodern in origin) or with a neopaganism the Enlightenment, a preference for dynamic and based on respect for the forces of nature (and even synthetic approaches as opposed to static or ana- earlier in origin). lytical ones, a defence of the intuitive as opposed to rational dimension of knowledge, leading to a heightened value for direct observation of nature). Other equally distinguished scholars, such as Gus- Romanticism cannot be simply reduced to a dorf,5 limit Romantic science to the German Natur- literary or artistic movement, nor can it be philosophie and very little else. seen as restricted to certain countries, sphe- Löwy and Sayre, more daringly, claim that despite res of culture or historical periods. the views of some parties, Romanticism cannot be simply reduced to a literary or artistic movement, nor can it be seen as restricted to certain countries, spheres of culture or historical periods. In their The intellectual roots of this Romantic criticism of view, it comprises a view of the world embracing modernity, on the other hand, are not unlinked to literature, political thought, music, philosophy, eco- this same modernity. Indeed, Romanticism is born nomic thought, the plastic arts, the history of law, of modernity, of the anxiety and disappointment sociology and theology, and which has impregnat- that accompany some of its outcomes. Undoubt- ed certain spheres of industrial society since the edly, Romanticism rebels against modernity yet it mid-18th century until the present day, although does so on the basis of terms and instruments admittedly more noticeably during given periods, which it shares with modernity. It is, as it were, a especially the end of the 18th and beginning of the self-critique of modernity. For example, both Ro- 19th centuries and a great part of the first third of mantics and moderns attach a high value to indi- the 19th century. vidualism, linked to full development of the ego, a development rendered possible only by the emer- In their view, Romanticism comprises a critique of gence of modernity. modernity, that is, a critique of the modern capitalist civilisation engendered by the industrial revolu- However, the individualism of the Romantics is tion and the spread of the market economy from not that of modern liberalism. Unlike the latter, it the mid-18th century on. This critique is conducted is not a «numerical individualism» in which each in the light of values and ideals from the past. The individual is the agent of a given socioeconomic

5 GUSDORF, 1985.

11 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

function yet entirely interchangeable in his or her Science and Romanticism. The emergence of function, a situation in which development of an ecology inner world, use of one’s imagination, the expression of subjectivity and affectivity, deviations from Returning to the question of the extent to which socially accepted behaviour patterns, are all regard- Romanticism impregnated the roots of ecology ed as suspicious, if not repressed outright. The in- and has caused it to differ from other more ‘tradi- dividualism of the Romantics is rather a «qualita- tional’ or ‘modern’ disciplines, we must turn again tive individualism», which places the accent on the to the opening pages of Margalef’s text for his defi- unique and incomparable nature of each personal- nition of the discipline and the observations briefly ity, leading to a revolt of the subjectivity and affec- alluded to above. Margalef holds that ecology is tivity which are repressed, conducted and de- the biology of ecosystems, ecosystems taken to formed by modern society. be «systems formed by individuals of many species, in a setting with defined characteristics, In that Romanticism is a critique of modernity and in a dynamic, ongoing process of interaction, «from within», it does not reject modernity out- adjustment and regulation, expressible either as right, rather it rejects only certain of its traits which the interchange of matter and energy or as a se- it sees as incompatible with the Romantic world- quence of births and deaths, the result of which is: view. These traits are firstly, the expulsion of all evolution at the level of species organisation and that is marvellous from nature by the determin- succession at the level of the overall system.» ism of the modern science of Newton and Lavoi- Margalef lays great emphasis on the multiplicity of sier, and the reduction of nature by technology strategies employed to study these systems, to a mere source of raw materials for industry. even before they were named as such or were even And secondly, the mechanisation of the world recognised as levels of organisation, and remarks, and of society, reflected in the destruction of the as outlined above, that the history of ecology «dif- organic bonds between humans and nature, and fers from that of other sciences for, the latter in also in the disappearance of all traditional activi- general tend towards analysis, circumscription ties from society, displaced, one after another, by and division of their field of study,» whereas, he machinism and also in increasingly ‘mechanical’ adds, «ecology is a science which synthesises, political systems, headed, metaphorically by the combining material from different disciplines under ‘machinery of the state’ or ‘party organisations’, its own points of view.» which hinder direct participation on the part of the individual or groups. Thirdly, the rationalist ab- For Margalef the various fields of study which con- stractionism inherent to capitalist economics, stitute the roots of ecology converged and began based on such abstractions as ‘jobs’ (without any to crystallise as one around the last third of the specific reference to any real job), ‘gross domestic 19th century, when ecology began to identify and product’ and ‘currency’. The fourth and final trait name itself. It should perhaps be pointed out that is the dissolution of social bonds, that is, the while this convergence process was completed solitude that reigns at the heart of human society, over the years between the 19th and the 20th cen- deprived of human links due to the destruction of tury, the process had begun several decades previ- traditional sociability patterns, by the lack of soli- ously and that one of the individual roots played a darity, by rejection, by marginalisation. pre-eminently driving role. That root was Hum-

12 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

boldtian science, that is, the methods for descrip- Probably the first work in which Humboldt gave un- tion and study of the geographical landscape gen- ambiguous expression to his scientific project, a erally associated with Alexander von Humboldt work which should also be seen as seminal among (1769-1859) though also used by many other the roots of ecology, is his Essay on the Geography scholars and naturalists of that time. of Plants (Éssai sur la géographie des plantes), in which he justified his choice of the geography of Humboldt’s life ambition was to «encapsulate in a plants, as the primary expression of the physical single work the entire material universe, all we setting and because it also conditioned human life know of the phenomena of sky and earth, from the in both material and spiritual terms. For Humboldt, stellar nebulosae to the geography of mosses and «the geography of plants, a science which until granitic rocks» and all this in «a vigorous style, now has only existed in name [...] is an essential which would excite and captivate the sensibility.» part of general physics,» which is, in turn, «one of This work was to be Cosmos, aptly subtitled the most beautiful fields of human knowledge», the «Sketch of the Physical Description of the Uni- object of which is study of nature as a whole.7 verse», published in the last years of his life.6 In fact however, since his youth Humboldt had conceived all the works he published as stepping stones on the way to this major culminating work, therefore Humboldtian science, that is, the methods for wielding an influence over numerous scholars in a description and study of the geographical wide range of subject areas. It is in this sense that landscape generally associated with Alexan- one can talk of Humboldtian science –a science which, setting out from the characteristically Ro- der von Humboldt (1769-1859) is one of the romantic objective of «exploring the unity of nature», ots of Ecology. discovering the interaction of its forces and the influences of the geographic setting on plant and animal life, established an innovative scientific practice, the main features of which are, among This holistic approach implicit to ‘Humboldtian sci- others, the explicit aim of studying large groups ence’ serves to distinguish the work of Humboldt and interrelating all the phenomena found therein, from that of earlier botanists who were interested in including those deriving from human action; sys- the geographical distribution of plants, and is also tematic use of measures of all types, an attempt to one of the main features of what was to become the relate them to each other and with observations on science of ecology. This holism was also, undoubt- plant and animal life, and the introduction of obser- edly, clearly Romantic in nature, given that Romanti- vation networks as a means of study and of iso- cism, in addition to or perhaps even more so than lines (beginning with isotherms) as a means of individualism, tends to attach a high value to the overall expression of phenomena which present unity or totality of the ego, both in relation to the en- gradual and continuous variations in the location tire universe (nature) and to humankind (society, the being studied. nation). These values are also clearly in opposition

6 HUMBOLDT, 1845-1862. In fact the final volume was published posthumously, three years after Humboldt's death. 7 HUMBOLDT, 1805.

13 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

to the prevailing values of modernity. The view that not be explained simply in terms of their parts but nature was a totality in which the individual must rather by how they interact (and, in reality, this seek to integrate himself harmoniously is in stark holds true for all sciences concerned with study contradiction with the capitalist principle that natu- in one way or another of living matter, whether at ral resources must be exploited to the utmost. the level of the individual cell, the organism or the entire biosphere).

The protohistory of ecology: from Humboldt The object of study of ecology –ecosystems– to Haeckel have properties which cannot be explained The tension between holism and reductionism is simply in terms of their parts but rather by not, in any case, a recent development or a pas- how they interact. sing fashion. The first flourishing of ecology, as an as yet nameless discipline, stemmed from the work of Humboldt and continued throughout practically the whole of the 19th century. It advanced with 4. Holism and reductionism in the studies of botanic geography laying emphasis on history of ecology vegetation as opposed to flora, on biological life forms as opposed to nomenclature; with the con- Holism was one of the most outstanding traits of tributions of travelling naturalists (with Darwin and ecology in its inception and today it continues to Wallace to the forefront) and scholars of marine lie at the heart of the tension between the two and lake waters; with the contribution of geogra- main trends in modern ecology: the holistic ap- phers and thoughtful lay travellers who reflected on proach characteristic of ecology in its inception the transformations undergone by the landscape and the reductionism demanded by the academic over the course of history. world if it is to be seen as a ‘normal’ science, a science like all others. This does not mean that ecol- The discipline was not to grow without difficulty, ogy must reject reductionism outright. Criticism of since it had to confront the positivism prevailing the implicit organicism and idealism of many holis- among the scientific community throughout most tic approaches has been well-founded and it is of that century and the rigid dogma of the econom- true that the accumulation of data on species or ic and social system. Nevertheless, the first half of individual organisms of an ecosystem on a rela- the 19th century –a high point for the Romantic tively modest scale cannot be avoided. However, movement in art and letters, saw the emergence of reductionist approaches to the problems addressed some of the basic concepts and theories which by ecology will have a greater chance of success if were to form the future basis for ecology. To the they bear in mind how various parts of the ecosys- seminal contribution of Humboldt’s Éssai sur la tem combine on a wider scale. Nor is holism a géographie des plantes (published in 1807 though panacea, especially if limited to the clichéd claim dated 1805) must be added, albeit from very differ- that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, ent perspectives, the contributions of Sadi Carnot yet it must be accepted that the object of study of to the development of thermodynamics (another ecology –ecosystems– have properties which can- Romantic science closely linked to ecology), those

14 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

of Charles Lyell to the popularisation of «the econo- (1809-1882) was to collect the bulk of the data my of nature» of the Enlightenment naturalists and which would form the basis of his theory of evolu- the outcome (above and beyond the theory of evo- tion by natural selection on that voyage. The date lution) of Charles Darwin’s Beagle voyage. of publication of The Origin of the Species (1859) serves as the symbolical closure to the great Ro- In 1824, Sadi Carnot (1796-1832) published his mantic flowering of the first half of the 19th century. Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu, a brief pamphlet outlining a completely new image of the world on the basis of the practical knowledge of the engineers who built and regulated steam en- The first half of the 19th century –a high point gines and a very simple idea: in an energetically for the Romantic movement in art and letters, isolated system, temperatures spontaneously tend saw the emergence of some of the basic con- to uniformity and entropy tends to increase. Carnot did not yet express it in these terms (the concept of cepts and theories which were to form the fu- entropy was to develop at a later stage), yet ture basis for ecology. «Carnot’s principle», according to which «the effi- ciency of a reversible engine depends only upon the temperatures of the heat source and heat re- ceiver» is in reality the first formulation of the sec- The voyage of the Beagle also brings us to another ond principle of thermodynamics.8 field which provided the roots for ecology: the study of the biology of marine and continental wa- The Scottish geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875) ters. Since the time of the first microscopists, in the published his Principles of Geology between 1830 mid 17th century, the existence of microscopic or- and 1833.9 In the second volume, published in ganisms had been observed in water. However, it 1832, he reflected on the «economy of nature», that was in this Romantic period that study of these mi- is, on natural balances and cycles in relation to liv- croorganisms began to develop, especially when ing things. Unlike the earlier naturalists (such as Lin- John Vaughan Thompson (1779-1847) discovered né, for example), who left regulation of these bal- that he could catch a highly varied range of micro- ances and cycles in the hands of the Creator, Lyell scopic organisms in a fine net drawn over the sur- did not attribute the mechanisms ensuring constant face of the water on the Irish Sea in 1828.10 This proportions between naturally occurring popula- discovery was soon confirmed by Johannes Müller tions to providence. For Lyell, the natural balances (1801-1858) in the seas around the island of He- had material as opposed to providential causes. ligoland, in the North Sea.

Lyell’s book was by Charles Darwin’s bedside Johannes Müller’s role in establishing the basis for when he embarked on the Beagle for his round- later development of ecology has not yet been fully the-world voyage between 1831-1836. Darwin appreciated. Though trained in the values of the Ro-

8 CARNOT, 1824. 9 LYELL, 1830-1833. 10 THOMPSON, 1828-34.

15 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

mantic Naturphilosophie, his career took a more Yet, in marine biology, the most important ad- positivist approach in terms of method. Although vances were not to begin until the creation of the predating Claude Bernard’s study of «experimental first coastal laboratories or stations and the con- medicine», that is, physiology based on observation sequent proliferation of oceanographic cam- and experimentation with animals (the first volume paigns. This began in the 1840s with creation of of Müller’s Handbuch der Phisiologie der Menschen the marine laboratory of Ostende (1843) by Pieter- dates from 1833,11 30 years before Bernard’s Intro- Josef Van Beneden (1809-1894) and the zoologi- duction à l’étude de la medicine experimentale12), cal station of Konk-Kerme (Concarneau in Müller did not by any means reject the specificity of French), in Brittany, by Jean-Victor Coste (1807- living systems and adhered to an organicism which 1873), but did not become widespread until the was fully rooted within the Romantic tradition, con- 1870s, coinciding with the Challenger expedition templating organisms as a whole: (1873-1876) and the final acceptance of ocean studies. The laying of underwater cables and their «Organic bodies are not only distinguished recovery for repairs in the mid-19th century re- from the inorganic by the particular nature of vealed the existence of life in the deepest depths their assembly from simple elements; they also of the sea, which naturalists had previously be- present a permanent activity, manifest in living lieved impossible. matter, which creates in accordance with the rules of final goal. The parts are organised in Both Van Beneden and Coste were distinguished terms of the whole and it is precisely this which embryologists who developed a secondary inter- characterises an organism.» est in marine biology, mainly due to the advan- tages to their studies of the external fertilisation Nor did he limit his studies to human physiology occurring in many marine organisms, especially but devoted great efforts to discovering the devel- the echinoderms, whose radial symmetry held a opment patterns of numerous organisms, includ- special fascination for zoologists. This growing ing many marine organisms, and was the first to knowledge of the species inhabiting the seas, how draw the attention of other scientists to what is they lived and developed and their embryos, was nowadays known as plankton, the term given to it to open many doors for young scientists, including many years later by Victor Hensen (1835-1924). those who would bring about the full consolidation Müller’s followers included, among others, Ernest of ecology. None of the marine laboratories found- Haeckel (1834-1919), who first used the term ed in the 19th century was so fundamental to the ‘ecology’ to refer to the new discipline, and Karl emergence of ecology as those of Naples and Möbius (1825-1908) who introduced the term bio- Woods Hole. The former, founded in 1873 by An- cenosis to designate what today is generally ton Dohrn (1840-1909), and the latter, the same known as ecosystem, and undertook a full-scale year by Louis Agassiz, first on the small island of study of one such ecosystem: oyster banks on the Penikese, in Massachusetts, and later moving to German North Sea coastline. Woods Hole in 1886.

11 MÜLLER, 1833-40. 12 BERNARD, 1865.

16 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

Ecology’s view of itself: from the name to the Haeckel’s role in ecology is limited to having pro- thing vided it with its name, although even this merit would be denied him today had it not been that Despite the relative eclipse of Romanticism and those who really did practice the discipline accept- Humboldtian science in the mid 19th century with ed the term, for, at practically the same time, others the rise of positivism and the growing professional- authors also put forward terms which did not pros- isation of science, the Romantic –or Humboldtian– per. Möbius himself, for example, who in 1877 be- perspective discreetly held ground, until finding an gan study of what he termed the biocenosis in his opportunity to emerge, amidst the prevailing posi- Die Auster und die Austernwirtschaft (The Oyster tivism, and sometimes amalgamated with it. In and Oysterculture):13 short, what happened to the Romantic approach in science mirrored what was to occur in other fields: successive revivals after long periods of marginalisation under the various versions of official culture, The growing knowledge of the species inhabi- especially towards the end of the century with the ting the seas, how they lived and developed prevalence of modernism and symbolism. and their embryos, was to open many doors for At the height of positivism, in 1866, Ernst Haeckel, young scientists, including those who would the main German follower of Darwin, and not at all bring about the full consolidation of ecology. vulnerable to the influences of Naturphilosophie or «Romantic mists», introduced the term ‘ecology’ to denominate: «A community in which the sum of the species «The science of the set of relations between and individuals mutually limited by the average the organism and the external world surround- external living conditions, is maintained, by ing it, the organic and inorganic conditions of means of reproduction, occupying continuous- existence; what is called the «economy of na- ly a given area.» ture», that is, the mutual relationships among all organisms that live in a given place, their Möbius’ study of the oyster banks of Schleswig- adaptation to their environment, their transfor- Holstein is one of the most characteristic examples mation through the struggle to live, and espe- of the holistic approach of Humboldtian science cially parasitic relationships, etc. It is precisely, and represents a curious updating of it, filtered these manifestations of the «economy of na- through positivism and Darwinism, and imbued ture», which the layman, superficially, consid- with the old Naturphilosophie spirit. Möbius, a ers the wise dispositions of a creator who acts great admirer of Humboldt and a student of Jo- in accordance with a plan, that are, with deep- hannes Müller, included all the factors that could be er analysis, seen to be the necessary conse- reasonably considered to have a bearing in his quences of mechanical causes.» study to draw a surprisingly innovative conclusion

13 MÖBIUS, 1877.

17 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

which is perfectly coherent with the Romantic spir- coastal stations began to proliferate, the first limno- it: the cause of the apparently irremediable decline logical studies were published, botanic geography of the oyster banks of the northern-most part of the began to develop rapidly, demographers perfected German coast was trains. Trains, and of course, their mathematical instruments, thermodynamics the social, economic and political conditions which was consolidated as a new method of analysing accompanied the building of a single railway net- the phenomena of heat energy and some chemists work throughout Germany, some few years after intuitively pointed to what we now refer to as the proclamation of the German Reich by Bismark and greenhouse effect. In 1881, Karl Semper (1832- Wilhelm I (1871). The improved transport had 1893), in his Die natürlichen Existenzbedigungen transformed the oyster markets of Northern Ger- der Tiere (The Natural Living Conditions of Ani- man into national as opposed to local markets; the mals),14 outlined a theory of quantification of mate- local oysters were no longer only sold in Kiel and rial flows from one trophic level to another, and other nearby cities but rather in Berlin, Frankfurt, pointed out that the ratio between plant biomass Munich and Strasbourg. Demand grew and prices and that of herbivores was approximately 10 to 1 and profits rose, leading to intensification of oyster as is that of herbivores to carnivores. These pro- farming. The unavoidable consequence of over- portions underlie representation of the biomass of exploitation did not take long to appear and the de- different trophic levels in the form of the broad- cline in the number of oysters soon set in. This un- based, narrow-tipped pyramids now known as El- derstanding was obviously tantamount to a critique ton’s pyramids, it being the British ecologist of the booming modernity rampant in 1870s Ger- Charles Elton (1900-1991) who first drew attention many and its full-hearted acceptance of the mod- to them in his Animal Ecology.15 ern capitalism that developed with the industrial revolution. The critique was in the name of values If we were forced to choose a date for ecology’s and ideals of the past, maintenance, for example, recognition of itself as a scientific discipline it would of the traditional ways and means of life: those of have to be around 1895 or 1896, the years of pub- the oyster farmers of northern Germany, of the bal- lication of the first work explicitly stating ecology to ance that had been preserved over thousands of be the basis of its content. This was Plantesam- years, of a biocenosis, the first to ever have been fund. Grundträck af den ökologiske plantegeografi described as such, which had now suffered the by the Danish botanist Eugenius Warming (1841- consequences of irrational human intervention. Yet 1924) published in Danish in 1895 and translated all this was solidly based on rigorous study and on to German the following year.16 In this work Warm- a then-innovative doctrine, Darwinism. ing drew a clear distinction between what he called floristic geobotany, the aim of which is to establish However, ecology’s recognition of itself as a scien- the flora of a given territory; division of space into tific discipline would have to wait a little longer, until flora zones and study of the essentially geographi- the end of the century. In the meantime, the first re- cal and historical factors which delimit extension of sults of the Challenger expedition began to appear, each taxon’s territory, and what he termed ecologi-

14 SEMPER, 1881. 15 ELTON, 1927. 16 WARMING, 1895.

18 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

cal geobotany (or plant ecology), the objective of umental Das Antlitz der Erde (The Face of the which is to study how plants and plant communi- Earth),17 published in 1908. Suess defined the bio- ties adjust their shape and behaviour to environ- sphere as the solidarity between all living things and mental factors such as available heat, light, food the factors which made life on the face of the Earth and water. Ecology’s self-recognition as a disci- possible, issues which he had previously studied in pline emerged between the time of publication of the earlier volumes of his work almost as exhaus- the Danish original and its German translation and tively as Humboldt had in his Kosmos more than half 1909 when a revised and much extended English a century earlier. Suess did not talk of ecology, yet version appeared, entitled Oecology of Plants; An there can be no doubt that his concept was to be- Introduction to the Study of Plant-Communities. come the foundation of global ecology during the This led to a measure of respectability as a scientif- last third of the 20th century. Whether ecology ic discipline, although many laboratory biologists recognises it or not, the discipline began to advance continued to see it as mere entertainment for natu- in its own right in the years spanning the end of the ralists and unworthy of the attention of genuine positivistic scientists, while many field botanists and zoologists saw it as the frivolity of young colleagues who refused to subject themselves to the At the beginning of the XX century, many lab- systematic learning of the field. oratory biologists continued to see ecology as a mere entertainment for naturalists and In any case, the 19th century was a time of a value crisis in all fields and in all countries. Those years unworthy of the attention of genuine positiv- saw the emergence of new concepts amidst an im- istic scientists. placable critique of the hitherto reigning values in ethics, politics, literature, arts and science. In particular, criticism of scientific positivism and mechanism became widespread, both from spiritual and idealis- 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, coincid- tic and more materialistic perspectives. One out- ing with the fin de siecle fall of positivism and the standing case, which was to wield a great influence resurgence of intuitive rather than rational thought, over later development of the concept of biosphere, and the neoRomantic revival of symbolism in the was the intuitionism of Henri Bergson (1858-1941), plastic arts and literature of Catalan modernisme, who published several of his most outstanding the German Jugendstil, art nouveau in France and works, replete with an anti-intellectual vitalism, be- Belgium, and the British Liberty movement. tween 1896 and 1907. Bergson rebelled against positivism, yet he also tried to open the method em- The main protagonists of those early days of ecol- ployed by positive sciences to a role for intuition. ogy were the heirs to the older geobotanic tradi- These were also the years in which the Austrian ge- tion, of which Warming is but one of the more dis- ologist Eduard Suess (1831-1914) advanced his tinguished exponents. His compatriot, Christen concept of biosphere in the final volume of his mon- Raunkiaer (1860-1938), in the same spirit, also

17 SUESS, 1883-1908.

19 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

defined plant life forms at that time, which, in the view latter on the lakeside dunes of Lake Michigan, es- of the new ecologists were to replace the specific tablished, between 1898 and 1907, the basis for a forms which had traditionally been the object of dynamic ecology with their theory of plant commu- botany. The Alsatian Andreas Schimper (1856- nity succession.19 Between 1904 and 1913, 1901) went even further in his Pflanzengeographie Charles C. Adams (1873-1955) and Victor E. auf physiologischer Grundlage (Physiological Geo- Shelford (1877-1968) added the animal compo- botany),18 which argued for relatively less impor- nent,20 (which had, until then, been overlooked, with tance to be attributed to general climate for plant life the exception of some pioneering work such as that in differentiating a physical drought (due to climate) by the above-mentioned Semper), to what from from a physiological drought (due to the soil) and that time began to be known as study of the «biotic in establishing plant formations of comparable community» or «biome». Decisive steps were also physiological conditions according to soil types taken in 1913 for the institutionalisation of ecology (hygrophiles, xerophiles and tropophiles), within as a ‘normal’ science with the foundation of the the framework of the formations characteristic of British Ecological Society. This society undertook each general climate. publication of the discipline’s first scientific journal, the Journal of Ecology, still in publication today.

The ecology being studied by freshwater scholars Ecology began to advance in its own right in was also far from static at that time. Of particular the years spanning the end of the 19th and the significance, from today’s perspective, was the work of the American, Stephen A. Forbes (1844- beginning of the 20th century, coinciding with 1930), The Lake as a Microcosm.21 Forbes sees the fall of positivism and the resurgence of in- the lake tuitive rather than rational thought, and the «as an organic system, in an equilibrium be- neoRomantic revival of symbolism in the plas- tween synthesis and decomposition, in which tic arts and literature. the struggle for existence and natural selection have led to a balance and a continuum of interests between predator and prey.»

The ecology of Warming and Schimper was still a and conceives it as a ‘microcosmos’, that is: static ecology, not yet having incorporated a tem- poral dimension. Two American geobotanists, «a little world within itself, –a microcosm within Frederick E. Clements (1874-1945) and Henry C. which all the elemental forces are at work and the Cowles (1869-1939), on the basis of observations play of life goes on in full, but on so small a scale by the former on the prairies of Nebraska and by the as to bring it easily within the mental grasp.»

18 SCHIMPER, 1898. 19 COWLES, 1899; CLEMENTS, 1905. 20 ADAMS, 1905; SHELFORD, 1913. 21 FORBES, 1887.

20 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

Forbes was not alone; those same years also saw ative highpoint of ecology. The ‘roaring’ 20s, with proliferation in Europe of small limnological labora- their expressionism, surrealism and all the forms of tories. Yet, the main milestone marking the birth of avant-garde art (together, unfortunately, with the contemporary limnology was the work of the Swiss rise of fascism –one of the unpleasant sides of the François A. Forel (1841-1912) on Lake Geneva, irrational dimension of Romanticism) was a time in published in three volumes between 1892 and which key concepts in ecology either emerged or 1894, under the title Le Leman, and his Handbuch were reformulated, including the concepts of the der Seenkunde. Allgemeine Limnologie (Handbook ecosystem and biosphere. of Lake Studies. General Limnology), published in 1900.22 We owe the modern concept of biosphere, a development of that of Suess, to the Russian The ecology of the inter-war period: the Vladimir I. Vernadsky (1863-1945), a man who emergence of key concepts never saw himself as an ecologist, yet through his contributions was to establish the conceptual By the outbreak of the First World War, ecology and even methodological foundations of what to- was an emerging discipline which had begun to day is known as global ecology. Trained in a set- become institutionalised. It had more in its favour ting which was particularly sympathetic to Hum- than the fact that Haeckel had given it a name, yet boldtian science, –the University of Saint it was not yet sufficiently confident of its own para- Petersburg, Vernadsky’s teachers included the digms. On the one hand, geobotany, from which chemist Dmitri I. Mendeleiev (1834-1907), dis- ecology can be said to have developed, broke up coverer of the periodic table of the elements, and into multiple schools, often extremely local in na- the geologist Basili V. Dokutxàiev (1846-1903), ture, until the inter-war period saw the Zürich- founder of soil science. Although, essentially a Montpellier (SIGMA) phytosociological school gain geologist and mineralogist, Vernadsky developed a dominant position in continental Europe, while in an early interest in geochemistry and, especially, the United States the successionist school of in the cycles of elements in nature, and realised Clements prevailed. On the other hand, the theory the importance of living matter in many of these of biotic communities or biocenoses gathered mo- cycles, to the extent that he considered life as mentum and incorporated statistic population one of the main geological forces. His ideas were quantification and mathematical modelling of pop- shaped during the course of a stay in Paris, from ulation dynamics from demographics. Limnology, 1922 to 1925, in contact with a particularly effer- for its part, contributed a model for study of a self- vescent intellectual setting. His main interlocu- contained system which was to serve as the basis tors at that time were the mathematician and for the future concept of ecosystem. philosopher Édouard Le Roy (1870-1954) and the Jesuit palaeontologist Pierre Teilhard de Yet, one has to wait until the 1920s and 1930s - Chardin (1881-1955). Édouard Le Roy was a again a time of resurgence of Romantic ideas, and student of Bergson and had succeeded him in a flowering of thought and arts, for the next cre- the chair at the College de France, he also

22 FOREL, 1892-94, 1900.

21 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

shared the idealistic and vitalistic thought of his limnologists in the United States between the master and contributed to the development of 1930s and 1940s. Also, the importance of Tans- the concepts of biosphere and noosphere in two ley’s teacher, the extraordinary European, and again of his books, published in 1927 and 1928, in British, ecologist: George Evelyn Hutchinson (1903- parallel to Vernadsky’s The Biosphere, published 1991) must not be overlooked. Hutchinson –an in Russian in 1926 and in an extended and re- Englishman who never really settled into life in vised French version in 1929.23 Teilhard de New England (after retirement and several years Chardin, within the framework of the doctrine of as an emeritus professor, he returned to his native the Catholic church, had begun to develop an England to spend the last years of his life), was the evolutionist line of thought and although he was teacher of, among many others Raymond L. Lin- a firm believer in scientific method, he main- deman (1915-1942), a promising biologist who, tained his faith in God and in the spiritual tran- before his premature death at the age of 27 years scendence of the human being. Silenced by the from hepatitis, had published two articles which ecclesiastic hierarchy and by his order, yet ad- were decisive for the future of ecology. His Sea- mired by those who shared his twofold faith in sonal Food-Cycle Dynamics in a Senescent Lake God and science, he developed formulations of appeared in 1941, in which, on the basis of earlier the concepts of biosphere and noosphere which work by Chancey Juday (1871-1944), he de- were close to those of Vernadsky and Le Roy. scribed the role of primary producers in the functioning of ecosystems and the relations between The concept of ecosystem, on the other hand, the different trophic levels, which he measured in emerged from the radical rejection by the English terms of calorie equivalents of the average weight botanist Arthur G. Tansley (1871-1955) of the or- corresponding to the groups making up the bio- ganicist conception of natural communities ad- cenosis. In 1942, the year of his death, he pub- vanced by Clements and his school in the United lished «The Trophic-Dynamic aspect of Ecology» States. A conception in which, these communi- in Ecology (though he did not live to see it in print), ties, were considered as analogous to organ- in which he generalised his conclusions of the previ- isms. Tansley opposed this analogy and pro- ous year for a senescent lake to any ecosystem posed the concept of ecosystem in 1935, which and formulated a conception of ecosystem which integrated the plant community (Tansley was a has survived to the present day: a fundamental terrestrial ecologist who had received a tradition- ecological unit which includes a biotic community al geobotanical training) and the complex group and its environment, in complex interaction, char- of physical environmental factors into a single acterised by a flow of energy from certain parts to system.24 other parts of the same system and a practically self-contained food cycle. Paradoxically, a concept put forward by a Euro- pean ecologist in opposition to the stance of some No less paradoxically, these articles today recog- of his American colleagues was only to meet with nised as milestones in development of the disci- full acceptance when embraced by a number of pline, were to pass unnoticed and were largely

23 VERNADSKY, 1929. 24 TANSLEY, 1935.

22 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

rejected by the scientific community to which In contrast, ecology was to develop at a spec- they were addressed. Lindeman’s second article tacular rate throughout the 1950s and 1960s. was rejected by four referees and was only pub- The first milestone was laid by the Odum broth- lished on the initiative of the editor of Ecology ers in 1953, with their Fundamentals of Ecology. (Thomas Park), thanks to the indefatigable insis- Eugene P. Odum (1913-2002), initially an or- tence of Hutchinson, in October 1942, when Lin- nithologist but having studied at Yale with deman had died. A parallel, if not identical con- Hutchinson, has himself described the lack of cept, also appeared in 1942 in Soviet Russia: the understanding among his colleagues at the Uni- concept of biogeocenosis, which Vladimir N. versity of Georgia and how the university en- Sukatxev (1880-1967) described as a combina- gaged him to write a programme for ecology tion, in a given area of the earth’s surface, of ho- studies together with his brother Howard T. mogenous natural phenomena (atmosphere, sol- Odum (1924-2002), better versed in physics. id substrate, organisms, waters) among which Fundamentals of Ecology did not include deci- there was a specific type of interaction together sive theoretical advances, however it was the with a defined type of exchange of matter and energy between these and other natural phenomena (solar radiation, for example). The ecosistem is the fundamental ecological The ecological revolution of the 1950s and unit which includes a biotic community and its 1960s: matter, energy and information environment, in complex interaction, charac- The differences between the concepts devel- terised by a flow of energy from certain parts oped by Sukatxev and Lindeman are largely to other parts of the same system and a prac- matters of words as opposed to truly conceptual issues. Both are in fact developments of the bio- tically self-contained food cycle. geochemical conceptions of Vernadsky concerning the biosphere. This development was more clearly obvious in the case of Sukatxev, Linde- man’s work having passed through the Hutchin- first handbook of ecology per se and converted son filter, Hutchinson being well versed in the the discipline into what Kuhn terms «normal sci- thought of Vernadsky –he even translated sever- ence», in other words, science with established al of his works to English.25 However, appearing paradigms which are confirmed by studies car- as they did at an unfavourable time (at the height ried out in accordance with equally established of World War II) and with Lindeman’s early death, methods, until a feature which does not fit into the development went largely unnoticed and it these paradigms forces a search and discovery was not until after the war that these contribu- of new paradigms, generally after a period of con- tions would be recognised as basic elements in frontation between various schools of thought, contemporary ecological theory. ending with rupture and rapid acceptance of new

25 A son of Vernadsky was a history professor at Yale and a good friend of Hutchinson.

23 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

paradigms which are incompatible with those 3. Animals and plants without chlorophyll27 de- which preceded them (what Kuhn terms a «sci- pend on green plants, which produce proteins, entific revolution»). carbohydrates and fats through photosynthe- sis; plants are controlled by animals, and both The contribution of the Odum brothers was un- are influenced by bacteria. doubtedly a scientific revolution. In the aftermath 4. Organisms also have an influence on the abi- of publication of their handbook26 nothing would otic medium. ever be the same again. The handbook begins 5. Humans have the capacity to alter ecosystems with a redefinition of the ecosystem along the drastically. lines of Lindeman, Sukatxev and Hutchinson: It is no mean feat to have concentrated in so few «any natural entity or unit which includes liv- principles not only the basis of ecological sci- ing and inert parts, which interact to produce ence but also that of the ecologist movement, a stable system in which the exchange of which no one in 1953 could even have imagined materials between living and non-living parts would ever exist. follows a cyclical pattern is an ecological system or ecosystem. The ecosystem is the There was yet a third strand to be integrated into largest functional unit in ecology and in- the theoretical framework of biogeochemical and cludes both organisms (biotic communities) energy flows; for an ecosystem comprises not and the abiotic medium, both of which mutu- only matter and energy, but also organisation. ally influence each other’s respective proper- The outstanding contribution in this regard was to ties and are necessary for maintenance of life arrive in 1957 from a Catalan ecologist who did on Earth as we know it. A lake is an example not even occupy a chair from which to advance it of an ecosystem.» –Spain not establishing any chair of ecology until 1967. The ecologist was Ramon Margalef. Five main principles are set out in the first pages of the book: In his entry speech to the Reial Acadèmia de Ciències i Arts of Barcelona in 1957,28 Margalef 1. The largest ecosystem is the entire planet, the described the trophic relations and energy flows biosphere is the part of the planet in which of ecosystems in terms of «feedback circuits».29 In smaller ecosystems operate. fact, Margalef had presented his ideas at a scien- 2. Ecosystems may be of a wide range of sizes, tific meeting at the Scripps Institution of Oceanog- ranging from the entire biosphere to the small- raphy in La Jolla (California) the previous year, est of pools. where he had found agreement from Howard T.

26 ODUM & ODUM, 1953. 27 At the time of the publication of the Odum brothers' work, fungi had not yet been recognised as constituting a separate kingdom to that of plants and animals and were considered to be plants without chlorphyll. 28 Based on an idea of Henry Quastler (1908-1963), who in 1953 had published a collection of contributions to a symposium on information theory in biology. He suggested that information theory, developed by Shannon and Weaver, provided the basis for measurement in terms of information of an enzy- ne's specificity with respect to its substrate. 29 MARGALEF, 1957.

24 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

Odum, John Cantlon (a plant ecologist at Michi- they were the decades in which the most spec- gan State University), Louis Kornicker (a colleague tacular advances took place in ecology, from the of H. T. Odum at the University of Texas) and oth- contribution of the International Biological Pro- ers. Margalef identified the concept of information gram (IBP) to the first formulations of the Gaia with that of organisation or ‘form’ of systems, with hypothesis, to the emergence of the ecology the measure of the internal ‘order’ or ‘disorder’ of movements aiming to base their doctrine and these systems and he related it to various of the political action on the findings of ecological sci- ecosystem’s own processes, such as succession, ence, a feature distinguishing them from similar or with the processes of its living components, previous social phenomena. This energy contin- such as evolution. In any case, since the 1960s, ued into the early 70s but yet was to wane in the information or organisation is as fundamental an context of the successive petrol crises, as the re- element in description of an ecosystem as is mat- sult of the changing position of political, financial ter or energy.30 and industrial powers in the developed world.

The developments of the 1940s and 1950s, with their outright rejection of the organicism inherent to the approach of Clements and his followers, The ecologist mouvement served as a catalyst the search for support in physics and mathematics and the formalisation of ecology as a normal for a rather ill-defined but widespread social science meant a distancing to some extent from unease in the light of the indifference or the discipline’s Romantic roots and some could arrogance of the powers that be vis à vis the even see it as a move towards reductionism. So destruction and maiming of our natural heri- be it; it is by means of such contradictions –the natural outcome of shared conceptions held at tage, not to mention human health and life. given moments in time, that scientific disciplines, not to mention social institutions, the arts and even fashion, advance and renew themselves. In the 1960s, ecology was to move again in the di- The first manifestations of what was then known rection of its Romantic and holistic roots and, via as the ‘ecological movement’ date back to publi- quantification of information (or organisation, or cation in the United States of Silent Spring in diversity), was to recover on one hand the old or- 1962, a book which served as a catalyst for a ganicist metaphor and, on the other, the holistic rather ill-defined but widespread social unease in approach dating from the days of Humboldt. the light of the indifference or arrogance of the powers that be vis à vis the destruction and Undoubtedly, the 1960s, together with the «roar- maiming of our natural heritage, not to mention ing 20s» would count as the most ‘Romantic’ –as demonstrated with all the required rigour by decades of the 20th century. And, inevitably, Rachel Carson– human health and life.31 At the

30 MARGALEF, 1968, 1974, 1980a, 1980b. 31 CARSON, 1962.

25 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

time of its emergence in the United States, the the struggle against pollution (pollution being ‘ecological movement’ was another manifestation equivalent to destruction of natural resources, of the hippy movement or the rejection by North and the result of the accelerated economic American youth of the war in Vietnam which, growth that had triumphed in the aftermath of consequently, spread quickly around university World War II) led to a certain reluctance on the campuses, especially in California. However, the part of orthodox Marxist-based left-wing politi- movement also took less radical forms (though cians in Europe (the socialists and communists) not necessarily less effective in terms of achieving to take up the cause, which they dismissed as specific objectives), with the extension of activi- ‘ecological ideology’. However, there was no ties to include objectives which had been neg- shortage of support among the new left emerg- lected by the numerous consumer organisations ing as a result of the urban campaigns and stu- then active in the United States. These objectives dent movements –’66 in Spain, ‘68 in France included ensuring the quality of water, air and and other European countries, which saw the food. The Romantic urge to return to and fuse potential of ecologism as the basis for radical with nature widespread among many hippies, criticism of the capitalist system. and drawn from the thought of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), merged with the radicalism However, care must be taken to distinguish be- of the civil rights or anti-Vietnam War movements. tween ecology and ecologism in that confusing, chaotic and equivocal, albeit tremendously cre- In Europe, the movement was slower to emerge ative period, in which both either merged as one and first began to manifest itself as an extension of or clashed outright with each other depending residents associations struggling to improve condi- on the perspective taken by the observer, in- tions in poorer areas of the large industrial cities evitably subject to a range of scientific and ideo- and fight against the ‘internal colonialism’ prac- logical interests. ticed in many marginal or less developed areas of the state by the government or multinationals. In terms of science, for ecology the sixties were a time of consolidation of the concept of ecosys- By the end of the 1960s, the majority of politi- tem and of a search for new unifying concepts, cians, including even some members of the tra- the most outstanding of which being those asso- ditional right, in most democratic countries ciated with information theory. Great efforts were (though not of course in the Spain of the late also made in the terrain of unifying ecology with Franco years), had incorporated ‘ecological’ other theoretical fields of biology (evolution, ge- tinges into their discourse. To the fore, was US netics, physiology), Earth sciences (global ecolo- president Richard Nixon, who gave over most of gy, the Gaia hypothesis), and even physics (ther- his State of the Union address of 22 January modynamics) and mathematics. As a result, the 1970 to environmental issues. Practically coin- IBP had an important ecological component, in ciding with this, in February of the same year in particular regarding the functioning of ecosys- Strasbourg, the Council of Europe proclaimed tems, and fostered a more interdisciplinary ap- the European Nature Conservation Year. This approach to research in ecology. The titles of the parent appropriation on the part of the right of seven sections in which it was organised (Pro- the discourse of environmental protection and ductivity of Terrestrial Communities, Production

26 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

Processes in the Terrestrial and Aquatic Media, tect any possible extraterrestrial life on Mars. Conservation of Terrestrial Communities, Produc- However, Lovelock decided to pose the problem tivity of Freshwater Communities, Productivity of the other way around by asking how would a hy- Marine Communities, Human Adaptability and pothetical visitor from another planet perceive Use and Management of Biological Resources) the existence of life on Earth’ His conclusion was provide ample evidence of this. The great effort that the presence of life would be deduced from made in research in the sixties was also reflected the chemical composition of the atmosphere. in the expansion of studies of systems theory and Only with the presence of life could such a reac- its application to living systems, and in particular tive gas as oxygen be found in the atmosphere. to ecosystems, a process which was to give rise To postulate that the Earth’s atmosphere was a to a highly sophisticated mathematical ecology. In product of the presence of life was but a short 1968 Ramon Margalef’s Perspectives in Ecologi- step, which Lovelock duly took in 1967.32 Rather cal Theory was published, later to be translated into Spanish and other languages.

The 1960s also saw the space race between the For ecology the sixties were a time of consoli- United States and the Soviet Union, thanks to which dation of the concept of ecosystem and of a in early 1970, a photograph which was to mark a search for new unifying concepts, the most milestone in human history appeared on the covers of numerous magazines around the world: the first outstanding of which being those associated ever photograph taken from space of the entire with information theory. planet. All of a sudden, it was clear for all to see how limited and fragile the material support for all life and humanity was. The metaphor of the Earth as spaceship and the human race as crew quickly than an organic product, he saw the atmosphere caught on and soon observation of the Earth from as a biological construction, not alive as such in space, beyond its military applications (the original itself, but an extension of the living system, de- purpose for which it was developed) became an signed to preserve a given environment from cer- almost routine tool in studies of natural resources tain aggressions, similarly to a mammal’s fur or a and soil uses, and today such images are com- bird’s feathers which ensure corporal homeosta- monplace on our television screens thanks to a sis. Finally, he presented his conception of the plethora of satellites. Earth’s living system, encapsulating living crea- tures, the atmosphere, the oceans and terra fir- It was precisely in this context that James E. ma in Princeton (New Jersey), and gave it the Lovelock (b. 1919) was to develop his Gaia hy- name Gaia or Gea, the Greek earth goddess.33 pothesis. Lovelock, an English chemist and in- The Gaia concept has gained in biological con- ventor who worked for NASA during the sixties sistency thanks to the contributions of the North as a scientific advisor in finding methods to de- American biologist Lynn Margulis (b. 1938), the

32 LOVELOCK, 1967. 33 On the advice of his friend, Nobel literature laureate, William Golding.

27 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

creator of the symbiogenic theory of the origin of hand, a fragmenting postmodernism that led to the eukaryotic cells. Recent years have seen de- multiplication of case studies which, with few ex- velopment of global or planetary ecology, the po- ceptions, did not give rise to any general conclu- litically correct version of the Gaia theory, devoid sion, and on the other hand, the holistic tradition, of the ‘new age’ mysticism with which it seemed tended to merely reproduce, with much less in- to be initially burdened. tellectual vigour, the debates of the 1930s between reductionists and holists. Not yet a fully ‘normal’ science: recent developments In fact, this situation is not unique to ecology. Many scientific disciplines today, in searching for The first oil crisis in 1973 marked a sea change. autonomy and identity, take the route of hyper- The late 1970s and especially the entire decade specialisation and endogamy, leading to isola- of the eighties were distinctly non-Romantic in tion and alienation from all that surrounds them nature, with the ‘conservative revolution’ headed that is not strictly within their terrain. There is by Ronald Reagan in the United States and Mar- much talk about interdisciplinary approaches, garet Thatcher in Britain. The years immediately yet it is far from frequent to come across works after also followed suit. Spain, immersed during which genuinely break down the borders be- those years in its transition to democracy, was tween different disciplines. Specialisation, it is slow to take positions. However, once complete claimed, is the precondition for high-quality and the transition, Spain swiftly moved from the truly competitive research and no time should be struggle for democratic freedom to the pelotazo lost in working collaboratively with specialists or «get rich quick» culture. from other disciplines, who are potential com- petitors in the battle for the resources needed to Ecology, which in the 1960s seemed to be des- consolidate one’s own grouping. Increasingly, tined for a fruitful theoretical synthesis of physics there are ‘experts’ who know practically every- and biology (between thermodynamics and evo- thing about one small area, while those knowing lution), via information theory, found itself facing something about almost everything are becom- the need to provide solutions for a range of ur- ing an endangered species. gent, more limited, short-term problems: what Margalef termed ‘brush and dustpan’ ecology. Yet when the object of study is the entire bio- Therefore, while the presence of ecology in pub- sphere (even in the case of a small-scale ecosys- lic debate seemed to grow, the development of tem), what approach can be taken other than a ecological theory seemed to have become stuck holistic one, even if different aspects of the same in a rut over recent decades, with a handful of ecosystem must be addressed separately for ex- exceptions. Post-modern thought may manage pressive purposes? How can such a study be to be just about anything it wants, yet it can nev- undertaken without deference to a history partly er claim to be holistic; its essential characteris- determined by changes in the distribution of land tics include relativism and a fragmentation of re- masses, seas and ice over the course of time by ality. Thus, we see that the ecology of the what are usually termed geological factors and eighties and much of the nineties, divided as it partly determined by the action of humankind in was between two opposing trends –on one more recent times? How can one define global

28 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

warming oblivious to the high consumption of This confusion has served over recent years to re- fossil fuels over the last 200-300 years, and es- move all studies of organisms and systems from pecially over the last century? What else other research priorities –precisely the area in which than consumption of CFCs can explain the Catalan science has traditionally excelled and still weakening of the ozone layer? excels despite adversities. Margalef, it must be re- membered, saw himself as a naturalist and as such– in essence he was an observer and student 5. What now? When is the next revival due? When ecology or the ‘environmental scien- As Margalef wisely pointed out, the inclusion of human beings in the field of study of general ecol- ces’ are reduced to mere public hygiene, ogy has not only served to cast light on the eco- much of what could be gained is jettisoned logical problems of the human species, but also and we are left once again in the perillous to provide a more accurate view of general ecology. Problems such as those outlined above and confusion of ecology and environmentalism. others concerning horizontal transport, flows or succession are more clearly visible in systems which are relatively untouched by human action. of nature above all else– he succeeded in his theoretical syntheses. This article should not be read Yet it is also true that, as has tended to occur in as the epitaph of a science which, being Roman- many cases in recent years, when this inclusion tic, is dispensable. On the contrary, nothing could serves exclusively to highlight perturbing effects be more indispensable to science than a Roman- on ‘ecological balances’ which are seen as tic (self-)critique of modernity (or post-modernity) somehow sacred, and when ecology or the ‘en- and reductionism. Rather, it should be read as a vironmental sciences’ are reduced to mere pub- cry of hope: hope that a Romantic revival akin to lic hygiene on a relatively large territorial scale, those of the 1920s and 1960s or the years span- much of what could be gained is jettisoned and ning the turn of the previous century will take we are left once again with the reductionism replace, with a consequent renovation of the com- quired for dealing with specific cases of danger- monly accepted ideas regarding science and sci- ous pollution or potentially harmful processes. In ence policy which will contribute to revitalising a short, the perilous confusion of ecology and en- field which in Catalonia has traditionally proven vironmentalism. most productive and qualitatively important.

29 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 10 ARTICLES

References

ACOT, P. Histoire de l'écologie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1988.

ADAMS, C. C. «The postglacial dispersal of the North American biota». Biological Bulletin (Woods Hole), 9 (1905), p. 53-71.

BERNARD, Claude. Introduction à l'étude de la médicine experimentale. Paris: Baillière, 1865. [Catalan translation by Jaume Pi-Sunyer: Introduc- ció a l'estudi de la medicina experimental. Barcelona: Edicions Científiques Catalanes, 1984].

CAMARASA, J. M. «Història del coneixement de la vegetació». In Folch, R. (director), Història Natural dels Països Catalans. Barcelona: Fundació Enciclopèdia Catalana, 1984, vol. 7, p. 28-40.

CAMARASA, J. M. «Aspectes històrics dels estudis ecològics als Països Catalans». In Folch, R. (director) Història Natural dels Països Catalans. Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, 1989, vol. 14, p. 25-40.

CARNOT, Sadi. Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres a developper cette puissance. Paris: Bachelier,1824.

CARSON, R. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. [Spanish translation: Primavera silenciosa. Barcelona: Crítica, 2001]

CLEMENTS, F. E. Research methods in ecology. Lincoln (Nebraska, USA): The University Publishing Company, 1905.

CLEMENTS, F. E. Plant succession. Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1916.

CLEMENTS, F. E. Plant indicators. The relation of plant communities to process and practice. Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1920.

COWLES, H. C. The ecological relations of the vegetation on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan. Chicago: The University Press, 1899.

CUNNIGHAM, A. and JARDINE, N. (eds.). Romanticism and the Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

EGERTON, F. N. «The History of Ecology: Achievements and Opportunities». Journal of the History of Biology, XVI (2). Boston: 1983, p. 259-310.

ELTON, C. Animal Ecology. London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, 1927.

FORBES, S. A. «The lake as a microcosm». Bull. of the Peoria Scientific Association, 1887. Peoria, Ill, 1887.

FOREL, F. A. Le Leman. Monographie limnologique. Lausanne: F. Rouge, 1892-1901.

FOREL, F. A. Handbuch der Seenkunde: Allgemeine Limnologie. Stuttgart: Engelhorn, 1901.

GAUZE (or GAUSE), G. F. «Experimental analysis of Vito Volterra's mathematical theory of the struggle for existence». Science, 2036: 1934, p.16 &ff.

GLEASON, H. A. «The individualistic concept of the plant association». Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, LIII, New York: 1926, p. 7-26.

GUSDORF, Georges. Le savoir romantique de la nature. Paris: Payot, 1985.

HAECKEL, E. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1866.

HUGUET DEL VILLAR, E. Geobotánica. Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1929.

HUMBOLDT, A. von. Éssai sur la géographie des plantes. Paris: Levrault, Schoell et Compagnie, 1805.

HUMBOLDT, A. von. Kosmos: Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung. Stuttgart / Tübingen: J.G. Verlag, 1845-1862. 7 vols.

JUDAY, C. «Annual energy budget of an inland lake». Ecology, XXXI, 1940.

KERSHAW, K. A. Quantitative and dynamic plant ecology. London: E. Arnold, 1973.

KUHN, T. S. The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962 [Spanish translation: La estructura de las revolu- ciones científicas. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica de España, 1971].

LINDEMAN, R. L. «Seasonal food cycle dynamics in a senescent lake». The American Midland Naturalist, XXVI.1941, p. 637-638.

30 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE?

LINDEMAN, R. L. «The trophic dynamic aspect of ecology». Ecology, XXIII. 1942, p. 415 & ff.

LOVELOCK, J. Gaia. A new look at life on the Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.

LÖWY, M. and SAYRE, R. Revolte et mélancolie. Le romantisme a contrecourant de la modernité. Paris: Payot, 1992.

LYELL, Charles. Principles of Geology. London: John Murray, 1830-33. 3 volumes.

MARGALEF, R. Los organismos indicadores en la limnología. Madrid: Ministerio de Agricultura, 1955.

MARGALEF, R. «La teoria de la información en ecología». Mem. R. Acad. Cienc. y Artes Barcelona, XXXII. Barcelona:1957, p. 373-449.

MARGALEF, R. Perspectives in ecological theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.

MARGALEF, R. Ecología. Barcelona: Omega, 1974.

MARGALEF, R. «La teoria de la informació en ecologia a vint anys de distància». Butlletí de la Societat Catalana de Biologia, III IV. Barcelona: 1980a, p.159-186.

MARGALEF, R. La biosfera, entre la termodinámica y el juego. Barcelona: Omega, 1980b.

MARGALEF, R. Limnología. Barcelona: Omega, 1983.

MARGALEF, R. «La limnologia a Catalunya». Mem. R. Acad. Cienc. y Artes Barcelona, XLVI. Barcelona: 1985, p. 203-224.

MÖBIUS, K. A. Die Auster und die Austernwirtschaft. Berlín: Wiegandt, Hemple & Parey, 1883. [English translation: «The Oyster and Oystercul- ture». In US FISH COMMISSION (Washington). Report 1880, p. 683-751.

MÜLLER, J. Handbuch der Physiologie der Menschen. Koblenz: Holscher, 1833-40.

ODUM, E. P. and ODUM, H. T. Fundamentals of ecology. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953.

QUASTLER, H. Essays on the use of information theory in biology. University of Illinois Press. Urbana, Ill, 1953.

SCHÖDINGER, E. What is life? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945.

SCHIMPER, A. F. W. Pflanzengeographie auf Phisiologischer Grundlage. Jena: G. Fischer, 1898.

SEMPER, K. Die natürlichen Existenzbeigungen der Tiere. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1881.

SHANNON, C. E. and WEAVER, V. The mathematical theory of communication. University of Illinois Press. Urbana, Ill, 1949.

SHELFORD, V. E. «Preliminary note on the distribution of the Tiger Beetles (Cicindela) and its relation to plant succession». Biol. Bull, XIII. 1907, p. 9-14.

SHELFORD, V. E. and CLEMENTS, F. E. Bio ecology. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1939.

SUESS, E. Das Antlitz der Erde. Prague and Vienna: F. Tempky, 1883-1908 [Spanish translation: La faz de la Tierra. Madrid: Impr. Ramona Ve- lasco, 1923].

TANSLEY, A. G. «The use and abuse of vegetational concepts and terms». Ecology, XVI. 1935, p. 284-307.

THOMSON, J. V. Zoological researches, and illustrations; or natural history of nondescript or imperfectly known animals. Cork: King and Ridings, 1828-1834 [A facsimile edition was published in London in 1968 by the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History (now the Society for the History of Natural History)].

VERNADSKY, V. I. La Biosphere. París: Félix Alcan, 1929.

VOLTERRA V. «Variazioni e fluttuazioni del numero d'individui in specie animali conviventi». Mem. Acad. dei Lincei, ser. VI, vol. II. Roma: 1926.

WARMING, E. Plantesamfund. Grunträk af den Ökologiske plantegeografi. Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsen, 1895.

WARMING, E. Lehrbuch der Oekologischen Pflanzengeographie. Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger, 1896.

WARMING, E. Oecology of Plants. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1909.

WIENER, N. Cibernetics. New York: J. Wiley, 1948.