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Why Write a Handbook of Ecological Concepts?

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Ecology Revisited

Abstract

Ecology has made considerable progress over the last few decades. Huge amounts of data have been collected and theories, concepts and practices elaborated, greatly increasing our understanding of living nature and our own influence on it. At several points during the twentieth century ecology became the focus of high expectations that it should help to solve the pressing – and now global – environmental problems that we face, and indeed these expectations appear still to be growing even today.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    With regard to the “Sterben of the Waldsterben” see, for instance, the conference in July 2007 at the University of Freiburg (Germany)“Und ewig sterben die Wälder. Das deutsche Waldsterben in multidisziplinärer Perspektive”. Organised by the Lehrstuhl für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte des Historischen Seminars (Franz-Josef Brüggemeier, Jens Ivo Engels) and the Institut für Forstökonomie (Gerhard Oesten, Roderich von Detten), both University of Freiburg.

  2. 2.

    Höhler (2005); Schwarz (2004); Anker (2005).

  3. 3.

    Kluge (1986); Luckin (1986).

  4. 4.

    See in particular the work of Sieferle on Austria, but also on Switzerland and the UK (Sieferle et al. 2008).

  5. 5.

    Looijen (1998); Mayr (1984); Frazier (1994); Peters (1991); Grimm and Wissel (1997); Jax (2006).

  6. 6.

    Such as the working group for phytogeographic nomenclature established by the III. International Botanical Congress (Flahault and Schröter 1910) or the Committee on Nomenclature created by the Ecological Society of America in 1931 (Eggleton 1942).

  7. 7.

    Shrader-Frechette and McCoy (1993), or Greg Cooper in a presentation at ISHPSSB in Exeter 2007; see also Sagoff (2003).

  8. 8.

    Star and Griesemer (1989).

  9. 9.

    Stengers (1997).

  10. 10.

    Schwarz in a paper entitled “Commuting concepts and objects in scientific ecology”, paper given at the first conference of the European Philosophy of Science Conference in Madrid 2007 (http://www.ucm.es/info/epsa07/misc/EPSA07_BookOfAbstracts.pdf).

  11. 11.

    Kaiser and Mayerhauser (2005): “Destabilising Stabilisers”, paper presented at the conference Imaging Nanospace, Bielefeld.

  12. 12.

    Latour (1993).

  13. 13.

    Ecological knowledge has been and still is produced in physiology or forest science laboratories, in applied and theoretical contexts, and with a philosophical background rooted in systems theory or in complexity theories, in reductionism, holism, emergentism, as well as in other -isms.

  14. 14.

    E.g. Haila and Järvinen (1982); Peters (1991); Pickett et al. (1994/2007).

  15. 15.

    For example, the various Ecosystem Management approaches or the Convention on Biological Diversity and its “Ecosystem Approach”.

  16. 16.

    Pimm (1984).

  17. 17.

    Goodman (1975); Trepl (1995).

  18. 18.

    This is the style of definitions given, for instance, in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ecology (Allaby 1994, p. 269).

  19. 19.

    For instance the collection of seminal papers “Foundations of Ecology” compiled by Real and Brown in 1991.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Schloss, 64283, Darmstadt, Germany

    Astrid Schwarz

  2. Department of Conservation Biology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Permoserstr. 15, 04318, Leipzig, Germany

    Kurt Jax

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  1. Astrid Schwarz
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  2. Kurt Jax
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Correspondence to Astrid Schwarz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy, Technical University of Darmstadt, Schloss, Darmstadt, 64283, Germany

    Astrid Schwarz

  2. , Department of Conservation Biology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Resea, Permoserstr. 15, Leipzig, 04318, Germany

    Kurt Jax

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Schwarz, A., Jax, K. (2011). Why Write a Handbook of Ecological Concepts?. In: Schwarz, A., Jax, K. (eds) Ecology Revisited. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9744-6_1

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