Abstract
Conservation, to Leopold’s mind, was about the relationship between human thoughts and actions and their effects on the land. A civilization functioning in concert with the land’s conservation, he believed, would be not only good for land but also more productive of rich human lives, which were interwoven with it. To best integrate human ways with nature’s, however, would first require understanding how the parts of the land — its soils, waters, plants, and animals — interacted to sustain life. Nature was vastly complex. Understanding its workings was much easier said than done.
I hardly think it necessary to argue the importance of analogy before a group of ecologists…. What homology is to the geneticist, analogy is to the ecologist.
Alfred E. Emerson, Plant and Animal Communities
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Notes
- 1.
Frederick Clements, letter to Victor Shelford, 19 December 1936, Shelford Papers, University of Illinois–Champaign-Urbana (hereafter SP), 15/24/20, box 1. Clements believed that the demand for ecologists who could advise federal bureaus and projects was threefold the supply.
- 2.
For an overview of the history of ecology see works including W.C. Allee et al., Principles of Animal Ecology (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1949); A. Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989); F.N. Egerton, “History of Ecology: Achievements and Opportunities, Part I,” Journal of History of Biology 16, no. 2 (1983): 259–310; F. N. Egerton, “History of Ecology: Achievements and Opportunities, Part II,” Journal of the History of Biology 18, no. 1 (1985): 103–143; F. B. Golley, A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); R. P. McIntosh, The Background of Ecology: Concept and Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985);H.N. Scheiber, “From Science to Law to Politics: An Historical View of the Ecosystem Idea and Its Effect on Resource Management,” Ecology Law Quarterly 24, no. 631 (1997): 631–651; M. G. Barbour, “Ecological Fragmentation in the Fifties,” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by W. Cronon (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), pp. 233–255; and D. Worster, ed., Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
- 3.
McIntosh, Background of Ecology, p. 86. 4.
- 4.
T. Park, “Analytical Population Studies in Relation to General Ecology,” in Plant and Animal Communities, edited by T. Just (Notre Dame: University Press, 1939), reprinted in The American Midland Naturalist 21, no. 1 (1939): 250. See also W. Allee and T. Park, “Concerning Ecological Principles” (abstract), Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 18 (1937).
- 5.
Victor Shelford, letter to Warder C. Allee, 30 November 1939, SP 15/24/20, box 1.
- 6.
Allee et al., Principles of Animal Ecology, p. 68.
- 7.
Alongside the strand of community ecology there developed a quantitative strand related to scientific interest in fluctuating animal population numbers and productivity of natural resource flows, as described in chap. 4.
- 8.
K. Möbius, Die Auster und die Austernwirtschaft (Berlin, 1877); translated and reprinted by the U.S. Fish Commission, 1880, as “The Oyster and Oyster-Culture,” pp. 683–751.
- 9.
S. Forbes, “The Lake as a Microcosm,” Bulletin of the Scientific Association of Peoria, Illinois (1887): 77–87; reprinted, with emendations, in Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 15 (1925): 537–550.
- 10.
H. C. Cowles, “The Ecological Relations of the Vegetation on the Sand Dunes of Lake Michigan,” Botanical Gazette 27 (1899): 95–118, 167–202, 281–308, 361–391.
- 11.
V. E. Shelford, “Preliminary Note on the Distribution of the Tiger Beetles (Cicindela) and Its Relation to Plant Succession,” Biological Bulletin 15 (1907): 9; V. Shelford, “Ecological Succession: IV, Vegetation and the Control of Land Animal Communities,” Biological Bulletin 23 (1912): 59–99; V. Shelford, “Principles and Problems of Ecology as Illustrated by Animals,” Journal of Ecology 3, no. 1 (1915): 1–23.
- 12.
Allee et al., Principles of Animal Ecology, p. 68.
- 13.
See A. Tansley, “The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms,” Ecology 16 (1935): 295–296. Of the scientists gathered at the 1938 Conference on Plant and Animal Communities, Henry Gleason, well known for his “Individualistic Concept of the Plant Association,” was strongest in his objection to the entire vocabulary of “community.” See American Midland Naturalist 21, no. 1, special conference issue (January 1939): 92–110.
- 14.
Plant ecologist Frederic Clements was among those most forcefully pushing the organismic notion. The idea was strongly disliked by plant scientists Henry Chandler Cowles, Arthur Tansley, and Henry Gleason, among others.
- 15.
Tansley, “Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts,” p. 299.
- 16.
AL, “The Forester’s Role in Game Management,” Journal of Forestry 29, no. 1 (1931): 30.
- 17.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, pp. 266, 273.
- 18.
AL, “The Round River: A Parable,” RR, p. 159.
- 19.
AL, “The Arboretum and the University,” Parks and Recreation 18, no. 2 (October 1934): 59–60; also in RMG, p. 209.
- 20.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 268.
- 21.
AL, “Round River,” p. 159.
- 22.
At the first meeting of the ESA in 1916, Frederic Clements used the term “biotic community,” by which he meant the complete, interrelated collection of plants and animals that inhabited a particular place. F. E. Clements, “The Development and Structure of Biotic Communities,” printed program for New York meeting of the Ecological Society of America, 27–29 December 1916, pp. 1–5; abstract reprinted in Journal of Ecology 5 (1916): 120–121. It may have been C. C. Adams who first used “biotic community,” on p. 159 of “An Ecological Study of Prairie and Forest Invertebrates,” Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History 11 (1915): 33–280, but by the term he seemed to have meant only animals. See W. P. Taylor, “Significance of the Biotic Community in Ecological Studies,” Quarterly Review of Biology 10, no. 3 (1935): 292.
- 23.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” Journal of Forestry 37, No. 9 (September 1939): 727-30. Condensed in The Council Ring (National Park Service monthly mimeographed publication) 1, No. 12 (November1939):1-4; RMG, pp. 266–273.
- 24.
AL, “The Ecological Conscience,” Bulletin of the Garden Club of America, September 1947, pp. 45–53.
- 25.
AL, “The Land Ethic,” SCA, pp. 201–226.
- 26.
AL, “Conservation Economics,” Journal of Forestry 32, no. 5 (May 1934): 537–544; also in RMG, p. 197. Walter Taylor cites Leopold in, “What is Ecology and What Good is it?” p. 338.
- 27.
AL, “Preliminary Report of Forestry and Game Management,” Journal of Forestry 33, no. 3 (March 1935): 274.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Ibid., pp. 274–275.
- 30.
AL, “Second Report of the Game Policy Committee,” Journal of Forestry 32, no. 2 (February 1937): 228.
- 31.
Ibid. In a letter dated 17 June 1936 Leopold wrote to W. S. Cooper of the ESA, “What I mean is that biologists in general are not building any foundations for conservation, and we technologists are trying to erect a structure on a base which exists only in spots. The base needed is mostly ecological.” LP 10-2, 2.
- 32.
AL, Game Management (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933), p. 39.
- 33.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, pp. 266, 273.
- 34.
AL, “The State of the Profession,” Journal of Wildlife Management 4, no. 3 (July 1940): 343–346; also in RMG, p. 276.
- 35.
Ibid., pp. 276–277.
- 36.
AL, “Where fore Wildlife Ecology?” RMG, p. 337.
- 37.
P. S. Lovejoy, “Forest Biology,” Journal of Forestry 15, no. 2 (1917): 203–214.
- 38.
AL, “Cheat Takes Over,” SCA, p. 158.
- 39.
Walter Taylor was 1935 president of the Ecological Society of America and a member of Leopold’s game policy committee. See S. Flader, Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude toward Deer, Wolves, and Forests (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974), p. 151.
- 40.
W. P. Taylor et al., “The Relation of Jack Rabbits to Grazing in Southern Arizona,” Journal of Forestry 33, no. 5 (May 1935): 490–498.
- 41.
Taylor et al., “Relation of Jack Rabbits,” p. 493.
- 42.
AL, letter to John H. Baker (National Association of Audubon Societies), 17 December 1935, LP 10-2, 5.
- 43.
This ecological process was summarized in J. E. Weaver and W.W. Hansen, “Native Midwestern Pastures: Their Origin, Composition, and Degeneration,” Nebraska Conservation Bulletin, no. 22 (1941).
- 44.
Taylor et al., “Relation of Jack Rabbits,” p. 496.
- 45.
F. E. Clements, Plant Succession, Publication 242 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1916).
- 46.
F. E. Clements, “The Relict Method in Dynamic Ecology,” Journal of Ecology 22 (1934): 39–68; F. E. Clements et al., The Nature and Role of Competition, Year Book 23 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1924); Clements, Plant Succession; F. Clements, “Development and Structure of Vegetation,” Report of the Botanical Survey of Nebraska 7 (1904). Clements was not the first plant ecologist to study processes of succession. See also Cowles, “Ecological Relations,” and E. Warming, Plantesamfund: Grundtrak af den Okologiska Plantegeografi (Copenhagen: Philipsen, 1895), English version (modified), Oecology of Plants: An Introduction to the Study of Plant Communities (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).
- 47.
Clements, Development and Structure of Vegetation; Clements, Plant Succession; F. E. Clements et al., “Climate and Climaxes,” Carnegie Institution Washington Year Book 31 (1932); F. E. Clements, “Nature and Structure of the Climax,” Journal of Ecology 24 (1936): 252–284.
- 48.
F. E. Clements and V. E. Shelford, Bio-ecology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1939), pp. 231–232.
- 49.
Clements, “Nature and Structure of the Climax.” Clements had also catalogued by 1936 a thorough and somewhat terminologically mind-boggling list “to meet nearly every exigency.” For a summary discussion of various perspectives, including comments on Clements’ 1936 article such as the one above, see S. A. Cain, “The Climax and Its Complexities,” American Midland Naturalist 21, no. 1 (1939): 147–182 (150).
- 50.
F. E. Clements and V. E. Shelford, “Bio-ecology,” Carnegie Institution of Washington Year Book 25–33 (1926–1934); Clements and Shelford, Bioecology.
- 51.
Clements and Shelford, Bio-ecology, p. 232.
- 52.
Like Leopold, Shelford was an advocate as well as a scientist. Since his term in 1916 as the first president of the Ecological Society of America, Shelford had led efforts to protect natural areas for scientific study and served as chairman of the organization’s Committee on the Preservation of Natural Conditions for the United States from its establishment in 1917–1936. V. Shelford, “Ecological Society of America: A Nature Sanctuary Plan Unanimously Adopted by The Society, December 28, 1932,” Ecology 14, no. 2 (April 1933): 240–245; V. Shelford, “Nature Sanctuaries—aMeans of Saving Natural Biotic Communities,” Science 77, no. 1994 (17 March 1933): 281– 282; V. Shelford, “International Preservation of Nature,” Ecology 16, no. 4 (October 1935): 662–663; and V. Shelford, “The Preservation of Natural Conditions,” Science 51, no. 1312 (1920): 316–317 were all found in AL’s files; LP 10-2, 2. See R. Croker, Pioneer Ecologist: The Life and Work of Victor Ernest Shelford: 1877–1968 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991); D. Philippon, Conserving Words: How American Nature Writers Shaped the Environmental Movement (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004); and J. L. Newton, “Science, Recreation, and Leopold’s Quest for a Durable Scale,” in Wilderness Debate, vol. 2, edited by M. Nelson and J. B. Callicott (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006).
- 53.
Croker, Pioneer Ecologist, pp. 70–90.
- 54.
Leopold, like Shelford, promoted the preservation of representative biotic types for scientific purposes. See AL, “Wilderness as a Land Laboratory,” RMG, pp. 288-289 and “Wilderness for Science,” SCA, p. 196. Leopold understood succession as a foundational ecological concept. In his 1923 Watershed Handbook (Albuquerque: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, District 3, December 1923 [revised and reissued October 1934]), p. 5, LP 10-11, 1, he noted that settlement was more likely to upset the “equilibrium” in the Southwest than in other regions of the country because “for one thing, our plant successions are different.” “The kind of vegetation on any piece of land does not remain unchanged from year to year if left to itself. . . . Control of game cover or food,” he explained in his 1933 Game Management (pp. 304–305), “is largely a matter of understanding and controlling succession,” and the successional process was toward an “inexorable” climax, though a vegetative type might be “fixed” by human or nonhuman forces (e.g., by fire: AL, “Grass, Brush, Timber, and Fire in Southern Arizona,” RMG, p. 118; by “buffer” species: AL, Game Management, pp. 237–238, 304–305; by farmers: AL, “Marshland Elegy,” SCA, pp. 98–99). In his 1933 “The Conservation Ethic” (RMG, p. 185), Leopold explained that in “all climates the plant succession determines what economic activities can be supported.” In 1938 he lectured on biotic sequences: “Every soil has a fixed sequence of plant communities, each of which carries a characteristic animal community. Agriculture is the art of arranging ‘desirable’ combinations of these three: it is ecological engineering. . . . The first law of intelligent tinkering is to keep all the parts” (AL, “Economics, Philosophy, and Land,” lecture, 23November 1938, p. 2, LP 10-6, 14).Reflections upon overgrazing moved Leopold to comment on “the immense power of plant succession” in his 1944 “Review” (RMG, p. 215). In his essay “The Land Ethic” (SCA, p. 205), Leopold asks readers to consider how dependent American history has been on plant succession.
- 55.
F. E. Clements, J. E. Weaver, and H. C. Hanson, Plant Competition: An Analysis of Community Function (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1929).
- 56.
Ibid., pp. 10–11.
- 57.
Ibid., p. 21.
- 58.
Ibid.
- 59.
Ibid., p. 327.
- 60.
Ibid.
- 61.
A. J. Nicholson, “The Balance of Animal Populations,” Journal of Animal Ecology 2 (1933): 135.
- 62.
C. Elton, Animal Ecology (New York: Macmillan, 1927; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 28: “Succession brings the ecologist face to face with the whole problem of competition among animals.”
- 63.
Ibid., p.56. Victor Shelford noted in 1931 (“Some Concepts of Bioecology,” Ecology 12, no. 3:455–467) that “Weaver and Clements (’29) hold that food rather than physical factors, controls animals, and, since plants are the direct food of all animals, the biotic community has unity through food relations” (p. 455). See J. E. Weaver and F. E. Clements, Plant Ecology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1929). V. Shelford, “Animal Communities in Temperate America,” Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Chicago 5 (1913): 70–72, 166–168; see also Croker, Pioneer Ecologist, pp. 35–37.
- 64.
Elton, Animal Ecology, p.56. C. Elton, Animal Ecology (New York: Macmillan, 1927; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). In 1942 Raymond Lindeman of Yale University, building upon the works of Hutchinson, Clements, Shelford, Elton, and other community ecologists, published “The Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology” (Ecology 23, no. 4:399–418), which “emphasizes the relationship of trophic or ‘energy-availing’ [food-cycle] relationships within the community-unit to the process of succession.” Also see H. Stoddard, The Bobwhite Quail: Its Habits, Preservation, and Increase (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931), p. 350.
- 65.
Elton, Animal Ecology, p. 62.
- 66.
Ibid., p. 61.
- 67.
Ibid., p. 63.
- 68.
Ibid., pp. 63–68.
- 69.
Ibid., p. 64.
- 70.
Ibid, p.64. In a typed lecture draft from 17 February 1945, “Plant Patterns: Interspersion Theory; Patterns” (the lecture was noted as not given; LP 10- 6, 14), Leopold defined an ecologist as “a person who recognizes niches and studies animal responses to variations in them” and a wildlife manager as “a person who improves niches, and thus regulates population.”
- 71.
See McIntosh, Background of Ecology, p. 200, and A. J. Lotka, Elements of Physical Biology (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1925). Drawing on Lotka’s law, R. N. Chapman, in his 1931 Animal Ecology, used electrical metaphors such as environmental “potential” and “resistance” to describe population growth and natural productivity. Leopold cited Chapman in Game Management, p.26. See R.N. Chapman, “The Quantitative Analysis of Environmental Factors,” Ecology 9, no. 2 (1928): 111–122.Walter Taylor also argued that “The biotic community and its environment may be regarded as the internal and external portions of a single system of material and energy.” See Taylor, “Significance of the Biotic Community,” p. 294.
- 72.
Tansley, “Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts,” p.297. The total inflow of energy into a system must equal the total outflow from a system plus any changes of energy within a system. In other words, energy can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed.
- 73.
Tansley, “Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts,” pp. 299–300.
- 74.
AL, “Teaching Wildlife Conservation in Public Schools,” Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy 30 (1937): 80.
- 75.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, pp. 266–267, and AL, “Conservation: In Whole or in Part?” RMG, p. 312: “It is hard for the layman, who sees plants and animals in perpetual conflict with each other, to conceive of them as cooperating parts of an organism.”
- 76.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, pp. 268–269.
- 77.
Ibid., p. 269.
- 78.
Elton, Animal Ecology, p. 68.
- 79.
Ibid., p. 69.
- 80.
Ibid.
- 81.
Ibid., pp. 69–70.
- 82.
Croker, Pioneer Ecologist, p. 68.
- 83.
Adams, “Ecological Study of Prairie and Forest Invertebrates.” See also Shelford, “Principles and Problems.”
- 84.
AL, Game Management, pp. 304–305.
- 85.
Ibid, p. 305. See also AL, “The Conservation Ethic, ”RMG, p. 183; AL, “The Land Ethic,” SCA, p. 205.
- 86.
Elton, Animal Ecology, pp. 22–34.
- 87.
Elton, Animal Ecology, p. 25.
- 88.
Ibid.
- 89.
AL, letter to Carl O. Sauer, 29 December 1938, LP 10-3, 3; Elton, Animal Ecology, pp. 23–24.
- 90.
W. P. Taylor, “Some Effects of Animals on Plants,” Scientific Monthly 43 (1936): 262–271. Leopold cites this work in his “Second Report of the Game Policy Committee,” pp. 228–232.
- 91.
Taylor, “Some Effects of Animals on Plants,” p. 266. In later years Leopold would become preoccupied with deer population problems in Wisconsin. See, for example, AL, “The Excess Deer Problem,” Audubon 45, no. 3 (May–June 1943): 156–157; AL, “Deer Irruptions,” Wisconsin Conservation Bulletin 8, no. 8 (August 1943): 1–11; AL, “What Next in Deer Policy?” Wisconsin Conservation Bulletin 9, no. 6 (June 1944): 3–4, 18–19; AL, “The Deer Dilemma,” Wisconsin Conservation Bulletin 11, nos. 8–9 (August– September 1946): 3–5; AL, “Mortgaging the Future Deer Herd,” Wisconsin Conservation Bulletin 12, no. 9 (September 1947): 3. Susan Flader tells the story of Leopold’s evolving understanding of deer ecology and management in Thinking Like a Mountain. See also D. Binkley et al., “Was Aldo Leopold Right about the Kaibab Deer Herd?” Ecosystems 9 (2006): 227–241.
- 92.
This was a quote from R. H. Yapp, “The Concept of Habitat,” Journal of Ecology 10 (1922): 1, in Elton, Animal Ecology, p. 23.
- 93.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 269.
- 94.
A. Leopold, J. S. Ligon, and R. F. Pettit, “Southwestern Game Fields,” first draft of chap. 4, “Normal Deer Stocking and Productivity,” unpublished, n.d., p. 2, LP 10-6, 10.
- 95.
Leopold did not perceive retrogressive succession as inherently negative, however, as we saw in his opinion about watershed-forest-grazing management in the Southwest. Sometimes going from a more to a less “mature” state could be highly productive for both humans and wildlife. For example, Leopold asked in 1934, “At what stage of the retrogression from forest to meadow is the marsh of greatest use to the animal community?” See AL, “The Arboretum and the University,” RMG, p. 210.
- 96.
AL, “The Conservation Ethic,” pp. 634–643; also in RMG, pp. 183–184.
- 97.
In his Game Management Leopold emphasized not only the composition of habitat but also the size, geometry, and interspersion of various habitat types throughout a landscape and in relation to animal mobility. One of the few “laws” Leopold ever proposed was his “Law of Interspersion”: “The potential density of game of low mobility requiring two or more [habitat] types is, within ordinary limits, proportional to the sum of the type peripheries. . . . Texts on ecology all recognize that certain species are associated with certain types, but I have found few which recognize the need for diverse types in juxtaposition, and none which state clearly that the frequency of such juxtaposition depends on interspersion, or that interspersion determines population density” (p. 132). This is a particularly important concept today in the field of conservation biology, as expanded and applied to continental- and national-scale reserve designs and “rewilding.” See D. Foreman, Rewilding North America: A Vision for Conservation in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004).Many landscapes today have been highly fragmented so that in many places edge species are thriving while those requiring larger blocks of habitat are suffering.
- 98.
AL, Game Management, p. 307; AL, “Report of the Iowa Game Survey,” “Chapter One: The Fall of the Iowa Game Range” and “Chapter Two: Iowa Quail,” Outdoor America 2, no. 1 (1932): 7–9, and 2, no. 2:11–13, 30–31; A. Leopold et al.,“ Animal Populations atPrairieduSac,Wisconsin,1929–1942” (draft corrected 18 February 1943, unpublished), pp. 44–45, LP 10-6, 13. See also AL, “A biotic view of land,” RMG, p. 271 on nutrition and soil fertility.
- 99.
W. Albrecht, “Pattern of Wildlife Distribution Fits the Soil Pattern,” Missouri Conservationist 4, no. 3 (June 1943): 1–3, 16; W. Albrecht, “Sound Horses Are Bred on Fertile Soils,” Percheron News, July 1942, pp. 15, 20–22. See AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 271 on nutrition and soil fertility.
- 100.
AL, letter to Paul Errington, 4 September 1943, p. 2, LP 10-5, 5.
- 101.
J. E. Weaver, “Plant Production as a Measure of Environment: A Study in Crop Ecology,” Journal of Ecology 12, no. 2 (July 1924): 205. See also J. E. Weaver and E. L. Flory, “Stability of Climax Prairie and Some Environmental Changes Resulting from Breaking,” Ecology 15, no. 4 (October 1934): 333–347; J. E. Weaver et al., “Relation of Root Distribution to Organic Matter in Prairie Soil,” Botanical Gazette 96, no. 3 (March 1935): 389–420.
- 102.
AL, “Why the Wilderness Society?” Living Wilderness 1, no. 1 (September 1935): 6; AL, “Wilderness for Science,” SCA, pp. 195, 197.
- 103.
Weaver and Flory, “Stability of Climax Prairie,” pp. 345–346.Weaver’swork also suggested a definition of stability on the prairie: “The relative constancy of the numbers of plants over a long period of time and the ordinary fluctuations within relatively narrow limits indicate the high degree of balance or stabilization” (p. 334). Native prairies, in comparison with cropped fields, experienced far less erosion and gullying and greater resistance to pest invasion and generally used water, light, and other resources much more efficiently and productively. See also W. C. Lowdermilk, “The Role of Vegetation in Erosion Control and Water Conservation,” Journal of Forestry 32, no. 5 (May 1934): 553. See also Lowdermilk’s earlier article, “Influence of Forest Litter on Run-off, Percolation, and Erosion,” Journal of Forestry 28, no. 4 (April 1930): 474–491. Weaver cited C. T. Vorhies and W. P. Taylor, “The Life Histories and Ecology of Jackrabbits, Lepus alleni and Lepus californicus spp., in Relation to Grazing in Arizona,” Technical Bulletin— University of Arizona, College of Agriculture, Agricultural Experiment Station 49 (1933): 541, 563–564.
- 104.
W. Taylor, “Some Animal Relations to Soils,” Ecology 16, no. 2 (April 1935): 127–136.
- 105.
C. E. Kellogg, “The Place of Soil in the Biological Complex,” Scientific Monthly 39, no. 1 (1934): 46–51.
- 106.
Taylor, “Some Animal Relations to Soils,” p. 130.
- 107.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 268; See also AL, “Economics, Philosophy, and Land,” unfinished manuscript, 23 November 1938, LP 10- 6, 16: “Evolution strives to lengthen food chains . . . complicates the pyramid.”
- 108.
Leopold’s thinking was undergirded by evolutionary science, yet he chose primarily to speak in the language of ecology. He did so because he believed that ecology provided a particularly good “window from which to view the world.”Ecology could lead to lifelong opportunities for observational study and even experimentation for students and citizens. It was more difficult to add to one’s evolutionary knowledge outside the academic classroom. See AL, “The Role of Wildlife in a Liberal Education,” Transactions of the 7th North American Wildlife Conference (8–10 April 1942): 485–489; also in RMG, p. 305.
- 109.
See AL, “Conservation: In Whole or in Part?” RMG, p. 312.
- 110.
AL, “Wilderness for Science,” SCA, p. 197.
- 111.
See J. E. Weaver, Root Development of Field Crops (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1926);Weaver and Flory, “Stability of Climax Prairie”; J. E. Weaver and T. J. Fitzpatrick, “The Prairie,” Ecological Monographs 4, no. 2 (April 1934): 111–295.
- 112.
AL, “Roadside Prairies,” FHL, pp. 138–139.
- 113.
Ibid., p. 138.
- 114.
Ibid.
- 115.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 273.
- 116.
Ibid., pp. 266, 273.
- 117.
AL, “The Land Pyramid,” SCA, pp. 214–220.
- 118.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 267.
- 119.
Ibid.
- 120.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 267.
- 121.
Ibid.
- 122.
Ibid.
- 123.
Ibid., pp. 267–268. Leopold believed, too, that ecology was the only “language” by which the land mechanism could be adequately portrayed: “A language is imperative, for if we are to guide land-use we must talk sense to the farmer and economist, pioneer and poet, stockman and philosopher, lumberjack and geographer, engineer and historian. The ecological concept is, I think, translatable into common speech.” See AL, “Biotic Land-Use,” FHL, p. 204.
- 124.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 267, and AL, “The Land Pyramid,” SCA, p. 214.
- 125.
In 1943, soil scientist William Albrecht complimented Leopold on his “biotic pyramid” idea and urged him to include microbes in it, writing, “I do not recall whether you had bacteria in the pyramid between soil and plants. I should like to emphasize the place of microbes because these minute life forms have been harassed so thoroughly that like snakes they seldom get favorable attention . . . we are learning that microbes in decomposition are synthesizing many of the essentials, particularly vitamins . . . it is high time that we put microbes near the foundation of our biotic pyramid.” William Albrecht, letter to AL, 6 July 1943, LP 10-5, 5.
- 126.
AL, “The Role of Wildlife in a Liberal Education,” fig. 1; RMG, p. 304.Also see Leopold’s typed lecture for Wildlife Ecology 118, “Definitions of Food Chain Relationships,” LP 10-6, 15.
- 127.
AL, “A Biotic View of Land,” RMG, p. 268. See also an updated version in AL, “The Land Pyramid,” SCA, p. 215.
- 128.
Ibid., p.268. See also an updated version in AL, “The Land Pyramid,” SCA, p. 215.
- 129.
Ibid., pp. 268–269. See also an updated version in AL, “The Land Pyramid,” SCA, pp. 215–216.
- 130.
Ibid., p. 269. See also an updated version in AL, “The Land Pyramid,” SCA, p. 216.
- 131.
Ibid. See also an updated version in AL, “The Land Pyramid,” SCA, pp. 216–217.
- 132.
Ibid., p.270. See also an updated version in AL, “The Land Pyramid,” SCA, p. 218.
- 133.
E. C. Williams published an example of an Eltonian pyramid based on the “floor fauna” of the Panama rain forest. See “An Ecological Study of the Floor Fauna of the Panama Rain Forest,” Bulletin of the Chicago Academy of Sciences 6 (1941): 63–124.
- 134.
AL, “Request for Grant-in-Aid: The Animal Pyramid of Prairie du Sac,” 10 December 1940, LP 10-5, 5.
- 135.
AL, “Request for Grant-in-Aid, 1941–42: The Animal Pyramid of Prairie du Sac,” n.d., LP 10-5, 5. This proposal was supplemented on 23 September 1941 by a statement by Leopold’s student Harold Hanson.
- 136.
This was a follow-up to the work of Elton, Nicholson, and others emphasizing the importance of animal numbers in community organization and functioning.
- 137.
H. Hanson and A. Leopold, “The Prairie du Sac Project,” 23 September 1941, LP 10-5, 5.Of note, too, is that R. L. Lindeman, in his 1942 “Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology,” also suggested that “the Eltonian Pyramid may be expressed in terms of biomass” (p. 408). See also F. S. Bodenheimer, Problems of Animal Ecology (London: Oxford University Press, 1938).
- 138.
A. Leopold and H. Hanson, “Request for Grant-in-Aid, 1942–43: The Animal Pyramid at Prairie du Sac,” 30December 1941, LP 10-5, 5.
- 139.
Obtained from A.W. Schorger and N. C. Fasset at UW.
- 140.
Leopold and Hanson, “Request, 1942–43,” p. 2.
- 141.
See, too, AL, “The Arboretum and the University,” RMG, p. 210: “If civilization consists of cooperation with plants, animals, soil, and men, then a university which attempts to define that cooperation must have, for the use of its faculty and students, places which show what the land was, what it is, and what it ought to be.”
- 142.
Leopold et al., “Animal Populations at Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, 1929–1942,” p. 1.
- 143.
Ibid. Captioned “Figure 3: Wild Pyramid of Numbers and Weights for an Average Square Mile.”
- 144.
Ibid. Captioned “Figure 4: Wild Pyramid [right] Compared with Tame Pyramid [left], in Terms of Per Cent of Their Combined Weight for an Average Square Mile. At the Extreme Right an Estimate of the Former Wild Layers Added—Dashed Lines.”
- 145.
Ibid., pp. 6–7.
- 146.
The authors included exotic species in the category of domestic animals.
- 147.
AL et al., “Animal Populations at Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, 1929–1942,”p. 7.
- 148.
Ibid., pp. 7–8.
- 149.
Ibid., p. 8.
- 150.
Ibid., p. 9.
- 151.
Ibid., p. 9. The manuscript also included a winter bird pyramid (“Winter Bird Pyramid of Numbers and Weights on Seven Square Miles”), noting that the exotic species, English sparrow, “outnumbered all other birds combined, and [outweighed] any other single species except pheasant.”
- 152.
Ibid., p. 10.
- 153.
F. F. Darling, A Herd of Red Deer: A Study in Animal Behavior (London: Oxford University Press, 1937).
- 154.
Ibid., p. 160.
- 155.
AL, “Lakes in Relation to Terrestrial Life Patterns,” in J.G. Needham et al., A Symposium on Hydrobiology (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1941), pp. 17–22.
- 156.
Ibid., pp. 17–18. Leopold presented this paper to a group of hydrobiologists, consciously choosing “a language” appropriate to soil-water nutrient interactions.
- 157.
Ibid., pp. 19–20.
- 158.
Ibid., p. 18.
- 159.
Ibid., pp. 17, 22.
- 160.
Ibid, p. 17.
- 161.
Ibid., p. 22.
- 162.
AL, “Odyssey,” Audubon 44, no. 3 (May–June 1942): 133–135; also in SCA, pp. 104–108. For an interesting comparison see P. Levi, “Carbon,” in The Periodic Table, translated by R. Rosenthal (New York: Schocken Books, 1984).
- 163.
AL, “Round River,” p. 158.
- 164.
AL, “Odyssey,” SCA, p. 104.
- 165.
AL, “Foreword,” revision of 31 July 1947, LP 10-6, 16. Printed in J. B. Callicott, ed., Companion to “A Sand County Almanac”: Interpretive and Critical Essays (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), pp. 281–290. In this lengthy foreword, later replaced with a shorter one, Leopold invites readers to pay particular attention to “Odyssey,” which a colleague had told him captured so much.
- 166.
AL, letter to Ernest Holt (Soil Conservation Service), 2 October 1939, LP 10-2, 8.
- 167.
AL, letter to W. L. Anderson, 21May 1940, LP 10-2, 8.
- 168.
AL, letter to Jay Darling, 31October 1944, LP 10-2, 3.
- 169.
In a 12 July 1943 draft of “Land as a Circulatory System,” unpublished, LP 10-6, 16; this document was apparently intended as the first chapter in a new ecology text that Leopold had planned.
- 170.
AL, “Ecology and Politics,” RMG, p. 281.
- 171.
Ibid., p. 282.
- 172.
Ibid., p. 284.
- 173.
Ibid., p. 282.
- 174.
Ibid., p.284. See also Leopold’s earlier Game Management, pp. 391–395. Leopold understood that an expanding human population was a major force pushing the need for management. The denser the human population, the more intense was the management needed. He recommended “regulating our future human population density by some qualitative standard.”
- 175.
AL, “Post-War Prospects,” Audubon 46, no. 1 (January–February 1944): 27–29.
- 176.
Ibid., p. 29.
- 177.
Ibid.
- 178.
Ibid. Leopold was exposed to the work of a number of scientists studying the relationship between soil fertility, plant and animal nutrition, and human health. Of particular note are two articles published in the journal Land, reprinted in N. P. Pittman, ed., From the Land (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1988): W. Albrecht, “Health Depends on Soil,” 1942 (Pittman, From the Land, pp. 312–318); and J. Forman, M.D., “The Trace Elements in Nutrition,” 1943 (Pittman, From the Land, pp. 305–311). Elmer McCollum, a chemist who had worked on nutrition next door to Leopold at the University of Wisconsin (see R. Lord, “The Newer Knowledge of Elmer V. McCollum,” in Pittman, From the Land, pp. 295–301), codiscovered vitamin A in 1907 and made other important discoveries related to nutrition and soil fertility.
- 179.
AL, “The Land-Health Concept and Conservation,” FHL, p. 226.
References
Elton, C. Animal Ecology. New York: Macmillan, 1927.
Norton, B. G. “Change, Constancy, and Creativity: The New Ecology and Some Old Problems.” Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum 7, no. 49 (1996): 49–70.
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Warren, J.L. (2016). A Common Concept of Land. In: Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey, Tenth Anniversary Edition. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-754-4_7
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