History of ecology

• As early as the 12th century, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) wrote about ecology.

  A brilliant and influential abbess who founded a convent nuns in Rupersberg, Germany, Hildegard wrote books on many topics, including science and medicine, and her work was

  recognized by popes and emperors.
• In 1799, German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt set out to explore South America. He studied the plants, animals, geography, and climate to learn about the vast continent‟s “unity

  of nature”.
• In 1866, the word Oecologie was introduced by a German biologist named Ernst Haeckel in his book Generelle Morphologie, a study of the biological form and structure of organisms. Haeckel‟s new term was rooted in the Greek “oikos”, which means “family

  household”.
• English ecologist Charles Elton defined Ecology as the “scientific natural history” which deals with the “sociology and economy of animals”.
• American plant ecologist, Frederick Clements, considered that ecology was “the science of the community”
• Contemporary American ecologist Eugene Odum defined, perhaps too widely as „the study of the structure and function of nature‟.
• In 1893, the modern spelling of ecology was established at the International Botanical Congress.
• In the decade of the 40‟s,Tansley (1935) proposed the concept of “ecosystem”. This term was later developed by Lindeman (1941), who conceived it from exchanges of energy,

  In the decade of the 40‟s,Tansley (1935) proposed the concept of “ecosystem”. This term was later developed by Lindeman (1941), who conceived it from exchanges of energy, in response to the need for concepts that link various agencies to their physical environments.
• Jacques-Yves Cousteau, beginning in the 1940’s, explored the seas- using techniques he and his colleagues invented--to demonstrate that “the earth is a living body, an interlocking system of delicately balanced forces”
• E. Lucy Braun hiked through the forests of North America, documenting their history, to promote forest preservation. Her research centered on plant ecology, vascular plant taxonomy, and plant distribution
• Aldo Leopold created the theory of wildlife management. His ideas shaped today‟s policies of protecting endangered plants, animals, and their

  ecosystems.
• Anne Haven Morgan showed that plants and animals are bound together in a multitude of ways.
• Rachel Carson alerted the world to the threat of a “silent spring” in which human actions might “still the song of birds”.
• In recent years, Odum and F. Sherwood Rowland have continued the study of the interrelationships of all parts of our world and alert us to the problems that threaten as.
• The Austrian geologist Eduard Suess proposed the term biosphere in 1875.
• At the turn of the 20th century, Henry Chandler Cowles was one of the founders of the emerging study of "dynamic ecology", through his study of ecological succession at the

  Indiana Dunes, sand dunes at the southern end of Lake Michigan.