History of Ecology, the Environmental Movement and Agriculture

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History of Ecology, the Environmental Movement
and Agriculture

• Martha Rosemeyer
• IES
• January 6, 2003

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Outline

• I. History of Ecology (Martha)
• II. The Environmental Movement (Lin)
• III. The intersection of ecology, the
  environmental movement and agriculture (Martha)

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Ecology is the science that underpins the
environmental movement, especially ecosystem
ecology

• Ecology is the study of the interactions between
  living organisms and their environment
• Ecosystem is a community of organisms (biotic
  components) and their environment (abiotic
  components) interacting as an ecological unit

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Ecosystems

• Dynamic systems through time with characteristic
  patterns of
• A. energy flow
• B. nutrient cycling
• C. succession

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(No Transcript)
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Food web concept important in bioaccumulation

• As one organism ingests another then the toxins
  accumulate, particularly those that are fat
  soluable

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Nutrient Cycles
Guo and Bradshaw 1993
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Sucession
Succession
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History of Ecology

• Herodotus 480 BC balance of
• nature concept
• Ernst Haeckel (1869) coined term ecology
• German biologist economy of nature
• Ellen Swallow (Richards) called the woman who
  founded ecology (1892)
• She used ecology to mean broad,
• interdisciplinary field. She particularly
  focused
• on industrial pollutants and air and water
  quality

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F. (and E.) Clements 1900

• Vegetational communities as an
• organism that is born reaches climax
• state through succession
• Contested by other scientists whose data does not
  support this, e.g. Cowles, Cooper
• plants and animals do not act as one assemblage--
  much variability in their range
• Another idea that influenced agriculture weeds
  are indicators of soil properties
• Ideas are still around in various forms
• Gaia concept, Lovelock and Margulis

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Cowles
Tansley

• Tansley (British) 1935 concept
• of the ecosystem
• The elegance of theTansleys idea of the
  ecosystem is that it is comprehensive, including
  within itself all those elements physical,
  chemical and biological, which could conceivably
  affect the organisms being studied. (Evans 1976)
• Note that still focussed on the organism
• However, the ecosystem idea was also shared by a
  number of other scientists

Photo Chicago Daily News
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Eugene Odum, Introduction to Ecology text 1953

• Defined ecology as the structure
• and function of ecosystems
• Influenced by others developing ideas of energy
  flow and nutrient cycles, which he systematized
  and explained well
• Heavily influenced by brother, Howard, an
  Electrical Engineer

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Drawings of energy flow diagrams used electrical
engineering symbols
Guo and Bradshaw 1993
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History of nutrient cycling

• von Leibig, German chemist 1840
• plants assimilate nutrients from soil
• basic nutrient cycles, e.g. nitrogen

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• Sukachev 1945 (Russian)
• biogeocoenosis biogeochemical cycling
• One of the teachings of dialectical materialism
  is that in nature all phenomena and objects are
  interrelated.
• It is a major task of natural science to deepen
  its knowledge of existing relationships to
  discover the underlying patterns with a view to
  controlling them on behalf of man. Sukachev
  1960

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II. Environmental movement

• Where did the environmental movement begin?
• time
• site specificity or name specificity

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III. The intersection of ecology, the
environmental movement and agriculture

• Agriculture starts about 12,000 years ago-
  traditional systems
• ...
• US until 1940-50 most holding small, ie what a
  family could farm
• some mechanization
• inputs, like fertilizer, low
• hybrid corn 1930s

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Green revolution 1950, post WW II,
conventional ag

• Appeared to be imminent famine in China and India
  
• Green Revolution means
• Adoption of high yielding varieties, dependent
  upon irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides

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• Wartime capability turned to produce peacetime
  inputs for war on famine
• pesticides (defined as a substance which kills
  weeds, insects or bacteria, fungi
  (disease-causing organisms)
• Successful in terms of absolute increase in food
  production
• 1960s and 1970s, social impact of green
  revolution was reported
• in Punjab, India, small farmers loose their land,
  credit becomes an issue

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1960-1970s Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
1962

• Environmental impacts of agriculture come forward
• Environmentalists view agriculture bad because
  it is humanly managed vs. the pristine natural
  world
• Environmental groups dont actively support
  organic agriculture

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1980s Rise of agroecology as a response to
conventional ag interdisciplinary field- five
majorcontributors

• Ecology
• Environmentalism
• Agriculture
• Indigenous agriculture, especially traditional
  tropical systems
• Social sciences

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Agroecology

• AE is the study of the interactions between
  living organisms and their environment in
  agricultural systems
• takes a systems approach
• Latin America contributed ideas ahead of US
• Altieri, Gliessman, Vandermeer, Carroll
• Varying social emphasis, e.g. in Latin America
  the social aspects are much more emphasized vs.
  in US where agroecology is heavily weighted
  toward the ecological

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Hot topics in agroecology

• Pesticides and bioaccumulation
• Pesticide effects on biodiversity
• Mixtures of pesticides and effects on organisms
• Endocrine disrupting effects of pesticides and
  industrial chemicals
• Genetic engineering and genetic pollution in
  environment

Diverse Peruvian potatoes
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Hot topics in agroecology, cont.

• Soil food web- function of diversity
• Predator/prey interactions and biocontrol
• Nutrient cycles
• Industrial waste--toxic waste and application to
  land of heavy metals and dioxin in fertilizers

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Environmental groups now are embracing
sustainable agriculture

• Greenpeace- anti-genetic engineering campaign
• Sierra Club/Friends of the Earth run articles on
  sustainable agriculture often
• Redefining Progress hosts sustainable agriculture
  conference

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Major underlying philosophical themes in
agroecology and the environmental movement

• Are humans separate from or part of nature?
• Are their aspects of nature that act as a
  supra-organism?
• Is a reductionist or holistic approach more
  useful and accurate, or do they each give
  different information?