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Historical Perspective
Definitions: Organicism vs. Holism
From Vegetation to Ecosystem
Origin of Clementsian Organicism
Ontogeny and Phylogeny
The Climax "Organicism": A Benchmark
It was discussed above that Nichols (1923) employed the continuum or individualistic concept of Gleason (1917) when developing a system of vegetation classification.Yet Nichols, like all others of the Anglo-American Tradition of plant ecologists except Gleason (Shimwell, 1971, p. 54), subscribed to a philosophical perspective of vegetation subsequently labeled organicism or the closely related holism. As an analogy or metaphor organicism was expressed in "purest form by Clements, Phillips, and as quoted above, Smuts. An example of the application of organicism to vegetation came from Nichols (1923, p. 14):
"The Association an Organic Entity. Characterized as above, a plant association may be regarded in its entirety as an organic entity, and as such it occupies a position in the field of ecological plant sociology which is homologous in a general way to that occupied by an individual plant or specimen in such fields of botany as plant morphology or plant taxonomy. As integral parts of the larger community, plant societies bear a relation to the association which is somewhat analogous to that borne by the various organs of an individual plant to the plant as a whole" (Nichols, 1923, p.14).
The difference between the Clementsian and the Gleasonian interpretations of vegetation was the difference between organicism and individualism, two "completely antithetical" views (Barbour et al., 1999, p. 23) of whether plant communities are actual, real, naturally occurring units of vegetation (Clements) or artificial, arbitrary, human-contrived abstractions for purposes of description, classification, management, etc. of vegetation (Gleason). These diametrical perspectives came to be distinguished as Clements' organismic and Gleasons's individualistic or continuum theories (or hypotheses). These opposing views were basis of what was probably the most divisive, often bitter, debate within the Anglo-American or English Tradition of vegetation classification. Explanations of the organismic and individualistic schools of thought can be found in McIntosh (1985) and standard Plant Ecology texts (eg. Barbour et al., 1999, ps. 22-23, 182-183, 268, 294, 295, 302).
As of this discussion herein, the best comparison of the Clementsian and the Gleasonian philosophies--and they were philosophies, complete with metaphysical underpinnings--of vegetation was that of Eliot (2007). Review and reinterpretation of Clements' scientific description of plant succession in the analysis of Eliot (2007) showed a much greater depth of perception than that of almost all other readings of Clements', by both critics and disciples. In his interpretative analysis of the Clementsian model of plant succession Eliot (2007) concluded that contrary to a commonly held myth or misconception Clements did not propose a law of vegetation, but instead developed a framework from which to explain veggetational dynamics without laws. Furthermore, Clements and Gleason essentially agreed on the causes of this dynamics (Eliot, 2007). From this perspective it was interpretors of Clements such as Tobey (1981) and McIntosh (1985) who were naive and incorrect in their understanding of what Frederic Clements really meant and actually said.
Analytical comparison of the Clementsian and Gleasonian philosophies of vegetation by Eliot (2007) was clearly not the first and, most likely, will not be the last treatment of this purported hallmark dichotomy. To date, however, it was the most in-depth and, arguably, the most perceptive evaluation of the two "bookends" of Vegetation Science.
Study of these two perspectives of vegetation (and especially the battle between them) is interesting and instructive but beyond the context of the specific vegetation units considered here because the Clementsian organismic interpretation is the one that is the basis of biomes and range cover or dominance types. The thrust of Gleason's hypothesis— that plant communities are all individual entities that are distributed along continua or gradients of innumerable highly variable environmental factors— largely argues against predicatable, recurrent units of vegetation. If, as Gleason argued (with credible scientific evidence to confront that of Clementsian ecologists), units of vegetation are just imaginitive abstractions and communities are merely individual groups of plant species then classification units like associations would be of little utility (perhaps especially so for purposes of standard management practices). If species compositions of groups of plants are simply the result of chance migrations of plant propagules over fluctuating habitats then vegetation units such as associations are not distinct or definite (ie. contrary to assertions by ecologists like Warming an association cannot be regarded as a species or the formation as a genus; groups of plants do not recur as if they were specific taxa).
Carried to it's logical ends the individualistic argument could be seen as calling into question the entire practice of classifying (but not mapping) vegetation. If groups of plants are just individual, happenstance assemblages then alternatively 1) there is either no such thing as, say, a dominance or cover type or 2) there are countless cover types with each being an individual abstraction that may never appear again. Either way, a range type would be more or less meaningless.
It was remarked previously that the "correctness" of one theory versus another or which school of thought was "closest" to ecological reality is irrelevant. Clements, Gleason, Tansley all made remarkable lasting contributions and ultimately all were recognized as eminent ecologists.
"The present American concept of the community is a synthesis of Clement's association unit hypothesis with Gleason's continuum-individualistic hypothesis, together with a recognition that there may be several different kinds of associations, each explainable according to a different model. We have come to understand that the classical theories are inadequate for completely explaining and predicting vegetation patterns, and we have come to appreciate that the scale of complexity in nature makes the existence of a single model highly unlikely".
-- Barbour et al. (1999, p. 185-186)
Given that 1) the vegetation units relevant to range types are Clementsian in origin, 2) the Clementsian model is the cornerstone of Ecology as applied in professions like Range Management, Forestry, and Wildlife Management, and 3) the ecosystem concept grew out (or because) of organicism, which has been the most controversial (and likely the most misunderstood) aspect of the Clementsian paradigm, some consideration of organicism appeared worthwhile.
Organicism, or at least holism of one form or another, was a philosophical common thread among the Anglo-American (= English) Tradition or School of Plant Synecology except for the Gleasonian branch (Shimwell, 1971, ps. 54-56). Organicism in its purest expression or "doctrine" was the Clementsian extreme of holism, holism carried to its logical extreme.
Merrian-Webster (1995) indicated that organicism was coined or first used in 1883. It offered two definitions of organicism: "1) a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole and 2) an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent: a living being".
The first definition corresponds closely to the definition of holism: "a theory that the universe, and especially living nature, is correctly seen in terms of interacting wholes (as of living organisms) that are more than the mere sum of elementary particles" (Merrian-Webster, 1995). Careful study of the writings of Tansley, especially his "Use and Abuse" paper (Tansley, 1935), suggested that it is holism and the first definition of organicism that comprised the theoretical framework of Tansley's view or interpretation of plant communities (including succession) and, again from "Use and Abuse", of the ecosystem. (Details of holism as the basis for the ecosystem concept were assembled by Golly [1993].)
Close reading of Clements (and arguments by his friend Tansley), on the other hand, raised the speculation that Clements (and Nichols, Phillips, and all pure "Clementsians") used the second definition of organicism (or something closer to it than the first definition). However similar these meanings (and key words in them) appear initially, carried to logical endpoints they lead to— at least imply— substantially different interpretations, even different philosophies. The most revealing— at minimum, suggestive— evidence of this comes from "Use and Abuse" (Tansley, 1935, ps. 289-291).
Tansley concluded that "well-integrated plant communities" (identified with plant associations) "had enough of the characters of organisms to be considered as quasi-organisms, in the same way that human societies are habitually so considered". He noted that both plant community and organism have "their phenotypic expression to development"owing to presence of all aggregate members within a gradient of habitats.
"But this position is far from satisfying Clements and Phillips. For them the plant community (or nowadays the ‘biotic community') is an organism, and he who does not believe it departs from the true faith."
Tansley (1935, p. 290-291) noted that "Clements and Phillips reply that no one asserts that the plant community is an individual organism". Tansley then discussed what the term organism meant to biologists, including ecologists, and concluded "that the term ‘quasi-organism' is justified in its application to vegetation, but that the terms ‘organism' or ‘complex organism' are not" (p. 292).
Obviously, Tansley was an organicist. The holistic perspective was central to his revolutionary ecosystem— the "quasi-organism"— concept . That "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" is the cornerstone of the ecosystem paradigm which in turn is the centerpiece of faith in contemporary environmental sciences. Yet, the organicism of Tansley and that of his dear friend were two different interpretations and philosophical perspectives of a metaphor long used in human sociological and political theory.
The two major things that made the difference between the Clements and Tansley perspectives— the two distinctive ideas or, actually, philosophies— of the Anglo-American Tradition of vegetation were: 1) Clements extreme organicism (the "social or complex organism") that was sometimes described almost metaphysically, and 2) Clements limitation of his ecological unit— the biome or formation (again, "superorganism") and its subdivisions (eg. associations, faciations)— strictly to organisms, the biotic components, whereas Tansley incorporated into his ecological unit— the ecosystem (the "quasi-organism")— both biotic and abiotic components.
From Clements' perspective, habitat was included in his classification of vegetation but only indirectly as habitat (= the abiotic environment) contributed to the expressed vegetation, to the finished product (the climax and its subdivisions or the distinct seral units). From Tansley's perspective, habitat factors had to become incorporated in studies of communities to a greater extent than they had been if more knowledge was to be gained about how nature, especially communities, operated. Clements opted to continue to study vegetation and its development (plant succession) and to perfect his description and classification of these; Tansley elected to expand study beyond vegetation to everything imaginable within an area of the landscape (ie. the ecosystem).
The fact is that Clements and Tansley had two distinctly separate goals or objectives. Clements was describing and classifying vegetation (and, by extension, the biome). Clements' classification and descriptions were based: 1) directly on physiognomy and dominance, 2) indirectly on habitat as expressed in the vegetation, and 3) interpretatively on vegetation development, his key feature, from keen observtion and experience. Tansley was establishing a brand new way of viewing holistic ecology, of studying the whole ecological world (the ecological system). Tansley's new conceptual view changed Plant Ecology (Ecology in general) from descriptive evaluation of biotic communities to quantitative analysis of the entire ecological system (biota plus everything affecting them).
This shift in emphasis or redirection of scientific inquiry within a given discipline was what Tobey (1981, p. 6-8, 110-119, 120-154 passim, 199, 203, 206-207, 213, 215) described as a "paradigm shift" in the classical theory of scientific revoultions as developed by Kuhn (1970, the second edition) in his highly provocative The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Within the existing scientific field of Ecololgy Tansley proposed a theory which laid the groundwork for what became an entirely new subdiscipline (Ecosystsem Ecology), a new dominant area of active research. At the same time, pre-existing areas of investigation like vegetation classification and plant succession either remained at the same level of research activity or lost new scientists to the emerging area of ecosystem studies.
In his recent writings Kuhn was more specific as to meanings of "paradigm" and "paradigm shifts" and therefore the defining characteristics of scientific revolutions. Some of the most important of Kuhn's later works were bound as a single volume (Kuhn, 2000) that served as appendices or further interpretations of his view of scientific revolutions. In writings since publication of the second (1970) edition of Structure Kuhn stopped using the word paradigm as much as he could because he had "...totally lost control of it" (Kuhn, 2000, p. 211). "Paradigm was a perfectly good word until I messed it up" (Kuhn, 2000, p. 298). Given this situation with the physicist-turned historian of sicence who gave the scientific community the concept and term of "paradigm shift" it is perhaps advisable to de-emphasize this aspect of scientific revolutions and focus on features that remained central to Kuhnian theory.
The key or defining feature of scientific revolutions in Kuhnian theory remained "incommensurability". Kuhn took this term from the condition in which "the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle is incommensurable with its side ..." such that "there is no common measure" Kuhn, 2000, ps. 35, 60, 189). The condition of "incommensurability" or of two things (like scientific theories) being "incommensurable" means that while these thing can be compared with some degree of precision there is "...no common language within which both [things like scientific theories] could be fully expressed and which could therefore be used in a point-by-point comparison between them" (Kuhn, 2000, p. 189). In this way Kuhnian paradigms (models serving as basis or metaphor for or as examples of scientific theories) are incommensurable (Kuhn, 2000, ps. 162-175). In other words there is no common language to compare two different paradigms (= scientific theories). There is not a common language or common word measure by which the Clementsian biome that consisted only of living things (the biotic community) can be compared completely with the Tanslian ecosystem that included both the biotic community and all the abiotic factors affecting the biotic components.
When the prevailing scientific theory (eg. Cleamentsian succession or vegetation development) cannot solve all problems or answer all answers (what Kuhn called "puzzle-solving") arising in conduct of science within the existing body of knowledge a new scientific model (ie. another paradigm) eventually is advanced that can better solve certain of the new "puzzles. This creates subdisciplines or specialities within the more general prevailing discipline much like speciation. Kuhn made frequent use of the Darwinian theory as a metaphor for creation of new disciplines or further specialization from the main tree of a given body of knowledge (Kuhn, 2000, ps. 3, 97, 116-118, 213, 227, 232-233, 307). This development is a scientific revolution or "paradigm shift".
The change in emphasis from vegetation to ecosystems as the object or subject of rapid growth in scientific investigation, the change in fields or subject areas of on-going active research within the general discipline of Ecology, was indeed a "paradigm shift" in Kuhnian theory, a textbook example of a Kuhnian scientific revolution. Tobey (1981, esp. ps. 79-119, 180-190, 196-221 passim) explained the specifics of the Kuhnian paradigm shift from the dominant Clementsian model to the emerging ecological system concept of Tansley. Tobey (1981, ps. 185-190) attributed some, perhaps much, of the decline of the Clementsian vegetation paradigm to Clements' version of philosophical organicism which Tobey labeled as "the political ideology of plant ecology".
Tobey (1981) correctly recognized the change from dominance of Plant Ecology by succession theory to emergence of ecosystem theory as a paradigm shift, a scientific revolution.Tobey (1981) incorrectly concluded that paragdigm shifts imply collapse, break-up, or death of the older paradigm. Paradigms are incommensurable. "There is no neutral language into which both of the theories as well as the relevant data may be translated for purposes of comparison". This is why "...comparisons of successive theories with each other and with the world are never sufficient to dicate theory choice". Kuhn, 2000, p. 204). The historic example of scientific revolution to which Kuhn (2000, ps. 15-20, 29-31, 206, 232, 244) repeated returned was comparison of Aristotelian to Newtonian Physics. While the latter replaced the former for certain kinds of "puzzle-solving" this does not mean that Newtonian Physics was superior for all questions or problems arising in the field of Physics or that Aristotelian theory was made obsolete by Newtonian theory. In some "kinds" (branches) of Physics or for certain "jobs" in Physics (perhaps teaching some lessons in Physics) the earlierAristotelian paradigm remains superior. "[T]he ontology of relativistic physics is, in significant respects, more like that of Aristotelian than that of Newtonian physics" (Kuhn, 2000, p. 206). When compared with Aristotle's views of the physical world Newtonian Physics was another, a newer, speciality within Physics or a further subdivision of Physics (a disciplinary "species") that improved "puzzle-solving" for some --but certainly not all-- parts of the now-expanded body of knowledge known as Physics.
There is improvement in the solving and solutions of "scientific puzzles" with development of a scientific revolution (formation of another disciplinary "species"), but with this evolution of science there occurs a "communication breakdown" between proponents of different theories or paradigms. This "breakdown" takes place because there is no neutral language to enable complete understanding among members of the different theories or models of doing science. Translations can and must be made into the language of the different theories (paradigms), but this can never be 100% (Kuhn, 1970, ps. 201-204). The reason for this inability to translate between (and thus to compare) paradigms is that meanings of (for) the various "kinds" of things involved change with a changing of theories. An example of this is the changing of the definition of "planet" with coming of the Copernican revolution (Kuhn, 2000, ps. 204-205, 206-207, 312). According to the changed meaning of "planet", the relationship between Earth and Mars and Earth and it's moon changed in going from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican system.
In scientific revolutions there is always some overlap, including some shared language, between two successive theories. Kuhn (2000, p. 185-188) expanded his structure of scientific revolutions by elaborating on the concept of a theory-core and an expanded-theory-core as proposed by some of his colleagues. A theory-core "... is a structure that cannot, unlike an expanded core, be abandoned without abandoning the coresponding theory" (Kuhn, 2000, p. 185). Interrelations among organisms would appear to be such a theory-core to both the Clementsian biome and the Tanslian ecosystem, but the theory-core was expanded with the ecosystem beyond living things to include abiotic things. Ecosystem and biome are therefore not synonyms and a complete translation between ecosystem theory (the Tanslian paradigm) and biome theory (culmination of the Clementsian paradigm) is impossible. This is an example of a paradigm shift or a scientific revolution.
A parallel example of a paradigm shift in Soil Science was change in classifying soils by the 1938 Zonal-Intrazonal-Azonal System to the Soil Taxonomy System which in oversimplified explanation was a change from a system based on soil formation to one based on chemical and physical features of soils. Soil Taxonomy improved precision of mapping soils, a pedologic illustrate of Kuhn's "puzzle-solving". This scientific revolution in Soil Science eliminated the problematic relationship between soil formation (pedogensis) and identifying and relating taxa of soils. It also eliminated the ability to relate soils to the factors responsible for their formation (and to relate soils to vegetation and climate). With this paradigm shift (change in dominant theory, the theory by which current science is conducted) the names (nouns) by which "things" (in this case, soils) are known or identified changed so much that they are not completely translatable with each other. The Mollisol order of Soil Taxonomy does not coincide completely with the Prairie or Chestnut orders of the 1938 System. The language of successive theories in scientific revolutions are incommensurable. Given the absence of a neutral language complete communication between the two paradigms is impossible. There is an example of the "communication breakdown" (Kuhn, 1970, ps. 201-204) that always accompanies a paradigm shift.
This breakdown in communication also occurred between the paradigms (ecological models and theories) of Clements and Tansley. In this case the "breakdown" was so great (and the scientific stature of the two friends who advocated different paradigms so prominent) that it remains a milestone in history of Ecology. With the Clements-Tansley paradigm shift the relationships among plants and animals and their roles or functions (and therefore even designations for plants and animals) changed. In the Tanslian ecosystem plants and animals became producers and consumers such that one part of the interrelationship between them changed from that that of action and co-action in the Clemetsian biome (the preceding paradigm). As such any comparison between these two conceptual or metaphorical views of the "ecological world" must be (and ever remain) incomplete. This is "incommensurability": "... there was no common language within which both could be fully expressed and which could therefore be used in a point-by-point comparison between them" (Kuhn, 2000, p. 189).
The comparison of the two "species" (paradigms) of Physics, Astronomy, Soil Science, and Ecology-- to the extent that paradigms can be compared-- illustrated another central point in Kuhns theory of scientific revolutions. Revolutions (= "paradigm shifts") are "...developmental episodes that introduce new kinds and displace old..." theories. These "revolutions" function "...as transforming episodes in the development or individual sciences", but these are not just "episodes in the development of a single science or sicentific specialty". They are also "...associated with an increase in the number of scientific specialities required for the continued acquisition of scientific knowledge". Such "proliferation of specialities" " ... is apparently prerequisite to the continunig develpment of scientific knowledge" (Kuhn, 2000, p. 250). To gain more knowledge in Ecology the biome concept had to be replaced, at least partially, by the ecosystem concept. A new speciality (Ecosystem Ecology) had to evolve in the metaphorical context of Darwinian evolution or speciation as used by Kuhn..This does not imply-- let alone prove-- that the ecosystem concept came closer to "ecological truth" than did the biome concept or the quasi-organism analogy.
In the Kuhnian view, scientific revolutions do not mean that each new "species" (specialty or paradigm) takes science successively or progressively closer to the asymptote of scientific truth. More recent scientific theories are superior to earlier or preceding paradigms for solving certain kinds of scientific "puzzles". (Hence development of newer and ever more specialties.) This does not mean, however, "that successive theories grow ever closer to, or approximate more and more closely to, the truth". Such a generalization refers to the ontology not the puzzle-solving capacity of a theory. Recall from Kuhn's example that in some respects Aristotelian Physics was "more like" Relativity Theory than was Newtonian Physics. In going from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein there is improvement in puzzle-solving, but this succession was not necessarily the direction of "ontological development" (Kuhn, 1970, ps. 206-207). While successive stages in the evolutionary development of science result in increased specialization this is without benefit of a "permanent fixed scientific truth" (Kuhn, 1970, ps. 172-173).
This same situation (an exact parallel) exist with regard to any comparison between the Clementsian model or paradigm of Dynamic Ecology (Allred and Clements, 1949, p. iii; and the title, Dynamics of Vegetation, of the same) and later specialties or subdivisions like Tanslian Ecosystem Ecology, Plant Population Ecology, or Landscape Ecology. Barbour et al. (1999, p. 208) remarked that in Evolutionary Ecology there have been some models that proposed evolution of entire plant communities. "It is ironic thaat such recent models bring us back full circle to Clementsian ideas of the community as some kind of superorganism..." (Barbour et al., 1999, p. 208).
Ironic, perhaps; but also continuous and consistent. The idea of a "superorganism"--the "superorganism" metaphor as a concept--never went away. It just became less fashionable for a period. There are fashions, fads, styles, 'buzzwords", "touchstones" and so on in science as in business (eg. the garment and film-making industries), politics, education techniques, etc. Many of these trends or currrent acceptances wax and wane like tides. They have their moment in the sun (or the moon), lapse into disuse for a period, and then re-emerge. Such as been the saga of the "superorganism". In some fields or specialties "superorganism" (by that or similar names) never waned. White (1949, p. 267) used the term "swarm organism" for a hive of bees vesus "body-organism" for the body of a single organism. Subsequently, Holldobler and Wilson (2008) produced their classic treatise of insect societies entitled, Superorganism.
The classical logical-empiricist or logical positivist (=logical positivism or logical empiricism) tradition was a movement in philosophy that tested all statements in reference to experience or the structure of language and sought the unification of the sciences through a common logical language. Logical positivism held that meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment such that metaphysical theoroes are meaningless. (Merriam-Webster, 1996). Logical empiricism interpreted development of science such that "successive scientific theories provide successively closer approximations to nature" (Kuhn, 2000, p. 205). Kuhn (2000, ps. 205, 217, 226, 286, 306, 309, 310) essentially rejected the logical positivist view of science. A view consistent with Kuhnian theory of scientific revolutions would be that the chronological progression from early Clementsian Community Ecology with the biome as "superorganism" to Tansian Ecosystem Ecology to Landscape Ecology does not yield ever closer approximations to "ecological truth". This sequence of scientific revolutions in Ecology did improve "puzzle" (or problem)-solving capacity for certain things. Most obviously perhaps was inclusion of abiotic factors and their functioning at different spatial or temporal ecological scales. Another example would be improved integration of climate with the biota at scale of ecoregions. Clements' climax and Tansley's ecosystem were perhaps made even more meaningful with development of the latter concept, but it cannot be claimed that each successive modification more closely approached "ecological reality".
Nor can it be implied that the most recent "scientific revolution" or "paradigm" replaced earlier ones other than for solving of contemporary ecological "puzzles". Earlier paradigms had previously solved the most pressing "puzzles" of their time just as future paradigms will become dominant to present theories in solving the ecological "puzzles" that are then confronting ecologists. This replacement of paradigms is the essence of "scientific revolutions" and the metaphorical evolution of subdisciplines or specialties. This biological analogy was aptly expressed by Tobey (1981) in his subtitle "The Life Cycle...".
Tobey's scholarly investigation of the "founding school of American plant ecology", which was constituted by Clements and his close-working colleagues, and his extremely detailed and well-constructed thesis of a Kuhnian scientific revolution so persuasively argued makes Tobey (1981) highly recommended for any student in Ecology and a "must read" for rangemen or foresters involved with practices based on beliefs that originated from the Clementsian paradigm. The meticulously researched portion on a "network of linked collaborative groups" that constitute what has come to be known as an "invisible college" (Tobey, 1981, chapter 5) was most instructive and intriguing to those interested in the academic lineage of grassland and range ecologists.
Unfortunately, Tobey (1981) went beyond the Kuhnian paradigm shift to "describe the breakup of the Clementsian microparadigm", a "destruction", which he attributed to various factors including the great drought of the 1930s and consequent deterioration of grassland communities, "political and social changes of the New Deal era", and Tansley's loss of "faith" in "Clementsian principles" (Tobey, 1981, p. 8). In his acknowledgments Tobey (1981, p.ix) admitted that he may not have convinced everyone "of all of my theses". Indeed not. It is one thing to suggest or even prove a shift in emphasis in research and study in a body of knowledge (ie. changing from one research or instructive model to another) but quite another to prove that this is due to "failure", "breakdown", or "destruction" of the former model (the paradigm). In fact, in Kuhnian interpretation a paradigm cannot be said to have been a "failure" when another disciplinary "species" arises or when comparing one paradigm (= scientific theory) to another because the two are incommensurable. There is not a common language between the Clementsian (vegetation devlopment) and Tanslian (ecosystem) theories. Nor does one Kuhnian paradigm or the other get us ever nearer to scientific truth. The newer theory, scientific model, or paradigm does not replace or make obsolete earlier paradigms except for certain-- more specialized-- "puzzle-solving".
The fact is that the school of thought and research topics such as plant succession and description of native vegetation that fall under the rubric of what Tobey labeled the Clementsian paradigm were carried on— in fact, invigorated— by the newly emergent profession of Range Management. Many scientists who were products of the "founding school" (some of them graduates from the University of Nebraska and others tracing back indirectly) extended Tobey's "life cycle" far beyond his obituary notice of the Clementsian paradigm. The active work of such notables as Arthur W. Sampson or E.J. Dyksterhuis and even current range textbook authors like Harold F. Heady is proof that the basic concepts of Clements continued long after the date of 1955 when Tobey alleged that the Clementsian School went extinct.
Where Tobey "went wrong" in issuing the death notice of the "Clementsian microparadigm" was in failing to see that when, as he correctly and meticulously charted, the dominant or active research field of Grassland Ecology moved into the newly emerging field of Range Management (Tobey, 1980, ps. 143, 145, 148, 150, 153, 219-221) this was merely transfer of Clementsian ecological investigations into another and a more applied branch of Plant Ecology, and a branch which Clements had been one of the most influencial founders of.
It was detailed in a Note in the Range Type section that Clements was probably second only to Arthur Sampson in founding the profession of Range Management and the new discipline of Range Science. Clements was the major player in the "founding school of American Plant Ecology" which Tobey (1981) correctly explained. Clements was also a major founder, probably the second major founder, of the field of Range Management. This second fact, which was traced above, is what Tobey (1981) missed completely. Even if the Clementsian paradigm with its cargo of organicism crashed (as it most certainly did not given re-emergence of fundamental Clementsian concepts as discussed below) there was still the Range Management portion of the Clementsian model that survived as the main body of Clements' ecological philosophy of vegetation.
As explained in the Note in the Range Type section, Range Management was founded by a relatively small group of men composed of two main elements: 1) on-the-ground practicing range managers or range administrators primarily of public range (eg. on National Forests) and 2) plant ecologists (proto-type range scientists) of which Arthur W. Sampson and Frederic E. Clements were the two main representatives. Sampson, "Father of Range Management", was the more important and influencial in practical application and recognition of Range Management while Clements provided the theoretical basis of the newly emergent field in his theory of plant succession and vegetation development. Application of Clementsian vegetation theory to Range Management and Forestry came largely through his second ecological monograph, Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920), that appeared shortly before Sampson (1923) authored the first "real" range textbook, Range and Pasture Management.
Tobey (1981) missed ("glossed over" is more descriptive) the contribution of Plant Indicators. Tobey (1981, p. 145) was on the right trail when he noted from his detailed study of cited literature that Plant Indicators was "frequently cited" in the final, the "exhaustion" or "crisis", stage of the life cycle of the "founding school" while the previously "heavily cited" Plant Succession was not (Tobey, 1981, ps. 144-145, 116). Tobey (1981) referred to Indicators only that one time and did not grasp the key role that this companion volume to Plant Succession played in the development of Range Management. Nor did Tobey (1981) realize that Range Management was "part and parcel" of the larger, overall Nebraska-based school of Plant Ecology.
Specifically, Tobey (1981) missed two major points: 1) he did not realize the essential, central function of Clements, especially through Plant Indicators, to creation of Range Management as an agricultural science and 2) he did not realize that Sampson, the principal "sire" of Range Management, was a product of and continued to be influenced by the Clementsian "founding school". Tobey (1981) did not appreciate the fact that Sampson was such a close follower of Clements' teaching that "Clementsianism" lived on after the original grassland version of the paradigm was converted into Range Management.
In fairness to the correct facts found and a thesis well-argued by Tobey (1981), it should be noted that many of the sort of details just presented could not be detected by the kind of analysis Tobey (1981) performed. The tracing of "invisible colleges" by the procedure pioneered by Diana Crane (1972) and the following of connections and ideas by biographical and citation analysis used by Tobey (1981, ps. 112-154 passim, 215-216, 228-250) in reaching his conclusions obviously will work only when the investigator is thoroughly knowledgable with all (at least enough) of the intricate details of the scientific field being investigated. An example of this was when Lucy Braun while writing Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America (1950) corresponded with Clements regarding use of Clementsian concepts (Tobey, 1981, p. 112). Tobey caught that one though he downplayed the lasting significance of Braun's work.. Unfortunately Tobey missed most of the more important of those kinds of contacts as between Sampson and Clements for example.
There were countless connections among the colleagues of the diffused "invisible college" of Range Management and Forestry (probably related fields like Agronomy) that had roots to the Nebraska nucleus of Plant Ecology. These contacts were of the nature that only "insiders" (range scientists, foresters, ecologists, etc.) would be familiar with their details. Tobey (or anybody) could not likely "pull off" this kind of analysis by himself without having been thoroughly versed in the specifics of the body of knowledge or profession under evaluation. For example, the paper by Dyksterhuis (1949) using successional status of key species as basis for range condition/trend analysis has often been regarded as the single most commonly cited work in Range Management, at least from the Journal of Range Management (McClaran, 2000). As explained in the insert Note (Range Type) the idea for the Dyksterhuis (1949) method of analysis can be traced back to Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920), and subsequent research on response of species to disturbances like drought such as conducted by John Weaver and his students at the University of Nebraska. Dyksterhuis earned his Ph. D. from Nebraska. Many more such cases existed that would have shown similar results (eg. the influencial range scientist, author, and teacher L.A. Stoddart, another Nebraska product).
Tobey (1981), or again anybody not familiar with the field of Range Management, could rationally be excused for missing such pivotal details on his own. That excuse failed when the investigator, Tobey in this case, had opportunity to verify findings with knowledgeable colleagues. In his acknowledgements (Tobey, 1981, p. ix) observed that he may not have convinced all the scientists at the University of California, Berkeley "of all of my theses". No wonder! Had he listened to them or individually sought background information and ideas from them (like he apparently received from others that he acknowledged) Tobey (1981) would not have made the gaffs that he did. Specifically, his errors (most of them anyway) could have been avoided had he open-mindedly corresponded with Drs. Harold H. Biswell, Harold F. Heady, and Arnold M. Schultz of the UC, Berkeley Forestry and Range Management faculty (all Ph. D.s from Nebraska).
Tobey (1981) made several major plunders in the form of faulty assumptions on which his "breakup of the Clementsian microparadigm" depended. One of the most obvious of these to a range scientist was his assertion that, "Range management, as a profession, was largely a product of the Great Drought [the drought of the 1930s] (Tobey, 1981, p. 143). Major erroneous assumption and misreading of the history of Range Management! As pointed out in the Note in the Range Type section, Range Management actually emerged during the period of about 1895 to 1923, the latter year when the first complete textbook of Range Management appeared. Range Management already consisted of enough knowledge to have its own textbook and university courses and curricula before the 1930s. Wasser (1977) established the beginning of actual (professional) Range Management in the year 1895 when Texas stockmen requested research assistance from USDA to halt range deterioration. It was cited above that the first actual publications devoted to Range Management per se were those of Bentley (1898). Wasser (1977) established that the first four-year Range Management curriculum was established in 1916 (Montana State College) and that there were state or state and federal Range Management investigations underway in three states by 1915.
Had Tobey (1981) studied the detailed history of Range Management as recorded by Wasser (1977), or even as found in range "principles" textbooks, he would not have carelessly and incorrectly concluded that Range Managaement "was largely a product" of the drought of the 1930s.
Clements (1920) wrote a condensed Range Management text inside of his second monograph, Plant Indicators. Much of his plant succession model in the first monograph (Clements, 1916a) had direct application to Range Management. Both of these and all major texts and references in Range Mangement that existed until after World War II had been written one to two decades before the Great Drought. Barnes (1913) of the Forest Service wrote a textbook-like manual on Range Management before World War I. Range Management came out of Forestry more than any other profession or agricultural field, and Forestry began at turn of the Twentieth Century.
Yes, the Great Drought was of critical importance as Tobey (1981, chapter 7) explained in an interesting critique. Yet, the drought only brought to completion many things that had been in proverbial developmental stages for years. One case is particular illustrates this. Tobey (1981, p. 220) wrote: "The drought [of the 1930s] brought forth the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, which harnessed grasslands ecology to range management.". The first part of that statement is true, but only true to the extent that the drought (and the Great Depression jointly) was the "last straw" that finally made possible legislation proposed as far back as John Wesley Powell's arid land report (1879) that advocated grazing associations for proper use of the Public Domain range. The National Livestock Association endorsed Powell's suggestions in 1901 as provided for by a bill introduced into the United States Senate that later became the basis of the Taylor Grazing Act. In attempts to solve the problem of unregulated grazing use and consequent overgrazing and deterioration of the Public Domain range there were no less than 11 bills introduced into either the US Senate or House of Representatives between 1901 and passage of the final Taylor Act (Foss, 1960, ps. 39-52). One of the better bills from standpoint of it's chance of bringing about proper grazing management was the Kent Grazing Bill introduced into the US House of Representatives in 1916. This specific bill was advocated and printed in its entirety by Clements (1920) in Plant Indicators.
Clearly the Great Drought did not "bring forth" new legislation even though it did "bring forth" new legislative sponsors. It only made possible legislation that had been proposed for at least 30 years, the three decades going back to the beginning of the new profession of Range Management. The drought of the 1930s most certainly did not in any way cause "grasslands ecology" to be "harnessed" to Range Management because that union or conversion had occurred years earlier. The "intellectual shift" from Range Management when "grassland ecology collapsed" (Tobey, 1981, ps. 219-221) was a "realignment" from seeds sown at least as far back as publication of Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920) and the advent of published range research by Sampson beginning about 1913. Although Tobey (1981, p. 286) offered an optional computer printout of 535 titles he did not include one citation of Sampson in his published extensive bibliography that contained numerous sources having no direct relation to Grassland Ecology, Range Management, etc. This is indicative of Tobey's failure to grasp the early connection of Range Management to the Nebraska school and the fact that the "founding school" was one major source of origin for Range Management.
Finally, Tobey did not convince this author that "grassland ecology collapsed" at all. If it did, it reemerged in the Grassland Biome Project of the International Biological Program three decades this side of the "collapse". Renewed interest in North American grasslands also reappeared in scattered groups of enthusiasts in state conservation agencies and Midwestern teaching colleges in the 1960s. These "die-hards" whose main focus was on tallgrass, true, and mixed prairies formed numerous prairie organizations (eg. Missouri Prairie Foundation). These meet biannually as the North American Prairie Conference. State-level organizations became popular even in traditional strongholds of Range Management (eg. Native Prairies Association of Texas).
Most importantly, Grassland Ecology in North America reappeared in its original form in its birthplace. Research on tallgrass prairie ranges and hay meadows has been continuous for decades at land grant universities like University of Nebraska, Kansas State University, and, to lesser extent, others like Oklahoma State University. This was primarily more "applied research" justifiably oriented at problems confronting producers. Beginning in the 1970s with the untiring efforts of visionaries like Dr. Lloyd C. Hulbert of Kansas State, The Nature Conservancy purchased the Konza Prairie in the famed Flint Hills. Scientists on Konza Prairie began what were more basic investigations in structure, function, etc. of prairie ecosystems. Using major funding provided by the National Science Foundation numerous programs at K State began cooperative research with Federal agencies varying from USDA to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under a Long-Term Ecological Research Program (Knapp et al., 1998). The University of Nebraska School of Biological Sciences and its multidisciplinary Center for Great Plains Study also became involved in research that included Grassland Ecology, including some work at Konza Prairie and new publications that would thrill John Weaver (eg. Joern and Keeler, 1995). Reference to these recent more basic biological types of research was not intended to de-emphasize the continuous Agricultural Experiment Station programs, which in themselves are proof arguing against the assertion that "grassland ecology collapsed", but rather to illustrate the resurgence of active research much like that conducted by the "founding school of American Plant Ecology".
"Full cycle", wrote Tobey (1981, p. 221) of his conclusion for the "denouement" of the "grassland ecology" legacy. And he had it right, though from this author's view for the exact opposite conclusion. With the IBP and application of "Clementsianism" to ecosystem theory as explained later, the Nebraska "grassland ecology" school came "full cycle". It recovered as did the great grasslands themselves (Weaver and Hansen, 1941; Weaver and Albertson, 1944; Weaver, 1954; Weaver and Albertson, 1956).
This is but one example of how Tobey (1981) did an outstanding job of assembling facts and then totally misinterpreted them. In the words of a punchline from a joke made famous by Abraham Lincoln, Tobey "had his facts right but he reached the wrong conclusion".
A second flawed assumption was: "…the disintegration of normal grasslands science resulted from internal disillusionment with the microparadigm…" and "…the emergence of range management within normal science [was an indicator] of internal disruption in grasslands ecology…". Nonsense. Grassland is a major range biome and the fact that Range Management emerged out of it is only to be expected. It was the major range formation that the Nebraska school of Ecology had to work with. From what else could Range Science have emerged? Range Management is to a large extent applied Plant (specifically Range) Ecology so it is only natural that Range Management should grow out of Plant Ecology. It says the same thing worded either way. Tobey's conclusion about the origin of Range Management was correct. It was an outgrowth of the Clementsian paradigm and this was a "success story", the exact opposite of "breakdown". It was redirection, but it was redirection inside the same Clementsian paradigm. It was rejuvenation of Clementsian Ecology because it allowed the application of Clements' theories and concepts to the practice of the agricultural industries, specifically the grazing or pastoral industry. It was a "vote of confidence" for the Clements-Weaver school.
The emergence of Range Management "as a strong topic within grassland literature" was not "internal disillusionment" at all. Just the contrary: it was the general acceptance of Clementsian vegetation theory as the paradigm most apt to provide an initial conceptual basis for a newer knowledge field branching out from the older base. This redirection within the existing discipline of Plant Ecology was a natural outgrowth resulting from the application of the grassland school paradigm as the basis of the new field of Range Management, a field that Clements had been very influencial in founding.
One commonsense summary explanation for movement of the original Clementsian model from Grassland Ecology studies to the Range Management profession is that as graduates of the now Weaver-Nebraska "founding school" multiplied they had to go somewhere. As with the predominent American frontier, that somewhere was westward. Nebraska could not hold them all. Nor could all the prairie-plains states and provinces whose grassland was continuing to go under to the plow and to agronomic crops. The post- Great Drought-Great Depression-World War II crop of new Weaver-Clementsians moved west into deserts, chaparral, mountain forests, even tundra. In these biomes the original grassland ecology model was no longer the most appropriate. Given that range includes all biomes and that the most plausible promish of professionalism (including employment) lay in all types of natural pasture, Range Management became the latest frontier for the existing Clementsian paradigm.
With retirement of professors or principal investigators (or death of active emerti) university curricula and research may die or "go dormant" for years so as to complete the "life cycle" of that program. Academia is replete with examples of this. Like professional sports teams, nobody stays on top forever. This, of itself, is not necessarily the same as "breakup" of a disciplinary paradigm or beginning of a scientific revolution.
In this author's opinion, Tobey (1981) greated overstated his case for the end of Clementsian Ecology and, in fact, failed to prove his allegation for such demise. The conclusion reached and argued in this paper is that the Tobey (1981) "thesis" of "failure" and "destruction" of Clementsian Ecology was wrong, pure and simple.
Where Tobey, in tracing the historical orgin of applied Plant Ecology, including Range Management, made the wrong turn that took him down a dead end road ending at a nonexistant destination was when he failed to see that Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920) was really the last half of a two-volume treatise on Plant Ecology of which Plant Succession (Clements, 1916a) was the first volume, the theory, and Indicators, the second volume and the practical application of principles laid down in the first. That Indicators was the continuation of Succession was unambigiously stated in Indicators by Clements (1920, p. III): "The present book is intended to be a companion volume to "Plant Succession". The latter was planned to contain several chapters on the applictions of ecology, but these were omitted on account of the lack of space. Chief among these was the consideration of succession as the primary basis for a system of indicator plants, and this has been made the theme of the present treatise".
Clements' own words prove the fact that these two volumes were actually one book. This was undeniable and commonly realized by rangemen and foresters. Evidence of this plainly stated fact, and an outgrowth of it, was the publication of abridged editions of both volumes as one bound book, entitled Plant Succession and Indicators- A Definitive Edition of Plant Succession and Plant Indicators (Clements, 1928). This "combined and condensed edition" of both original volumes appeared eight years following publication of the unabridged edition of Indicators with "granted permission" and "without responsibility" by the Carnegie Institution of Washington it having "been regarded as a scientific duty to meet the growing demand during the years the books have been out of print ..." (Clements, 1928, p. v). In this same paragraph of the Preface Clements (1928, p. v) offered this explanation: "The two books were designed to be companion volumes, the one dealing with the concepts and principles, the other with the applications of the developmental method. In consequence, it seems entirely appropriate to combine them in a single volume, with a corresponding gain in convenience and economy". The cost of making available both volumes in a single book was omission of five chapters from the original Succession and one chapter from the original Indicators. The latter was the portion describing the formations of western North America, but the applications to Range Management and Forestry were retained.
The two-in-one abridged edition (Clements, 1928) was reprinted and published in 1963 by Hafner Publishing Company (Arno Press, New York) thereby making the two volumes available to another generation of students. This included any scholars who might choose to write a history of Clementsian Ecology, and provided contemporary evidence to any such historians that Plant Indicators was not a second book and that, in fact, any appraisal of Clementsian thought had to include Plant Succession and Plant Indicators as one book. Given that 1) Clemensian theory was applied to Range Management in both Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920, chapter VI) and the joint, abridged edition of both volumes (Clements, 1928, chapter XV), 2) that research in Range Management under sponsorship by both state and federal agencies began before publication of Plant Succession (Clements, 1916a), Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920), and Succession and Indicators (Clements, 1928), and 3) that practical studies in natural history, ecology, and management of grasslands (as at the University of Nebraska) were coeval in origin with that of Range Management it seemed impossible that the profession of Range Management emerged as a result of "disintigration of normal grasslands science result[ing] from internal disillusionment with the microparadigm [of Clementsian Ecology] as stated by Tobey, 1981, p. 145).
Likewise, it was simply not true, not factual, as Tobey (1981, ps. 147-148) mistakenly alleged that the founding literature of Clementsian Ecology was abandoned after 1928 with "ultimate rejection" of Clementsian theory "after World War II" when concerns of federal scientists "had shifted toward range management" (Tobey, 1981, ps. 149-150). These statements are clearly in error. These conclusions are illogical, if not sheer nonsense, because the dates given by Tobey (1981) are wrong. The chronology of federal publications (primarily United States Department of Agriculture or USDA) devoted to Range Management pre-dated the Twentieth Century (not to mention 1928 let alone 1945) and the most commonly available and cited works of Cleaments (1916a, 1920,1928) were directly related to Range Management, it having been discussed above that the chapter dealing with Grazing Indicators in Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920, 1928) was arguably one of the first Range Management textbooks ever written.
The fact that Clements' Plant Succession and Plant Indicators was one book, even before the two volumes were combined inside the same cover (Clements, 1928), makes the distinction drawn by Tobey (1981, ps. 144-145) between these two volumes with regard to frequency of citations in the Range Management literature a spurious one. Such distinction was simply an artifact of the format of publication (two printing dates and two separate bindings). Yes, the analytical evaluation of cited literature in this portion (Tobey, 1981, ps. 142-154 passim) was correct, but Tobey drew the wrong inference when he concluded in net effect that the Clementsian microparadigm was replaced due to "decay within" (Tobey, 1981, p. 154) with a resultant shift from the "grassland specialty" to Range Management.
There are at least three reasons that prove the error of this conclusion. First, any distinction between Clementsian theory and its application is an artificial one because 1) any such differentiation is arbitrary much like that between basic versus applied research (even more so for the fact next explained) and 2) theory and practice in the Clementsian model were a unified whole with both practice and ecological principles mutually dependent on each other (the theoretical perspectives were themselves determined largely by practical questions posed by the newly emerging professions and fields of Range Management, Forestry, and Agronomy).
Second, the fact that the scientific literature more or less stopped citing the Plant Succession portion while continuing to cite the Plant Indicators part (Tobey, 1981, ps.144-145) was due to the fact (a major fact missed by Tobey) that the basic principles in Plant Succession were refined and made more readily accessible to workers in Range Management and Forestry in Clement's influencial (and controversial) article, "Nature and Structure of the Climax", published in The Journal of Ecology (Clements, 1936) and, even more importanly, in the highly influencial textbook, Plant Ecology, (Weaver and Clements, 1929, 1938). There was no longer a need to cite the out-of-print unabridged Plant Succession (Clements, 1916a) because Clements' refinements in climax and community development theory (eg. disturbance climax) presented in the climax paper 20 years later and in the standard-of-it's-field textbook Plant Ecology made the 1916 Succession volume largely obsolete for most citation purposes. Plus, as Clementsian theory became textbook knowledge there was no need to cite certain of the principles ("dogma" to some) introduced in Plant Succession. Citation rate for Plant Succcession (Clements, 1916a), which was assumed by Tobey (1981, ps. 144-145) to be associated with "theoretical or paradigm-oriented" scientists, would naturally have declined sometime after appearance of the more readily available "Climax" paper (Clements, 1936) and Plant Ecology (Weaver and Clements, 1929, 1938). These developments seemed more likely to this author to explain decline in citation rate for Succession than did Tobey's pronouncement of a paradigm shift from Grassland Ecology to Range Management.(The third reason explained in the next poaragraph documented that Range Management was an active field of reserch and innovation before the series of grassland studies arising from the University of Nebraska and it's invisible college or network of collaborators [Tobey, 1981, ps. 133-137]). Tobey's documentation of a steady or even increased citation rate for Plant Indicators was also more likely explainded by availability and relevance of current (as in "up-to-date") publications than by a paradigm shift. Unlike the theoretical portion, Plant Succession (Clements, 1916a, 1928), the more applied or practice-oriented portion of the Clementsian paradigm, Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920, 1928), had only a partial replacement in Plant Ecology (Weaver and Clements, 1929, 1938). The Grazing Indicators chapter in the Plant Indicators portion was the closest thing to an actual textbook in Range Management except for the text by Sampson (1923), and these two publications complemented each as well as the major Range Management publications issued by the federal government (covered immediately below).
Third, and most important of all in this consideration, is the fact stated above that research and development of practices in Range Management preceded the "grassland specialty". As discussed earlier the United States government, largely through USDA, as well as state land grant colleges and universities, through Agricultural Experiment Stations, had conducted research in Range Management (eg. grazing trials, poisonous plants, livestock distribution, revegetation) since the 1890s (eg. Smith, 1899 with investigations begun on mixed prairie range, a grassland cover type, in 1897). "Range Management on the National Forests", USDA Bulletin No. 790, written by Jardine and Anderson (1919) dealt mostly with forest ranges and it had become the "range management bible" before development of the predominantly grassland-oriented Nebraska school under leadership of John Weaver. Arthur Sampson, plant ecologist of the U.S. Forest Service (USDA) and a former Nebraska graduate student, authored a bulletin on range improvement (aimed at forest and mountain meadow ranges) in 1913 and a journal article on revegetation of rangeland in 1914. Obviously research in Range Management pre-dated Clements' monumentally influential monographs. Sampson (1919) wrote "Plant Succession in Range Management", USDA Bulletin No. 791, and it became a shelf companion to Bulletin No. 790. Clearly, Range Management did not emerge after the Nebraska "grassland specialty". Therefore, Tobey was undeniably incorrect when he concluded that "the emergence of range management within normal science" (Tobey, 1981, p. 145), where the normal science period was set by Tobey (1981, p. 143-144) to begin in 1916 (the year Plant Succession was published), was an indicator "of internal disruption in grasslands ecology" (Tobey, 1981, p. 145). Range Management emerged before emergence of the "grassland specialty" not to mention before "internal disruptiion" within such several decades later.
Tobey's conclusion was flawed because 1) Range Management was already an area of active agricultural research by both the US and state governments before the onset of normal science within the Clementsian paradigm and 2) the major portion of the practical or applied part of the Clementsian paradigm was Range Management (in Plant Indicators the Grazing Indicators chapter was larger and of far more relevance to actual practice than either the Agricultural Indicators or the Forest Indicators chapters; in fact, the former chapter was longer than the latter two chapters combined).
Had Tobey (1981) understood that Plant Succession (Clements, 1916a) and Plant Indicators (Clements, 1920) were two volumes of the same book (as when abridged editions of both were bound as one volume in 1928) and if Tobey had grasped the role of the Grazing Indicators chapter on the developing profession of Range Management he could not logically have concluded that Range Management grew out of or replaced the "grasslands specialty" (Tobey, 1981, p. 145). Had this historian grasped the relationship of these two closely related fields and understood the importance and chronological development of that relationship he would not have erroneously concluded that the Grassland Ecology paradigm failed and was replaced by that of Range Management. Tobey (1981) not only got the cart in front of the horse, he mistook the cart for the horse. Again, Range Management emerged before (not after) the specialty of Grassland Ecology. This was the case in both Clements' work (again, especially as Grazing Indicators) and the first actual textbook in Range Management (Sampson, 1923). The presence of a textbook by the 1920s immediately after or coincident with the monographs of Clements (1916a, 1920) indicated that there had to be some body of research and existing literature in Range Management before that time (eg. the research published by Sampson).
In essence, Grassland Ecology in the United States grew out of the older and more general field of Range Management and not the other way around (ie. Tobey got it backwards: "cart in front of horse"). In America, Grassland Ecology emerged primarily out of the Nebraska school (the "founding school of American plant ecology") especially with John E. Weaver, Clements' most notable co-author, and Weaver's graduate students. Nebraska students (including some who, like Clements, pre-dated Weaver) included Sampson and other well-known names like Jerry Dyksterhuis, G.W. Tomanek, Harold Biswell, Laurie Stoddart, and Harold Heady (to name but a few). All of these distinguished themselves as specialists in Range Management. Most of these workers emphasized grassland range in their research but they also conducted investigations on ranges in forest, shrubland (eg. desert and chaparral), and even tundra biomes. As range, native grazing land, exist on some land of all the terrestrial biomes, Range Management is a larger, broader, and, from some perspectives, a more general or inclusive field than Grassland Ecology. Clements works, in particular his early monographs (Clements, 1916a, 1920) dealt with and provided fundamental concepts for the emerging prominent subfield of Forest Ecology as well as such smaller specialties as Desert Ecology. Some of these principles are still widely accepted and used while others were either rejected or still serve as a basis for scholarly debate (including fierce argument) and model testing.
Kuhnian theory of paradigm shifts does not mean that the previous model which supported the research forefront undergoes "breakup" or "destruction". It means only that the "scientific frontier" has moved on to newer fields of inquiry within the existing discipline. Neither does a paradigm shift necessarily mean or imply that the previous prevailing paradigm has been proven to be wrong or in error. Take for example vegetation classification. It is no more appropriate to criticize the vegetation development or plant succession model of Clements or the releve model of Braun-Blanquet for omitting habitat or ecosystem components than it is to criticize The Nature Conservancy or Kuchler systems for omitting these factors in classification or mapping of vegetation. As with Clements' climax hierarchy system, neither The Nature Conservancy USNVC System, Ellenberg and Mueller-Dombois UNESCO scheme, or the Kuchler Potential Natural Vegetation Map included ecosystem study (or, for that matter, much habitat criteria). All any of these systems do in to classify vegetation.
The change in emphasis from vegetation classification and description to ecosystem structure and function is according to Kuhnian theory a change in dominant research models, hence a scientific revolution, a paradigm shift. It does not mean that ecologists were mistaken to classify vegetation instead of studying trophic levels. Vegetation classification systems are not ecosystem (or landscape) studies any more than simulation models of ecosystems are schemes of vegetation units. These various kinds of ecological studies or programs can be incorporated with each other, at least "in name" and to provide overarching units. The case exemplar was use of biomes as the general unit for ecosystem studies by the International Biological Program, but as Golly (1993) demonstrated this was not very satisfactory and worked to detriment of both of these separate fields of Ecology (ie. it was a case of mixing paradigms).
It is undeniable that many of the terms, concepts, and most fundamental theories of Vegetation Science which originated with the Anglo-American or English School are in current use. A disproportionately large share of these were contributed by Clements. The biome and climax vegetation are two of these that are still in common use and directly traceable back to Clements and Cowles. Range and forest cover (= dominance) type as an application of the Clementsian climax plant association is another example, but one that can be traced back only indirectly to the Clements-Tansley era. The situation is— and this is the point Tobey (1981) largely missed— that as long as biome, plant succession, climax, cover type, and other basic concepts are useful in the fundamentals of Plant Ecology or in applications thereof (eg. the practice of Range Management and Forestry), Clementsian Ecology is still relevant and cannot be said to have "failed" or "broken down". Most certainly there was a shift in paradigms or microparadigms in going from Clementsian classification of vegetation and stress on biotic communities to Ecosystem Ecology, but climax vegetation and cover types are concepts currently as useful and widely used by some ecologists as ecosytem. Ecosystem Ecology is an older subdiscipline than Landscape Ecology (as currently defined) and, as mentioned above, Ecosystem Geography is another new ecological field with new ideas that paradoxically harken back to the biome. These newer fields are drawing some scientific endeavor that otherwise might be expended on ecosystem research. Golly (1993) documented weaknesses in IBP ecosystem modeling studies. Do these developments mean "destruction" or "breakdown" of the ecosystem paradigm? No.
The Kuhnian theory of scientific revolutions is complex as evidenced by studies of it by other scientists (eg. Hoyningen-Huene, 1993) or of scientific revolutions in general (eg. Cohen, 1985). In essence, one paradigm or model, school of thought, or prevailing body of theory is replaced by another when the older paradigm cannot provide answers to problems or questions that arise out of it or its application. Thus Copernican Astronomy emerged (grew out of) and replaced its preceding Ptolemaic system. This does not mean that Ptolemaic Astronomy was wrong or irrelevant for all uses but only that it ccould no longer serve as the model for more advanced or recent research. Part of it was in error, but it is still in common use for certain things (Kuhn, 1970, p. 68). The same is true for Newtonian Physics. Certain Newtonian principles once accepted where found to be wrong or in error as they were replaced by newer models (Einsteinian Physics for eg.). Other parts of Newtonian theory are still valid and are covered in any standard Physics text. In fact any university level introductory Physics textbook that omitted Newtonian Physics would be seen as incomplete. Is not the same true of any standard text in Plant Ecology that omitted Clementsian Ecology? If in the natural resource professions emphasis shifted from "ecosystem management" to "landscape management" Landscape Ecology would replace Ecosystem Ecology as a dominant paradigm, but the ecosystem concept would still be valid for certain uses. The ecosystem paradigm could not be said to have "failed" or to have undergone "destruction".
Tobey's (1981) naive and, as seen herein, incorrect allegations of "breakup", "destruction", and "failure" of the Clementsian "microparadigm" were summarily dismissed by Hagen (1992, p. 79-80) when he stated simply "... I am unwilling to accept Tobey's Kuhnian perspective on ". "By presenting the history of ecology as the rise and fall of of paradigms, this perspective places too much emphasis on upon historical discontinuity" (Hagen, 1992, p. 80). The more detailed dismanteling of Tobey's flowed conclusion described herein indicated the specific miscalculations published by Tobey (1981).
It must be stressed (and remembered) that all accomplished or prominent people are a product, at least a partial product, of the times in which they lived (ie. "the life and times of ..."). As shown throughout this review this was, even if not always obvious, consistently the case for Frederic Edwards Clements. Clements was a product of the science of the age-- the early Twentieth Century-- in which he lived and produced his works. One of the fundamental changes in science (and philosophy of or behind science) of the Twentieth Century was the gradual but continued transition from a perspective that science could be simplified to a foundation of mathematical-like, "clockwork" principles to the growing realization of the role of chance (at least an emphasis on chance) in science. As scientific discoveries increased there was an increasing awareness of apparent aberrations from the "normal", the typical, scheme of things scientific. This story was told summarily in the essay by theoretical physicist, F.D. Peat (2002).
Life scientists are most familiar with the role of chance in the application of probability theory to Biology, especially the Agricultural Sciences, through statistics. The application of statistics to biological systems through the work of such famous scientists as Sir Ronald Fisher created the science of biometrics or biostatistics used by every graduate student in the life sciences. The role of "chance" or what appears to be "random" happenings (and variation caused by this apparent randomness) in the "working of the world" was expanded in roughly the last quarter of the Twentieth Century. This expansion (perhaps a shift in emphasis on exceptions rather than general rules) had its origin in the pure sciences and their application to such natural systems as those of the atmosphere and oceans.
One of the most prominent of these was what became known variously as chaotic dynamics, chaotic behavior, nonlinear dynamics, chaotic behavior in systems, chaos theory, or, simply, chaos: "The dynamic evolution that is aperiodic and sensitively dependent on initial conditions... This term takes advantage of the colloquial meaning of chaos as random, unpredictable, and disorderly behavior, but the phenomena given the technical name chaos have an intrinsic feature of determinism and some characteristics of order" (Morris, 1992), "The aperiodic, unpredictable behavior arising in a system extremely sensitive to various initial conditions; phenomena, and that exhibited by chaos, include turbulent fluid flow, low-range weather patterns, and cardiac arrhythmias" (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993), or "A theory derived from the observation that when the mathematical description of a system includes several nonlinear equations... the future behavior of that system may be unpredictable because of the wide variations that result from its sensitivity to very small differences in initial values supplied to any mathematical model. Chaos was first studied with reference to weather forecasting, but the theory has since been found to have many ecological implications (eg. in studies of predator-prey relations and population dynamics)" (Allaby, 1998).
Students can get the gist of chaos by reading the popularized account of Gleick (1987) and generalized treatments such as those of Holden (1986), Ueda (1992), and Lorenz (1993). These authors included extensive bibliographies including published bibliographies of chaos.
Role of chaos theory as a major factor in the paradigm shift from the clocklike view of the universe tracing back to Newtonian Physics to the so-called postmodern views or interpretations of the scientific disciplines has been variously expressed as From Clocks to Chaos (Glass and Mackey, 1988) and From Clockwork to Chaos (chapter 6 of Peat, 2002). Such expressions stem from the metaphor of "Newtonian clockwork" (Peat, 2002, p. 117).
Chaos theory appears to be one of the major emerging new perspectives (a paradigm perhaps?) that dulled the luster of scientific certainty that was characteristic of the sciences in the Nineteenth Century through much of the early Twentieth Century. This was the period during which Clements was productive and when the field of Range Management began to emerge. Ecological models such as those of plant succession that followed the machine-like pattern of the pure sciences, especially Physics, were understandably favored and seen as more scientific than those which were less "tidy" or had "noise in the system". The meticulous, precisely ordered ecological schemes in Clements (1916) Plant Succession and his classic paper on the nature and structure of climax (Clements, 1936) fit perfectly with the style or format of the highest science of his day.
Recent models of plant succession such as the state-and-transition model can be related to, and are likely outgrowths of, postmodern "uncertain science" and such theories as chaos. Clements' organicism and his admittedly highly stylized, oversimplified, assembly line-like model of plant succession were products typical of the best science of his time, the age of "clockwork science".
Strictly speaking, Clements and the entire Clementsian School did deal with chaos, and in the exact disciplines it grew out of: meteorology and climatology. The most obvious example was drought and the University of Nebraska group led by John Weaver. Clements was, as always, ahead of his time and emphasized with obvious effort (and, also as always, with considerable space) climate and its impact on vegetation and its role in development of vegetation. All of this was dynamic (again the contributions of H.C. Cowles and W.M. Davis). This was most conspicuous in Plant Succession (Clements, 1916, esp. ps. 320-343, theories of sun spot activity and drought being the classic example). The difference between Clements' perspective and treatment of atmospheric phenomena (and their influences on vegetation) and that of chaos theory was that Clements tried to explain climatic events and their effects on plant communities as cyclic phenomena (or at least as patterned periodic or episodic phenomena) whereas chaos theory treats of such as being more or less aperiodic or acyclic. At least the theory of chaotic dynamics views system responses (ie "chaotic behavior") as cyclic or periodic at much greater patterns of complexity (eg. mathematical fractals) and, most particularly, as nonlinear. The "clockwork science" of Clements time interpreted natural phenomena as linear and cyclic in simpler geometric patterns. Clements was a top-notch scientist in step with contemporary science and current prevailing theories. As such, Clements' models were relatively simple (certainly not of fractal complexity), linear, and cyclic.
Readers (and critics of Clementsian Ecology) might well ponder this question, "What if instead of his "dynamic ecology" and "dynamic vegetation" Clements had put forth "chaotic ecology" and "chaotic vegetation"? What if he proposed the antithesis of his predictable, inexorable sere to the inevitable climax: a chaotic, unpredictable, never-the-same-twice model? Would "chaotic plant ecology" have application to rangemen and foresters trying to save what remained of native vegetation in a time when the rank and file of man was being driven to destroy the same through the forces of hunger, economic disintegration and revolution, ignorance, and greed? If vegetation was an unknowable biological wild card what incentive would there have been to try to manage it? This author suggest that the alternative to the certainty of the deterministic Clementsian model would have delayed acceptance and application of Vegetation Science to emerging professions like Range Management and Forestry. Clements' deterministic path to a definite terminus that was capable of being modified, even enhanced or expedited, by human coaction was the right prescription for its time. It furnished faith in the future for those trying desperately to save what remained of former bountiful forests, grasslands, and desert ranges. Without the certain (over-certain perhaps) clock-like science along the lines of the Clementsian model there would have been much less impetus for early conservationists and the disciples of Progress and the "gospel of efficiency" to have believed in and applied the principles of scientific management to natural resources, action that certainly saved so much of them for future generations.
In sum then, any argument that controversial aspects of the Clementsian model (and again organicism is probably the most controversial) coupled with "general old age" lead to "destruction" of this model must be seen as mistaken and even greatly flawed. As long as biomes (or ecoregions), cover types, and range sites remain in use Clementsian Ecology remains relevant (ie. "alive and well").
A second aspect of organicism that has been discussed is its actual origin. This appears to have been incompletely traced. In his "Use and Abuse" paper Tansley (1935, p. 285) remarked on the South African-American connection of organicism in which "Clements appears as the major prophet and Phillips as the chief apostle" of "a creed" or "a closed system of religious or philosophical dogma". Tansley (1935, p. 298) also referred to Phillips (1934, 1935) papers that discussed Smuts' version of holism. Holism and the complex organism, especially in relation to Tansley's ecosystem, were accorded detailed coverage by Golly (1993, ps. 22-34, 95, 210-211, 222-223). Tobey (1981) reported on the origin of Clements organicism in considerable detail but, as with his interpretation of the Clementsian paradigm, he seems to have missed pertinent aspects. In what seems to be the only real analysis of the origin of Clements' "philosophical dogma", Tobey (1981, ps. 79-109, 155-180 passim) showed that Clements philosophy of vegetation was drawn variously from both the Idealistic and Mechanistic Traditions in Plant Geography. This can also be determined directly from Plant Succession (Clements, 1916a, ps. 8-32, 116-127). What is not contained in Clements' works and what Tobey concluded with considerable (and obvious) speculation was the actual source(s) of Clements' view of vegetation (later the biome) as "a complex or social organism".
The entire account by Tobey (1981) of the origin of vegetational organicism is interesting to point of intrigue. In summary, Tobey (1981) concluded that besides such obvious sources as Darwin's The Origin of Species and, as discussed previously, association from Alexander von Humboldt, formation from August Grisebach, and general Plant Geography from Oscar Drude, Clements drew his more philosophical and metaphorical strands of thought from prevalent current human sociological theory. Tobey (1981) concluded from such sources as the "climax and complex organism" papers of Phillips (1934, 1935) and from the fact that Clements' classmate Roscoe Pond, Nebraska plant ecologist turned distinguished jurist, studied Sociology that Clements was influenced by Sociology from which he took his "social organism" philosophy. Tobey (1981, ps. 84-87) mentioned noted sociologists who likely contributed to Clements' organiciasm. These theoretical sociologists included August Comte, Herbert Spencer, Lester Frank Ward, and Edward A. Ross along with the influence of the Renaissance Man-bureaucrat and Prophet of Range Management, Major John Wesley Powell.
Any one of the characters in this list constitutes an entire story by himself. For students of the history of faculty tenure and fans of academic freedom the case of E.A. Ross is particularily interesting. Ross was apparently both a Keynesian economist and a sociologist at Stanford University who was cirtical of the laissez-faire economic theory of free-market Lockean liberals. Mrs. Jane Stanford, widow of the railroad tycoon who founded Stanford and its benefactress and sole trustee of the namesake private university, ordered Stanford president and world-famous icthyologist David Starr Jordan to fire Ross or else. Jordan was different from the vast majority of today's administrators as he was a scientist and an academic and a principled man, but even he capitulated rationalizing the greater good of the institution over academic freedom. The tyrannical incident so affected Philosophy professor Arthur Oncken Lovejoy that 15 years later he became the most notable founder of the American Association of University Professors (Metzger, 1973, ps. 135-142).
Ross, both personal friend and disciple of Lester Ward, was driven from Stanford to the University of Nebraska where he discussed Sociology and Ecology with Clements and Pound. According to Vine (1959) Lester Ward is often regarded as the Father of American Sociology. Ward's first book was Dynamic Sociology (1883; republished in 1897). Tobey (1981, p. 84) wrote that "'Dynamic Sociology' bore suspicious resenblance to ‘dynamic ecology', the label Clements affixed to his own vegetative philosophy". Tobey (1981, p. 85) also noted that Dynamic Sociology made repeated references to "society as an organism". Herbert Spencer used the term "superorganism" for human society and entitled one of his book chapters "a society is an organism". It was clear to Tobey that Clements adopted his "social or complex organism" analogy or metaphor for climax (vegetation in general) from these sources.
These facts (as far as they go) from Tobey's in-depth research are undoubtedly true, at least the related events are too concidental to reject Tobey's chronology. To be sure, Clements himself in chapter two, section entitled The Biome as a Social Organism, of Bio-ecology (Clements and Shelford, 1939, ps. 23-24) cited numerous sociologists including Herbert Spencer and August Comte. Even more telling (and damning of Tobey's naive assertion that Ward's "'Dynamic Sociology' bore suspicious resemblance to 'dynamic ecology'" of Clements) is the obvious fact that Clements in Bio-Ecology did not cite any work whatsoever of Lester Frank Ward. Nor was Lester Ward included in the bibliography of Bio-Ecology.
Perhaps the most glaring error made by Tobey (1981) was his failure to include any discussion of Plant Sociology or Phytosociology, one speciality or subfield of general Plant Ecology, which originated in continental Europe as the counterpart of American "dynamic ecology" (plant succession, development of vegetation). Phytosociology was one of the three major schools or traditions concerning the study of vegetation. Plant sociology originated with (and eventually became the main body of ) the Zurich-Montpellier (Southern) Tradition of Vegetation Science. Phytosociology (= Plant Sociology) emerged as one of the main branches of "vegetational thought" out of France under direction of Jean Braun-Blanquet. The Braun-Blanquet version of (approach to) Vegetation Science was put forth in the famous and widely distributed textbook, Pflanzensoziologie, which was translated by G.D. Fuller and H.S. Conrad into the English version as Plant Sociology- The Study of Plant Communities. Plant Sociology was published and sold by McGraw-Hill in its Botanical Sciences series beginning in 1932. Publications in this series were listed in each of the texts therein, including the second edition of Plant Ecology (Weaver and Clements, 1938). The concept of "sociology" was obviously central or fundamental to the study of vegetation by each of the major schools or traditions. The Anglo-American Tradition emphasized development of plant communities (ie. "dynamic vegetation") more than did Braun-Blanquet's Zurich-Montpellier School, but application of Sociology, initially a human science on par with Political Economy or Anthropology, was neither original nor unique to Clementsian Ecology. In fact, emphasis on the dynamic nature of vegetation with a terminal plant community in "dynamic equilibrium" by American and British ecologists like Cowles, Clements, and Tansley may have been one reason why Clements described the plant community as an "organism" rather than a "society", this latter a term that he restricted to smaller spatial-temporal units of vegetation (Weaver and Clements, 1938, ps. 96-99) in contrast to formation and association.
It would be as logical--if not more so-- to assume that Clements took his "dynamic" perspective of vegetation from an idea central to all major traditions of vegetation study instead of from Lester Ward's Dynamic Sociology which, again Clements never cited in any of his works, at least not the major ones that formed the basis of Clementsian Ecology.
Hagen (1988, 263) concluded that the origin of Clements' organismic concept"is obscure", Hagen (1988, p. 263-264) then observed that Tobey gave "a plausible argument for an indirect influence" of the sociological thoughts of human socilogists including Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and Lester Frank Ward, but he then went on to remark that Cowles might also be cited "as a likely source". Likely, indeed!. H.C. Cowles was the source of Clements' "dynamic ecooogy" as Clements himself indicated. Clements could hardly have been more clear in this regard.
Tobey's conclusion as to immediate source of "dynamic ecology" and ultimate origin of the "social organicism" was simply incorrect. Assuming that Tobey's facts are correct, it is also true that Tobey omitted other, and even more obvious, facts that undermine some of his conclusions as to exact source of Clements philosophy of vegetation. To begin with and most obvious of all is Clements' own writing from Plant Succession. After noting that Cowles (1899) made "[t]he first comprehensive study of succession in America" Clements (1916a, ps. 27-28) recorded this quote:
"The ecologist, then, must study the order of succession of the plant societies in the development of a region, and he must endeavor to discover the laws which govern the panoramic changes. Ecology, therefore, is a study in dymanics" (Cowles, 1899, p. 95, the second paragraph of that epic study).
Similarily in the next paragraph Clements cited Cowles' work on the "physiographic ecology" around Chicago stating that it "stands out as a landmark in the developmental study of vegetation". Then two sentences later: "Cowles deserves great credit at the hands of ecologists for his early and consistent championing of the cause of development in vegetation" (Clements, 1916, p.28).
That the classic study of plant succession on lake dunes by Cowels (1899) was the cornerstone of Clements' "dynamic ecology" was understoon and described in detail by Hagen (in Rainger et al., 1988, ps. 257-280). In subsequent, lengthier work Hagen (1992) presented an in-depth treatment of Cowles' work on plant succession. Hagen (1992, ps. 15-28) detailed origins of Clements' theoretical views of "dynamic ecology" from earlier studies of vegetation development (especially that on lakeshore sand dunes as described by Cowles [1899] ) after first showing the source of Clements' philosophical perspective of organicism from Herbert Spencer's "social organism" (Hagen 1992, ps. 3-7, 22-24, 27-28). One of the more interesting connections traced by Hagen (1992, ps. 80, 85) was Sir Arthur Tansley, Clements' close British friend and ally (and originator of the ecosystem concept), was also a follower of Spencer's "social organism". So it was that the dual and somewhat contrasting concepts of Clements' biome and Tansley's ecosystem shared a Spencerian source. Hagen (in Rainger et al., 1988; 1992) did not mention Lester Ward or "dynamic sociology".
It was obvious from his extensive literature review in Plant Succession that Clements (1916a) was influenced by what was by then a myriad of vegetation studies and earliy botanical/ecological texts including those by Eugenius Warming and Oscar Drude (see citations in Clements, 1916a). In theirintroductory text, Botany, Langenheim and Thimann (1982, p. 240) stated that in writing of plant life in the Danube Basin in 1863 Kerner von Marilaun "gave a dynamic concept to the community". Langenheim and Thimann (1982, p. 240) quoted Marilaun: "In every zone the plants are gathered into definite groups which appear as developing or finished communities". In this one sentence written 53 years before Plant Succession (Clements, 1916a) the most casual or readers can see the concepts of zonation, climax (= " finished") community and, perhaps most importantly, development of vegetation. Clements (1916a) did not cite Marilaun which was unusual given Clements' exhaustive review of succession (Clements, 1916a, ps. 8-32). Clements (1916a, p. 16-17) did review the work of Reissek published in 1856 that dealt with "the fomation and succession of islands in the Danube" and "the development of vegetation". Likewise Clements (1916a, p. 22) credited R. Hult whose works were published from 1885 to 1887 as "being the first to fully recognize the fundamental importance of development in vegetation" while P. Graebner in 1895 "was the first to make a comprehensive study of the development of a great climax or subclimax community (Clements, 1916a, p. 25).
From Clements' own words it is undeniable that studies of vegetation such as those of Reissk, Hult, Humboldt, Grisebach, and Cowles, especially Cowles, which documented the dynamics and development of plant communities were the source of Clements' concept of "vegetation dynamics", "dynamic ecology", etc. and not a title of some Human Sociology book that Clements may have read that "bore suspicious resemblance" to words Clements used from ecological studies like his own! It is illogical to look under Clements' bed for a book with a similar title that friends discussed when the author in an ecological monograph consistently cited the exact technical terms from other ecological studies while leaving no record— no reference, no citation— of the Sociology book that he could have read or heard about.
Conclusion: Clements took his concept of dynamic vegetation, dynamic ecology, and development of vegetation from the literature of plant succession which he cited. Clements did not develop his views of vegetation from some metaphysical philosophy or corollary from the social sciences. It was studies of Plant Ecology and not Sociology that gave rise to Clements' concept of dynamic plant communities developing over time. It was not the latest human sociological theory that Clements took out of his friends' closets and metaphorically applied to plant life, but rather an unbroken sequence of studies and textbooks stretching back from the most recent to the first recorded work on establishment and changes in vegetation. Most specifically (and probably more than any source) it was the studies of plant succession on sand dunes by Henry Chandler Cowles (1899) that was the source of Clements' concept of "dynamic plant ecology".
Tobey (1981) presented a masterful account of the contributions to Clements' "dynamic ecology" by the various plant geographers and ecologists that preceded Clementsian succession-climax doctrine. Tobey's well-written, carefully documented chronology is unquestionably correct because it can be completely verified in Clements' own literature reviews with which he began his monumental ecological monographs, especially Plant Succession. Likewise, McIntosh (1985) recorded identical connections in his history of Ecology while Shimwell (1971) traced the same general lineage in the Anglo-American Tradition as discussed above.
Like his jurist colleague Roscoe Pound, Clements was a great believer in precedence. Clements always recorded with considerable discussion all the previous relevant literature and built his theories upon that earlier work. He departed from much of this and he was a brillant thinker, but his ideas and concepts were not radical. Clements modified traditional, existing ideas to form his own conecptual views and he documented the chronological sequence in development of these concepts. (How else for the study of succession?)
The exact origin of the concept of the plant community as "a social organism", or vegetation as "a complex organism", is an exception to this. Analogy was a common tool among philosophers, and ecologists like Clements, Tansley, and Phillips were philosophers. Perhaps Clements felt no need to explain an instructive analogy. The analogy itself was not, afterall, the actual science that Clements detailed in his reviews of ecological literature. Nor was it a literal concept that a group of plants actually was an individual organism or a complex, super-sized plant. It was simply a metaphor or philosophical usage to help "get across" the then novel idea that plant communities undergo changes over time until a relatively stable final community is reached. The embryonic development of organisms from conception to maturity followed by death was applied by way of anology to the development of vegetation. "Social organism" was a pedagogic invention to help explain the newly discovered phenomenon of plant succession. As will be seen, the pedagogic device was neither new nor, as Tobey (1981) concluded, sociological in origin.
Clements' "borrowing" or "appropriating" the conceptual description of "social organism" from sociological theory and applying it to Community Ecology as Tobey (1981) proposed makes sense. Unlike Tobey's allegation that Clements adopted "dynamic vegetation" from Dynamic Sociology, adoption of "social organism" from Sociology is not irrational. There is no direct evidence to the contrary of the "social organism" conclusion by Tobey (1981) as there most certainly is for "dynamic ecology". Clements apparently did not document his source for "social organism" or "superorganism". Phillips did make reference to some of this work and, as a politician and political writer, Smuts could conceivable have been influenced by a concept or metaphor of long-standing theory.
It is likely, however, that political and not sociological theory originated the concept of social organism. It can be demonstrated factually that political thought originally contributed the perspective of human society as an organism and that sociologists adopted this device from political thinkers. Hacker (1961, ps. 37, 61, 78-79, 81, 153, 205, 224, 262, 355, 357, 367-368, 403, 439, 467, 481, 507) interpreted the writings of such political philosophers and theorists as Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Burke, and Hegel using the following terms: "organism", "political and social organism", organic entity", organic body", "organic community", and "organic theory". For example, Hacker (1961, p. 37) translated Plato from The Republic (p.111) as saying that "the community grows into a well-ordered whole".
Not all political thinkers shared this organismic view of society. Hacker (1961, p. 205) indicated that to Thomas Hobbes "society is an association, not an organism; the whole is the sum of the parts and no greater". Beginning with classic liberal (libertarian) political and economic thinkers like John Locke (and even with Hobbes) the theory of individualism began to replace, to a degree, the earlier "political organism". By contrast the classic conservative political thinkers-- Edmund Burke, the Father of Political Conservatism, foremost among them-- saw society as a modified (from the earlier Aristotelian model) organic community, a conventional political/social organism, as the alternative to the liberal doctrine of individualism.
When discussing the political thought and view of American politics of Alexis de Tocqueville (Hacker, 1961, ps. 467, 481) noted that the distinction between individual political beings joining voluntarily into associations for mutual benefit ("atomistic groups") versus human community as a social organism with its members in integral relations to each other and having a shared common purpose is the "key difference between the liberal and the conservative approaches to politics and society (Hacker, 1961, 507).
It should be underscored that organic theory (ie. organicism) is political conservatism and not liberalism in origin even though, as discussed below, it was in a strange twist of political irony adopted by welfare liberals through the writings of several prominent sociologists. The origin and political role of Clementsian organicism must follow the tracing of this theory (again, it was originally political theory or philosophy) through sociological theory given that Tobey (1981) hung so many of his erroneous conclusions about Clementsian Ecology on the work of prominent sociologists who were contemporaries of Clements.
Sociologists typically trace the "organicist analogy" or "organicist theory" to Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who "conceived of society by analogy with a biological organism" and this in turn was then continued and elaborated on by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) (Coser, 1971, ps. 10, 90-91, 96, 98-99; Timasheff, 1967, ps. 37-39; Zeitlin, 1968, ps. 76, 77, 83, 244-245). Comte was influenced especially by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, and Spencer by Darwin's The Origin of Species as well as by Thomas Huxley and Thomas Malthus. Yet interestingly, Spencer had a "favorite theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics" (Coser, 1971, p. 119). Thus while the basis of Spencerian Sociology was "evolutionary doctrine" (Timasheff, 1967, p. 37 and generally, ps. 33, 34-36, 72) it was more Larmarckian than Darwinian in theory.
It was through Auguste Comte in the Nineteenth Century (and by direct descendent, Eighteenth Century philosophical conservatism stemming from Edmund Burke) that the sociological concept of community emerged as the central thread of Sociology. Nisbet (1966) discussed this in detail. "The most fundamental and far-reaching of sociology's unit-ideas is community" (Nisbet, 1966, p. 47) and "[n]owhere was the vision of community more blinding at the beginning of the century than in the mind and works of Auguste Comte, who gave sociology its name, and who, more than any other single person in the century, gave sociology its footing in the world of philosophy and scholarship" (Nisbet, 1966, p. 56).
Nisbet (1966, p. 9) observed that the sociologists of the Nineteenth Century (Comte through the more recent sociological founders) "were caught up in the three great ideologies of ... liberalism, radicalism, and conservatism". While conservatism has been "the least dealt with" from standpoint of its contribution to Sociology "there is an unusually close relation between the principal tenets of philosophical conservatism and the unit-ideas of sociology", the foremost of which is community (Nisbet, 1966, p. 11). It was in conservatism, especially the conservatism of Burke to whom the community was central (Nisbet, 1966, p. 51), that sociologists found the foundation of the concept of community. "Comte's sociological interest in community was born of the same circumstances that produced conservatism: the breakdown or disorganization of traditional forms of association." While Comte differed from conservatives on some aspects of contemporary society (eg. he advocated the application of science) (Nisbet, 1966, p. 57), he venerated conservatives and their ideals of the structure of medieval society (Nisbet, 1966, p. 15). The "base of Comte's sociology" was "his total rejection of individualism...". Society could not be broken down into individuals but only into "social groups and communities" (Nisbet, 1966, p. 59). By contrast "[t]he hallmark of liberalism is devotion to the individual ..." (Nisbet, 1966, p. 10).
Careful readers will catch immediately key words from political and sociological theory that were adopted and remain in the vocabulary of Ecology: community, association, individual and individualistic, and, of course, those terms and adjectives that relate to the community as an organism.
Sociologists traditionally have distinguished between individualism and organicism (Coster, 1971, ps. 98-99). In this dichotomy Comte was the organicist sociologist and Spencer, the individualist sociologist. Spencer built on the work of Comte but departed from it when he adopted to the extreme the laissez faire or noninterventionist philosophy toward society as interpreted from such souces as Smith's Wealth of Nations and the then-common Social Darwinism drawn from "survival of the fittest" and the population theory of Malthus (Vine, 1959, p. 47; Coser, 1971, ps. 99-101, 108-111). The genius of Spencer was to merge major tenets of both organicism and individualism "…a way of reconciling his thoroughgoing individualism with his organicist approach" (Coser, 1971, p. 98).
Lester Frank Ward wrote Dynamic Sociology to take his discipline beyond the views of Herbert Spencer, especially Spencer's laissez faire stance (Vine, 1959, ps. 67, 87, 90). As stressed by Tobey (1981, ps. 7, 86), and apparently textbook knowledge (Vine, 1959, p. 88-90), Ward strongly advocated governmental involvement, especially sicentific regulation, to encourage the evolution of society. Yet Ward also adopted the organicist analogy of human society and is regarded as being in the evolutionary tradition of Comte and Spencer (Vine, 1959, ps. 67, 71, 72, 78, 87; Timasheff, 1967, ps. 30, 31, 76, 322; Coser, 1971, p. 322). Also like Spencer (and Clements), Ward was a neolarmarckian in his view of evolution (Tobey, 1981, ps. 84-86).
The distinction between individualist and organicist philosophies or perspectives of society is an important juncture at which Sociology, Political Science, and Economics converge. Political theory may be interpreted as the oldest of these fields, tracing back to such Greek philosophers as Socrates and Aristotle. Until the Seventeenth Century political thinkers tended to lay stress upon the whole of society (the state, the republic, etc.). Beginning with Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and then, more than any other ploitical philosopher, with John Locke (1632-1704) the emphasis shifted to the individual and political liberalism was born (Hacker, 1961, ps. 201, 236). Hacker (1961, p. 237-244) detailed the numerous varieties of liberalism and all of these are characterized by their emphasis on the individual human being. "The hallmark of liberalism is devotion to the individual …" (Nisbet, 1966, p. 10). Classic or Lockean liberalism with its emphasis on "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property" became, more or less, libertarianism and when affilitated with Adam Smith and Wealth of Nations (ie. economic individualism), Lockean liberalism became free-market or economic liberalism. This political/economic liberalism is the liberalism of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution and of mainline liberal Protestantism (eg. the Religious Lockeanism of John Wesley).
In contrast to classic Lockean liberalism with its emphasis on individual liberty was a body of political theory with proportionatley more emphasis on an ordered society— a state ordained by God— based on tradition, gradual reform, reliance more on the collective and cumulative wisdom of the generations than on reasoning by the sovereign individual, and the supremacy of virtue over liberty. This latter political philosophy eventually became labeled as conservatism with the founder, the Father of Conservatism (the counterpart of Locke), being Edmund Burke (1729- 1797). Hence, Burkean political conservatism or historical conservatism which is not to be confused with the status quo or organizational conservatisms of governmental and corporate bureaucracies (Hacker, 1961, ps. 344-349).
These two general political philosophies (political theories) were not completely separate but actually shared common ground on such critical points as free markets and free trade. Some sociological authorities like Nisbet (1966, ps. 11-14, 26-28, 33, 44, 112, 177, 230) emphasized Burke's support of medievel institutions and values against the economic upheavel of the Industrial Revolution (eg. especially land speculators). This could cause casual readers to conclude that Burke was in opposition to the new economic thought of Adam Smith. This was not the case. Burke not only concurred with the economic theories of Adam Smith but he had apparently reached them independently, though, in less detail. Kirk (1953, p. 19) cited sources which stated that Adam Smith told Burke "that he was the only man, who, without communication, thought on these topics exactly as he did". In fact, it is in Smith's famous passage of the "invisible hand", a reference to the economic activities of individuals producing a greater collective good, that we find the Burkean counterpart of all human activities, the organismic conception of human society.
In his text on development of sciological theory Zeitlin (1968, ps. 38, 39) credited Burke with "advancing his organic conception of society", of arguing that "the state is a higher organic unity", that states and nations "are organisms and hence the product of a long process of growth". Accordingly: "Burke had advanced a historical, developmental, organic view of society" (Zeitlin, 1968, p. 39). Burke saw social and political systems as parts of the larger ordered universe (Hacker, 1961, p. 356) in which human society was a complex arrangement and "more than an aggregation of units" (Hacker, 1961, p. 450) such that society was a social structure with many layers linked to each other by "mutual obligations" (Hacker, 1961, p. 531). This linkage was over time as well as space such that there were "immemorial bonds that join generation to generation" (Kirk, 1953, p. 58) or what Burke described as "the great chain of eternal order". Obviously the same conceptual view was proposed by Frederic E. Clements in his philosophy of the "development of vegetation", seres over time and space.
In reviewing the political theory of Burke, Kirk (1953, p. 18), a political sicentist and one of the leading authorities on Burke in the post-World War II era, placed less emphssis on Burke's organicism than did sociologists. Kirk noted that some authors wrote that Burke considered society an organism but that "Burke was careful not to bind himself by that rash analogy" instead speaking of society as a spiritual unity or corporation "always perishing and yet, always renewing…". Still that is close to the same thing, at least in the spirit of analogy, and the fact that numerous political scientists (eg. Hacker, 1961) interpreted Burke as an organicist is itself noteworthy. Kirk (1953, p. 151-152) showed that the famous American conservative John C. Calhoun did use the analogy of the state as an organism.
The importance of the philosophical, the political, conservatism of Burke to sociologists was, as demonstrated by Zeitlin (1968, ps. 35-79 passim), that the "chain" (to employ a Burkean metaphor) of organicism was passed to Comte from Burke via later conservatives like Louis de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre, and Henri Comte de Saint-Simon. This is what Zeitlin termed the Romantic-Conservative Reaction to the Enlightement. This "chain" is important because it proves that the source of Herbert Spencer's organicism, which he took from the sociological views of Comte, is directly traceable to Edmund Burke. The organismic concept of society, in whatever terms, may not have been original with Burke but he did contribute it to Comte (thus Spencer and Sociology). The connections are clear, conclusive and unequivocal. And Comte could not have come up with the concept simultaneously with Burke because Comte was born one year after Burke died.
Likewise, in sequence, when Lester Ward and Edward Ross took up the analogy of society as superorganism from Spencer and when Clements picked it up from Ward (Tobey, 1981, ps. 7, 83-86), it was actually political and not sociological theory that Clements incorporated into his social organism analogy. It was proven above that Clements took "dynamic ecology" from H.C. Cowles and his studies of plant succession on lake dunes and not from Ward's text, Dynamic Sociology, as Tobey speculatively, inconclusively, and incorrectly alleged. Likewise but to a lesser degree, the contributions of sociologists like Spencer, Ward, and Ross certainly seem to have been considerably less than that described or implied by Tobey (1981). Tobey (1981) did not record the source of Spencer's organicism. Sociologists have and it was Edmund Burke and conservative political theory.
So what? What if Clements' organicism ultimately originated with Burkean political/historical conservatism and not Spencerian sociology? Does it matter? Yes, it does matter in the interest of historical truth. It matters as much as if Clements' organicism originated directly from Spencer. Furthermore it matters because at the time that Clements, Phillips, and Tansley were at their zenith Burke was not a dead "academic ancestor" or forgotten fountainhead. Burke was a major source of political theory in the the practical politics of the Progressive Era in which Clements became actively involved as an "ecological advisor" so to speak. Politics was important in the latter years of the Clements-Tansley-Weaver School (Tobey, 1981, ps. 7, 180-190, 202-213; and quite obviously from the applications in Clements' Plant Indicators in which Clements even advocated a federal bill that served as a proto-type public range law that later emerged as the Taylor Grazing Act [p. 331-334]).
Burkean conservatism entered into practical politics in what might appear an unlikely corner: the political-scientist-and-professor-turned-President, Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was the last of three Progressive Presidents following Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and one of only two Democrats to occupy the White House between the Civil War and the New Deal. A.S. Link is probably the leading authority on Wilson and he stated that Wilson derived his political conservatism from Burke and that Wilson's "political philosophy was a compound primarily of the ideas of Edmund Burke and Walter Bagehot, with a slight touch of Herbert Spencer added for good measure" (Link, 1947, p. 25). Wilson did not master the works of Spencer, but he was "influenced profoundly" by Social Darwinism and accepted the "conception of the state as a living thing, subject generally to the same laws of evolution as animal organisms…" (Link, 1947, p. 33). Dodd (1920, p. 30) wrote that Wilson was "plainly a disciple of Edmund Burke". Daniels (1924, p. 48) noted that Bagehot and Burke were Wilson's favorite authors.
The other two Progressive Presidents apparently were not influenced by the legacy of Burke. Gifford Pinchot, often regarded as chief advisor to Theodore Roosevelt, clearly had strains of political theorist Jeremy Benthan in his "greatest good to the greatest number" concept in regard to use of natural resources. There was no unifying thread of any single political thinker within the Progressive Movement and no consistent view of the individual versus society as a whole (individualism, organicism or any other "ism").
There are these connecting facts that could have practical bearing on certain aspects of Clements' organicism: 1) Clements' career stretched through both the First and Second Waves of Conservation (both the Square Deal of TR and the New Deal of FDR), 2) Clements did become involved in the latter administration through agencies like the infant Soil Conservation Service (Tobey, 1981, pages cited above) and Clements did not oppose government action to advance society, 3) Clements was influenced some by Spencerian Sociology and thus by Burkean political thought, 4) the man who was President when Clements was writing his major ecological works was also influenced by Spencer and, predominately, by the politics of Burke, and 5) this Burkean conservatism was consistent with gradual reform by governmental involvement (ie. with Progressive reform legislation).
In regard to point 5, it should be noted that it was free market, economic liberalism of the original Lockean variety and not political conservatism that allowed the development of economic "rugged individualism" to the point of Robber Barons and which enabled, in addition to great economic development, the coincident development of monopolies and the exploitation of natural resources. "Trust-busting", conservation of natural resources, pure food and drug policies, etc. were reactions to economic individualism and industrialization (political liberalism) run wild and these actions were completely consistent with Burke's response to the earlier stages of the Industrial (and capitalistic) Revolution (Nisbet, 1966, ps. 7-15 passim). In the three Progressive administrations this reform was a politically conservative response and not that of the newly emerged welfare liberalism of the New Deal that took over in the Second Wave of Conservation. For example, passage of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act by the Wilson Administration in 1914 was the culmination of Burkean political conservatism against the excesses of Lockean political liberalism (economic individualism) and not the action of political liberalism against the so-called "conservatism" of Big Business as is often commonly— and incorrectly— portrayed by contemporary political commentators. The most politically conservative President in the Twentieth Century was Woodrow Wilson (at least until strains of war destroyed him) and not Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, or Ronald Reagan.
This undeniable fact, based on strict definition of political/philosophical conservatism and political/economic liberalism, is important in understanding Clementsian organicism. Tobey (1981, p. 182) discussed "Clements' liberalism" and "Tansley's conservatism" and concluded that Tansley perceived Phillip's organicism to be "in the political service of socialism" (leading Tansley to reject holism as "socially unacceptable") (Tobey, 1981, p. 190). But the fact is that Clements could have justified Burkean conservatism as the basis for both his organicism and his support of governmental response to the excesses of economic liberalism (= "rugged individualism"; Spencer's laissez faire) as readily as to New Deal welfare liberalism. In point of fact, Tobey (1981, p. 208) made exactly this point when he wrote: "Clements perceived traditional American individualism as an obstacle to his program [with federal agencies like the Soil Conservation Service]". And that obstacle, individualism, is precisely the Spencerian sociological application of laissez faire (again, economic individualism) that was rejected by Lester Ward— but long before that, opposed by the political conservative Burke in his revolt against individualism (Nisbet, 1966). On page 209 Tobey (1981) referred to "conservative individualism", but that was the wrong adjective. In fact, at that point in history those words were mostly mutually exclusive in precise political and economic meanings. Individualism, going back to Locke, is liberalism; organicism— or whatever the appropriate term for the counter-individualism philosophy would be— is (was) conservatism. Once again, it was organicism that was conservatism in both political and sociological traditions. (How Clements may have voted in any given election that pitted Franklin Roosevelt and "Me-Too Republicans" is irrelevant to this distinction.)
The metaphor or analogy of groups of living things (biological communities) constituting an "organism" or "quasi-organism" may well trace back to antiquity, perhaps even to prehistoric man as manifested in sun-worship and more obviously in mythology like that of ancient Greece where there were gods and goddesses of the Earth, mountains, thunder, etc. A current scientific application of this ancient mysticism is the Gaia Hypothesis (Gaia was the Greek goddess of Earth) proposed by Lovelock (1979) which views Earth as a single living superorganism capable of self-maintenance. This self-regulation is adjustment by organisms interacting with themselves and the abiotic factors of their environment to achieve homeostasis of the whole. This hypothesis, which is now commonplace enough to appear in some college Biology texts, takes the perspective of a "living Earth" a step beyond the concept of biosphere. As quoted in the Biome section above, leading contemporary plant ecologists remarked that recent models of evolutionary change in plant communities take ecological theory "back full circle" to Clementsian views of "superorganism-ideas" (Barbour et al., 1999, p. 208).
While asking the American Geophysical Union to remain open-minded toward the Gaia Hypothesis Lovelock pointed out that none other than James Hutton, the Father of Geology, in 1785 told the Royal Society of Edinburgh "that the earth was a superorganism and that its proper study should be physiology" (Lawrence 1990, p. 83, also ps. 1-3, 10, 30, 31, 53, 61-63, 82, 83, 85, 166, 208, 209, 212, 246, 248, 250, 251). The fact that the superorganism analogy, concept, or whatever it is goes back to the earliest days of Geology takes on a special significance when it is recalled that Clements took for his overall blueprint of "dynamic plant ecology" the Geographical Cycle Theory of Professor William Morris Davis (1899a, 1899b). The Geogrphical Cycle Theory offered an explanation for development of landforms using the analogy of human development and the stages of youth, maturity, and old age (Glen-Lewin et al., 1992, ps. 1-2; Golly, 1977, ps. 6-11, 180-182). Davis (Harvard University) was the major professor for Curtis Fletcher Marbut, the founding force behind the 1938 zonal-intrazonal-azonal soil classification system (Boul et al., 1997, ps. 12-13, 29-31) and the view of mature and immature soils. This explains the popular view of plant succession and soil development as parallel tracks terminating at climax vegetation and mature soil finally to be replaced by another climax and mature soil over course of geologic time.
"In
taking the geographical (= geologic) cycle of Davis as the framework
for his general model of plant succession Clements automatically
took climate (the net result or accumulation of all atmospheric
phenomena) as the determining factor (again, the net complex of
atmospheric conditions, including fire) in development of vegetation.
This is so because Davis (1899, chapter XI, Climatic Control of
Land Forms) interpreted land forms (eg. plains, plateaus, mountains,
valleys) primarily as the direct and indirect products of climate.
Yes, Davis did consider and understand fundamental geologic (land-forming)
processes besides climate (eg. volcanoes, Davis, 1899, chapter VIII),
but he viewed land forms, and consequently plants and animals (including
man), as due mostly to climate. To Davis it was atmosphere and oceans
that determined the basic geography (eg. distribution) of plant
and animal species and communities.
It was this climatic or zonal view of Davis that was the basis or source of the difference between Clements' climax (known also as climatic climax, a redundant term, regional climax or, sometimes, zonal climax) and the climaxes of Tansley that could be edaphic, topographic, etc. climaxes (what became known as monoclimax versus polyclimax theories, respectively). An expanded discussion of these (and the Whittaker climax pattern theory) was presented in the Theories of Climax portion of the Range Site section above.
Historical Note: Johnson (1909) collected in one volume most of the major essays of Davis. These essays were made more readily available in an unabridged edition by Dover Publications (1954). The small circle of prominent men of science (both Academia and government agencies) who formulated the seminal concepts that still serve as the basis of natural resource professions like Range Management can be seen in the fact that Davis took as one of his major principles of Physical Geography the concept of base leveling which he correctly credited to the Patron Saint of Range Management, Major John Wesley Powell (Davis in the published series of essays by Johnson, 1909, ps. 81, 84, 332, 350-351, 381-385, 404-406). And get this, students of Ecology (including Tobey in his missing of the origin of Clements' "dynamic ecology" and "dynamic vegetation"). Davis (Johnson 1909 series, p. 385) quoted this statement: "Denudation of the uplands and deposition in the lowlands result in an ultimate planation known as the base-level". The author? Henry Chandler Cowles in his "Physiographic Ecology of Chicago and Vicinity" (1901)! Not only did Clements get his key words of "dynamic" and "development of vegetation" from Cowles (Clements, 1916, p. 28, 31; Cowles, 1899, p. 95) but here is the basis of the peneplain that would, over time, be formed by processes of land wasting and support Clements' theoretical climax (ie. the peneplain necessary for the theoretical monoclimax). It was a small cadre of founders, but what giants they were.
The fact that the organismic perspective was long-established in Geology was not mentioned in any of the scattered, partial historical sketches of Clements nor in the attempted complete history of the Clementsian School by Tobey (1981). McIntosh (1985, p. 99) pointed out that H.C. Cowles was a "geologist-turned-ecologist". Given that Clements applied to his fundamental concept of plant succession, learned largely from Cowles, the overall pattern of the Geographical Cycle, a major prevailing theory of Geology, it seems likely that Clements took part of his organismic view from prevalent concepts of geologists as well as from the German Idealism of plant geographers as shown by Tobey (1981) and detailed in Plant Succession (Clements, 1916a).
This point apparently has been overlooked by historians of Clementsian Ecology. Such oversight is understandable given that in Plant Succession Clements (1916a) reviewed development of the concept of succession complete with details of work by Drude, Humboldt, Grisebach, Cowles, etc. while making no reference to theories of Hutton or Davis. Clements made no reference to the Geographical Cycle Theory yet it is known that this concept formed the basis (or much of it) for his general model of succession (Glenn-Lewin, 1992, ps. 1-2). The omission of Hutton and his use of "superorganism" thus proves nothing. It is as plausible that Clements took his organicism, the "social organism" or "superorganism", from Hutton and Geology as from Spencer and Ward of Human Sociology. Geology was not considered by Tobey (1981) as one of several likely sources of Clements' organicism but the Earth Sciences are as plausible as Sociology and, in fact, more so given the known influence of the Davis Geographical Cycle Theory. Obscurity of the exact origin of Clements' organismic analogy is one of the interesting riddles of Clementsian ecological interpretations.
As late as the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries the mental devices of "social organism", "evolution", and "development" (as in a plant; a tree was a common metaphor) were commonly and variously applied. They seem to have been used both specifically and generically, even philosophically, much like the contemporary usages of cybernetic, information systems, or synergy. Golly (1977, p. 8) concluded:
"Davis's analogy between the orderly develoment in the ideal cycle and the development in the life history of an organism illustrates the biocentric attitude of the period".
More recently, organicism in the form of "development": and "climax" (formation, climax, and eventually biome became synonyms for the complex organism) was applied by leading systems ecologists, notably R. Margalef (1963, 1968) and E.P. Odum (1969, 1971), to explain universal features of ecosystem structure and function. Glenn-Lewin et al. (1992, p. 4) referred to this as "the Margalef-Odum synthesis of succcession theory". It was an effort to ascribe "global generalities" to succession and, by extension, to what Odum (1969) called "the strategy of ecosysem development". Glenn-Lewin et al. (1992, p. 4) described these "unifying theories of succession" as being "philosophically similar to Clements' theory". To be sure. Odum (1969) was perhaps the pinnacle of what in various contexts has been described as "the pure milk of Clementsianism". Odum (1969) used "development" in the title of this paper in the prestiguous journal, Science. He made comparisons of such ecosystem attributes as gross production, food chains, species diversity, life cycles, growth form, stability, and information at developmental versus mature stages (Odum, 1969, Table 1) to apply the Clementsian paradigm to Ecosystem Ecology. Given the more or less common origin of biome and ecosystem by the Anglo-American Tradition, Odum's application of Clementsian concepts to the Tanslian ecosystem was theoretically consistent. And with emphasis on "pulse stability" and "homeostasis" the Odum model of ecosystem development was, and is, as current as Lovejoy's Gaia Hypothesis. It is a corollary to it. The Odum-Margalef synthesis was concurrent with the unification of biome and ecosystem by the International Biological Program discussed above.
Thus, not only could the origin of organicism probably be traced to antiquity (and certainly to the beginnings of formalized science), but organicism itself was the root of the most modern models of the ecosystem. As emphasized earlier, all this clearly indicated to this reviewer that Tobey (1981) oversimplified and overstated his case for the demise of the Clementsian paradigm. This model has certainly ceased to be the dominant model in Ecology, but concepts of the Clementsian paradigm are still relevant, especially to professions that are applications of Ecology.
The general situation is that no matter where, precisely, organicism (and the different but closely associated holism) arose to describe human society, its adoption by prominent American plant ecologists like Clements, Weaver, and Shelford was consistent with the best theory available for explaining interacting communities of organisms. It was the concept most capable of providing a framework that explained systems whose biological wholes exceeded the aggregate of their collective components. Organicism has been in constant and current use to fit the prevailing fields of Ecology ever since its emergence.
Another part of organicism that was basic to Clements' philosophy of vegetation (and thus critical to the predominant American school of Plant Ecology) was the ontogenetic or recapitulation analogy which, according to Tobey (1981, ps. 80, 81, 88, 99, 101, 103, 105, 107, 160, 166, 168) was taken from the Idealistic Tradition of Plant Geography. Tobey (1981, p.160) described Clements ontogenetic analogy of vegetation (of which climax was the mature social or complex organism) as "the romantic dictum that the embryological development of the individual recapitulates the developmental history of the race". In other words, vegetation as an organism progressses from birth to maturity (climax or formation) and then to death (as one sere and its climax is replaced by another sere and its climax over geologic time) analogously to the life cycle of a real organism. This according to Clements could be visualized as embronic development of vegetation (ie. Clements' application of the Davis Geographical Cycle to vegetation). The origin of Clements' developmental perspective was thus taken directly from Geology and indirectly from Embryology (eg. youth, maturity, and old age came from Embryology; formation was a term of Plant Geography taken from geologic formation of Geology).
This part of Clements vegetational philosophy was almost as controversial as his general organismic model. Three selections from Plant Succession provide a summary view of the recapitulation analogy:
"…The climax formation is the adult organism, the fully developed community, of which all initial and medial stages are but stages of development. Succession is the process of reproduction of a formation and this reproductive process can no more fail to terminate in the adult form in vegetation than it can in the case of the individual plant" (Clements, 1916a, ps. 3 and 124-125).
"Phylogeny and Ontogeny.- Each climax formation has its individual or ontogenetic development, as shown in its priseres and subseres, and sometimes recorded in stases. In addition, it shows a phylogenetic development from a preceding climax or community. In fact, the climaxes of the past are connected in phyletic series or line of descent in the same general fashion as the component genera and species" (Clements, 1916a, p. 344).
"Recapitulation.- If the phylogeny of the community comprises the same general process as that of the species, it should be recapitulated by the ontogeny as seen in the sere. In short, the stages or seral development which reproduce the climax should correspond to the successive climax floras or vegetation from the beginning of plant life on land down to the present". [Clements then recounted generally the various categories of plants as they seemed to make their appearance on Earth as best determined from the fossil record beginning with algae, lichens, mosses, liverworts, etc. and ending with the more advanced angiosperms.] (Clements, 1916a, p. 345).
In succession (especially primary successioin) the earliest or pioneer stages begin with algeae, lichens, mosses, etc. and then the sere is successively vegetated by communities of pteridophytes like ferns, horsetails, and club and spike mosses on up through the higher life-forms of vascular plants and ending with the more evolutionarily advanced species of the Angiospermae. Vegetation on a sere begins with the oldest, most primitive (first to evolve) species and life-forms just as plant life on Earth began with these plants. This is Clementsian recapitulation.
Recapitulation- "Biology, a theory stating that, as an organism develops, it passes through a sequence of embryonic or juvenile stages that resemble the evolutionary forms of its successive ancestors; this is now regarded as a gross simplification" (Morris, 1992).
This is the developmental part of Clements' organismic analogy. Not only is the general Recapitulation Theory of Biology now seen as an oversimplified interpretation of embryonic development of a biological organism, but it is inconceivable that it be extended, almost metaphysical-like, to entire plant communities. That Clements did so (or at least appeared to do so) is a source of enduring controversy.
In spite of this, Clements' elegant— if oversimplified— model does offer an explanation as to the general pattern of plant life on a patch of bare earth. Its general sequence of seral stages and climax vegetation (the "mature' plant community) served (still serves) as the theoretical basis for such units as plant associations, habitat types, and range sites and for such applications as range condition/trend analysis (charting retrogression or downward/ backward [retrogressive] movement of vegetation through a sere).
A recent important political development in natural resource policy, especially Forestry policy, is the shift toward management for climax vegetation. This is probably most obvious in efforts to preserve, for various reasons, old-growth forests. The romantic motives for preservation (vs. "wise use" conservation) traceable back to John Muir as well as such practical goals as court-ordered management to save endangered species place even more emphasis back on climax or potential natural vegetation. In fact, so-called "ecosystem management" on a regional basis (as for example, old-growth and late seral stage forests in the Pacific Northwest) shifts management goals from the scale of site or even working circle to that of vegetation cover type or permanent forest type if not to the Clementsian biome. Management at such scales by agencies like the U.S. Forest Service goes hand-in-glove with concepts of Ecosystem Geography, which as noted several times, goes back to the scale of regional (= climatic) climax and the biome.
A final point of clarification arises from the recent emphasis on climax (or near-climax; "mature" is the term to cover "a multitude of sins") vegetation. Climax is typically (though not always) the stage most stable and most productive of forage and livestock or big game commodities in natural grasslands and thus often serves as the "benchmark' from which range condition/trend is determined. This is not as consistent in other biomes like desert and certainly not the case at all for transitory forest range or shrublands like shinnery oak or California chaparral. One of the most important exceptions to the general situation where climax vegetation is superior for economic rerturns (or even biomass production) is Pacific coniferous forests where Douglas fir is either a late seral (sub-climax) stage or but one component-species of climax forest vegetation. The greater value for Douglas fir compared to climax (or other climax) tree species for wood products is such that these forests have been managed mostly as single-species stands of Douglas fir.
Such management is becoming less feasible politically and legally on public lands, but it is important to emphasize that this kind of vegetation manipulation is not at variance with Clementsian theory or applications derived from it. This is an important point to stress because the concept of climax vegetation as the mature "superorganism"— the inevitable adult form of plant community or the termination of vegetation development— that is so central to the Clementsian paradigm suggests that "proper management" should be for climax. Not so. Never was so. Quite the contrary: it is Clementsian orthodoxy that vegetation managers like rangemen, foresters, and wildlifers can properly manipulate communities to maintain them in seral stages that are most useful for production of commodities or services that best meet human needs. Weaver and Clements (1938, ps. 41-42) were clear on this matter and used the specific example of converting bluebunch wheatgrass range in the Wasatch Mountains into range dominated by needlegrass, yellowbrush (Chrysothamnus sp.), and a "variety of palatable weeds" that is superior for sheep and goats. Range "can be held by judicious management in the most desirable stage of its development". That this was common knowledge years ago is also verified in the last textbook of Sampson (1952, p. 72):
"The climax cover is not always the most useful to man and his animals, hence the lands may be purposefully managed so as to favor a moderate disclimax which, however, should never be permitted to decline too far down the successional scale".
This is also consistent with Tansley's ecosystem in which man is not only a top-order consumer but also the manipulator of ecosystems who can modify such ecological systems so as to provide the goods and services he deems desirable. When human management is such that it over-rides natural ecosystems the results are anthropogenic ecosystems (Tansley, 1935, p. 304). Yet it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine which human manipulations are "natural" and which are "destructive human activities". "Is man part of ‘nature' or not?" (Tansley, 1935, p. 303).
"The law and the prophets" of native vegetation management did not write, "Thou shalt manage for climax alone and always". The inclusion of "existing vegetation" (Shiflet, 1994, p. xi) or "existing tree cover" (Eyre, 1980, p. 1) in range cover types rather than limiting range types to climax or potential natural vegetation is a practice of long-standing precedent and comports with traditional concepts and uses in orthodox Plant Ecology. It is also true, however, as stressed by Daubenmire (1952, p. 320, 324-327) and discussed in the Range Type section herein that use of those range cover types which are of seral instead of climax vegetation eliminates the objectivity provided by types that are the potential plant community. The objective benchmark of climax is often required for both scientific study and practical ecosystem manipulation even when proper management for agricultural production is departure from climax.
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