A German zoologist, Ernst Haeckel, coined and defined a new branch of biology, "Oekologie," in 1866 (Egerton 2013). In the later 1800s, four ecological sciences emerged: (terrestrial) plant ecology, (terrestrial) animal ecology, limnology, and marine biology. Plant ecology evolved out of phytogeography and physiology (Billings 1985:5-6), to which was added during the 1890s investigations of plant communities and vegetation succession. Physiology was important, but played a relatively passive role: its significance often depending on how well phytogeographers understood it. European botanists and publications led the way. Phytopathology during the 1800s is discussed in part 44 (Egerton 2012) and omitted here. States (1999:225-339). The history of aquatic plant ecology is part of limnology and marine ecology and will be discussed in parts 50 and 51. The ecology of lichens is deferred to part 52 on the history of symbiosis studies. After these exclusions, the remaining plant ecology, about 1870 to mid-1920s, is still vast in scope and detail, and surveys by Becking (1957), Whittaker (1962), Shimwell (1972), Tobey (1981, Nicolson (1989Nicolson ( , 1996, and Cittadino (1990) provide introductions to additional developments and literature. Pflanzengeographie (1836, English 1846, Arthur Henfrey's Vegetation of Europe, Its Conditions and Causes (1852, 1977), and Alphonse de Candolle's Géographie botanique raisonée (1855) (Reed 1942:128-129). German botanists led the way, with Russian botanists following a parallel, rather independent, course (Becking 1957:417-419 October 2013 341
ContributionsAn Austrian, Anton Kerner von Marilaün (1831-1898), studied medicine at the University of Vienna, but soon gave up his practice to become a botanist (Kronfeld 1908, Stafleu and Cowan 1976, II:525-530, Nicolson 1996, who was strongly influenced by Humboldt (Cittadino 1990:119). He became a professor at Budapest, then Innsbruck, and finally in Vienna. While in Hungary he had collected plants in botanically little-known eastern Hungary and Transylvania and published Das Pflanzenleben der Danaulaender (1863). Its American translator claimed that this book "is the immediate and direct parent of all later works on Plant Ecology" (Conard 1951:vii). Is this translator merely hyping a work he has translated or is there some validity to his claim? R. J. Goodland (1975:241) reserved that "parental honor" for Warming (1995). Dwight Billings (1985:5) and Malcolm Nicolson (1996:304-305) agreed with Conard. Clearly, Kerner's Plant Life of the Danube Basin is a good landmark with which to begin this history.Kerner complained that a copious literature on plant physiognomy had developed without a standard terminology to describe scientifically all native plant formations. For example (Kerner 1951(Kerner :5-6, 1977:
Whereas Humboldt considers the north German heather-covered coastal plains as steppes, and Koch applies that name to a formation composed of high sod-forming grasses, and Willkomm restricts the term to formations on saline soils ...
