A Centennial History of the Ecological Society of America

Part 57: Aspects of Limnology in America, 1930s to about 1990, Led by Hutchinson and Hasler

“…Growing up for Tommy Edmondson (1916–2000) was similar to Hutchinson's in one respect: he also grew up in the city where he would go to college, and he became acquainted with some of its zoologists before entering college; in his case, that was Yale University (Burgess :38, Egerton :49). His high school biology teacher took him to a Yale lecture, and afterwards he met Hutchinson and they discussed Edmondson's interest in rotifers (Slack :115–117).…”

“…Hutchinson's father was an outstanding mineralogist at the Cambridge University who taught Evelyn about the mineralogy, geology, and flora of Cambridgeshire, and his progressive mother wrote a book, Creative Sex (; Burgess :56–57, Slobodkin and Slack , Slack :17–22, Egerton :40–42). Evelyn became interested in aquatic animals by age of six, and he won a school prize, a book on insects by Jean Henri Fabre (Slack :22, 138).…”

“…Part 50 described the founding of limnology and its worldwide development, from 1870s to 1920s (Egerton ). E. A. Birge and Chancy Juday in Wisconsin and August Thienemann in Germany remained active after the 1920s (Juday and Hasler :472–480, Thienemann :78–489, Frey , Elster :13–19, Egerton , :37–39), but their stories are not continued here, though their influence is mentioned. I am unable to survey fully the history of all American limnology, 1930–1990, but here are aspects of it.…”

A History of Ecological Research Derived from Titles of Articles in the Journal “Ecology,” 1925–2015

“…Total count 1925Total count 1935Total count 1945Total count 1955Total count 1965Total count 1975Total count 1985Total count 1995Total count 2005Total count 2015 Study 125 18 24 18 17 13 3 5 15 7 5 Investigation 10 3 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 2 Observation 61 10 10 19 8 5 1 4 1 1 2 Method 73 13 14 16 14 5 3 1 5 1 1 Relation 241 46 31 28 34 31Conclusions Coverage in the journal Ecology changed markedly after World War II, beginning shortly after Eugene Odum's transformative text-Fundamentals of Ecology-was published in 1953 (Odum 1953). It was "the leading introductory ecology textbook in the world" at that time (Egerton 2015) and owed much to pioneering research in Minnesota by Raymond Lindemann, published in Ecology in 1942 (Lindeman 1942). As of 2015, term counts continue to increase in certain aspects of the subject, such as those dealing with structure, function, and level of complexity.…”

“…Environment. Total count 1925193519451955196519751985199520052015 Environment 120 17 12 5 11 8 12 13 6 13 23 Habitat 101 8 7 3 1 8 12 12 14 23 13 Niche 26 0 0 1 0 1 4 8 2 3 7 Soil, edaphic 199 44 25 15 17 24 9 8 18 15 24 Climate 67 11 3 2 5 2 4 1 4 16 19 Temperature 133 26 22 18 16 17 12 4 3 8 7 Rain 53 8 13 4 2 2 …”