The “Cycle of Life” in Ecology: Sergei Vinogradskii’s Soil Microbiology, 1885–1940

Abstract

Historians of science have attributed the emergence of ecology as a discipline in the late nineteenth century to the synthesis of Humboldtian botanical geography and Darwinian evolution. In this essay, I begin to explore another, largely neglected but very important dimension of this history. Using Sergei Vinogradskii's career and scientific research trajectory as a point of entry, I illustrate the manner in which microbiologists, chemists, botanists, and plant physiologists inscribed the concept of a ''cycle of life'' into their investigations. Their research transformed a longstanding notion into the fundamental approaches and concepts that underlay the new ecological disciplines that emerged in the 1920s. Pasteur thus joins Humboldt as a foundational figure in ecological thinking, and the broader picture that emerges of the history of ecology explains some otherwise puzzling features of that discipline -such as its fusion of experimental and natural historical methodologies. Vinogradskii's personal ''cycle of life'' is also interesting as an example of the interplay between Russian and Western European scientific networks and intellectual traditions. Trained in Russia to investigate nature as a super-organism comprised of circulating energy, matter, and life; over the course of five decades -in contact with scientists and scientific discourses in France, Germany, and Switzerland -he developed a series of research methods that translated the concept of a ''cycle of life'' into an ecologically conceived soil science and microbiology in the 1920s and 1930s. These methods, bolstered by his authority as a founding father of microbiology, captured the attention of an international network of scientists. Vinogradskii's conceptualization of the ''cycle of life'' as chemosynthesis, autotrophy, and global nutrient cycles attracted the attention of ecosystem ecologists; and his methods appealed to practitioners at agricultural experiment stations and microbiological institutes in the United States, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union.

A self-assembling self-repairing microbial photoelectrochemical solar cell

“…By removing the BMFC from the marine environment and placing it in direct sunlight, as described here, it is our hypothesis that photosynthetic microorganisms present in the original seawater samples in relatively low abundance (harvested from shallow coastal environments) become enriched when the cell is sealed due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and depletion of oxygen in the overlying water. [26][27][28] They use sunlight to convert the electrode products to glucose and oxygen, which can be re-utilized in the electrode reactions. In this way they may eliminate the need for constant flux of new glucose and oxygen, enabling persistent power generation from sunlight only.…”

“…In this way they may eliminate the need for constant flux of new glucose and oxygen, enabling persistent power generation from sunlight only. These conclusions are based on the known concept of the interdependency of distinct microbial consortia that self-localize in environmental niches within ecosystems as first put forth by Winogradsky in the 1890s, [26][27][28] and exhibited by BMFCs. They are also based on the well studied processes of carbon and nutrient cycling across sediment-water interfaces that occur in marine environments.…”

Metagenomics approaches in microbial ecology and research for sustainable agriculture

“…Soil microbiologists, instead, considered the diversity of microbial components of soil as fundamental and as contributing to the richness of soil as substrate for plants. Therefore, the methods of soil microbiologists were developed in the context of or applied by agricultural sciences early on (Ackert 2007).…”

Microbial Diversity: The Gap between the Estimated and the Known

“…This occurred despite the celebrated works of Sergei Winogradski and Martinus Beijerinck (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), who drew attention to the role of microorganisms in important ecological processes [76,77] (Figure 2). Indeed, the human body houses a high diversity of microorganisms.…”