Ecology in Theory and Application

Fraser Darling (1967) wrote that “Ecology… was a bigger idea than the initiators grasped.” Darling and others, writing in the 1960’s, addressed the new demands placed upon ecologists as public awareness of an environmental crisis grew. The science of ecology had, until that time, been developed to satisfy purer, more abstract, objectives—a search for understanding and explanation. It was ill prepared to do more than provide anecdotes in support of the need to guard nature’s treasures and the “balance of nature.” Only in the last two decades have serious efforts been directed to developing the theoretical basis we need to manage natural systems from a sound ecological basis.