Ecology through time, an overview

This brief review is an attempt to condense the major events in the history of Ecology into short 10 sections. In little more than two generations, a new science has emerged and developed into a fundamental part of our lives, spurred on by increasing interest in "natural systems" and concerns over the environmental changes we are witnessing. Ecology, rather neglected until the early decades of last century, flourished and established itself as mature science during the mid-1900s, producing many theories, models, hypothesis and trends of thought. Ecology deals with interacting natural systems and eclectically applies tools drawn from several different sciences (Biology, Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry, Geology, Physics and so on). The beauty of the subject and its multidisciplinary approach makes Ecology extremely intriguing for researchers. One of the main goals of Ecology is to forecast population, community and ecosystem trends over time. Ecological systems are complex: they are composed of such a large number of different, interacting components that their overall behavior can only be understood in terms of emerging properties. Therefore, some interactions and effects are difficult to predict. However, some insights into population and community trends can be inferred from exhaustive data sets and sufficiently long-term, time-series data and dynamic models. Unfortunately, due to the limited funding of environmental data collection, only a few exhaustive, long-term samplings have been carried out, and systematic record keeping for the purposes of ecological research has only recently become widespread. However, it is still possible to garner some insights from historical reports (proxies), which clearly show how the population structures of most of today's communities have been affected by human activities. This short review is based on a talk given at Arcidosso (Grosseto, Italy) during the September, 2005 workshop: "Scientific research and society during the last fifty years", organized by the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Complex Systems of the University of Pisa (CISSC), in cooperation with the Domus Galilaeana. The talk was addressed to scientists in various fields with the threefold aim of presenting Ecology as a true science, stimulating curiosity and laying the bases for further insights. We hope that this review, as brief as it is, may at least partially attain such goals.