History of ecological ideas
An interesting course that I took at the same time as the course about comparative forest histories was the course on the history of ecological thoughts and ideas. Within the scope for this course we had the oppurtunity to read many of the classics among ecology. Even though The Origin of Species was not a part of the selected course litterature we discussed Darwin and his importance for the research subject of ecology. We kind of concluded, without Darwin (or some one with the same type of thoughts) there would have been no ecology.
Amongst others we read Evelyn Hutchinsons Homage to Santa Rosalia where he discusses how come we have so many different species on earth. I found the tone of the paper rather amusing, much of the paper deals with his own thougts and maybe not nesseceraly scientific research, I believe it would be rather hard to get this type of paper published today. But his conclusions are still rather intersting, he finally comes to the conclusion that we will have more small species since these require less space than large ones. Since there are more of the small ones there are also more responces within a species to changes in the environment, finally resulting in more species. He also ponders upon why there aren't even more species than there are today, and one of the conclusions he makes is that the number of levels in a foodweb can not be more than that the top predator doesn't get to large. If the predators just grew larger and larger their needs for nutrients would rise as well and they would have to eat more than any system could suply them with.
This page is still under construction and will be completed as soon as I can.
Amongst others we read Evelyn Hutchinsons Homage to Santa Rosalia where he discusses how come we have so many different species on earth. I found the tone of the paper rather amusing, much of the paper deals with his own thougts and maybe not nesseceraly scientific research, I believe it would be rather hard to get this type of paper published today. But his conclusions are still rather intersting, he finally comes to the conclusion that we will have more small species since these require less space than large ones. Since there are more of the small ones there are also more responces within a species to changes in the environment, finally resulting in more species. He also ponders upon why there aren't even more species than there are today, and one of the conclusions he makes is that the number of levels in a foodweb can not be more than that the top predator doesn't get to large. If the predators just grew larger and larger their needs for nutrients would rise as well and they would have to eat more than any system could suply them with.
This page is still under construction and will be completed as soon as I can.