Sharon E. Kingsland's Books

Modeling Nature

By: Sharon E. Kingsland

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The first history of population ecology traces two generations of science and scientists from the opening of the twentieth century through 1970. Kingsland chronicles the careers of key figures and the field's theoretical, empirical, and institutional development, with special attention to tensions between the descriptive studies of field biologists and later mathematical models. This second edition includes a new afterword that brings the book up to date, with special attention to the rise of "the new natural history" and debates about ecology's future as a large-scale scientific enterprise.

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Page Count

326

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226437280

ISBN 13

9780226437286

A Lab for All Seasons

The Laboratory Revolution in Modern Botany and the Rise of Physiological Plant Ecology

By: Sharon E. Kingsland

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A Lab for All Seasons

The Laboratory Revolution in Modern Botany and the Rise of Physiological Plant Ecology

By: Sharon E. Kingsland

The first book to chronicle how innovation in laboratory designs for botanical research energized the emergence of physiological plant ecology as a vibrant subdiscipline Laboratory innovation since the mid-twentieth century has powered advances in the study of plant adaptation, evolution, and ecosystem function. The phytotron, an integrated complex of controlled-environment greenhouse and laboratory spaces, was invented by Frits W. Went at the California Institute of Technology in the 1950s, setting off a worldwide laboratory movement, and transforming the plant sciences. Sharon Kingsland explores this revolution through a comparative study of work in the United States, France, Australia, Israel, the USSR, and Hungary--in the latter two, offering new interpretations of the response to Lysenkoism in Communist states. These advances in botanical research energized physiological plant ecology. Case studies explore the development of phytotron spin-offs such as mobile laboratories, rhizotrons, and ecotrons. Scientific problems include the significance of plant emissions of volatile organic compounds, symbiosis between plants and soil fungi, and the discovery of new pathways for photosynthesis as an adaptation to hot, dry climates. The advancement of knowledge through synthesis is a running theme: linking disciplines, combining laboratory and field research, and moving across ecological scales from leaf to ecosystem. The book also charts the history of modern scientific responses to the emerging crisis of food insecurity in the era of global warming.

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Page Count

400

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300267223

ISBN 13

9780300267228

The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890-2000

By: Sharon E. Kingsland

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The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890-2000

By: Sharon E. Kingsland

In the 1890s, several initiatives in American botany converged. The creation of new institutions, such as the New York Botanical Garden, coincided with radical reforms in taxonomic practice and the emergence of an experimental program of research on evolutionary problems. Sharon Kingsland explores how these changes gave impetus to the new field of ecology that was defined at exactly this time. She argues that the creation of institutions and research laboratories, coupled with new intellectual directions in science, were crucial to the development of ecology as a discipline in the United States. The main concern of ecology - the relationship between organisms and environment - was central to scientific studies aimed at understanding and controlling the evolutionary process. Kingsland considers the evolutionary context in which ecology arose, especially neo-Lamarckian ideas and the new mutation theory, and explores the relationship between scientific research and broader theories about social progress and the evolution of human civilization. By midcentury, American ecologists were leading the rapid development of ecosystem ecology. and society in the postwar context, foreshadowing the environmental critiques of the 1960s. As the ecosystem concept evolved, so too did debates about how human ecology should be incorporated into the biological sciences. Kingsland concludes with an examination of ecology in the modern urban environment, reflecting on how scientists are now being challenged to produce innovative responses to pressing problems. The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890-2000 offers an innovative study not only of the scientific landscape in turn-of-the-century America, but of current questions in ecological science.

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Page Count

338

Publisher

JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801881714

ISBN 13

9780801881718

Book's by Sharon E. Kingsland

Modeling Nature

Modeling Nature

A Lab for All Seasons

A Lab for All Seasons

The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890-2000

The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890-2000

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