Ecology and Land Use
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8962249 |
|---|---|
| Authors | I G Simmons (0000-0002-3637-4827, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1966 |
| Issue | 38 |
| Pages | 59-59 |
| Publication date | 1966-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.2307/621424 |
| OpenAlex | W2322082563 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 1 |
SINCE HUMAN purpose involves concern for the future, the supply of resources like food and living space for the rapidly increasing population of the world has gained the attention of many writers. In so far as this involves land and water resources and their products, the main contributors to the discussion have been economists, demographers and biologists. It is the purpose of this paper to present some of the findings of a biological character which have a bearing on land use. There is a great deal of pleading for the adoption of a biological attitude to land use; and, while a full discussion of this attitude is not appropriate here, it may be of geographical interest to set out some of the underpinnings of the arguments used by the biological writers-most of whom, in frequent contrast to economists and technologists, take a pessimistic view of long-term prospects and have been labelled 'neo-Malthusian.' The material may also be of interest in view of the recent rising interest in biogeography as a subject of geographical study and research. The current content of biogeography courses is very diverse ;1 and, while it is not suggested that there should be a higher degree of uniformity, the relationship between ecology and land use may be able to provide a focus for the varied subject-matter and thus give the field a clearly defined contribution to geography. Ecology and Ecosystems Ecology long remained the description of plant and animal communities as they happened to be found, but recent trends have been in the direction of the discovery of their metabolism, or functioning and dynamics, and their relationships to their non-living environment. The complex of interactions of living organisms with inanimate surroundings such as soil, water and local climate has been termed the ecosystem.2 Two of its most important properties are its nature as a system, with qualities of organization and homeostasis,3 and its emergent or 'gestalt' properties resulting from a place in a hierarchy of organizational units which is higher than that of the components. Because the ecosystem concept is holistic and an attempt at synthesis rather than analysis it possesses attributes not found at lower levels of integration.4 As an analogy, consider water, formed from oxygen and hydrogen, the molecule of which possesses properties not predictable from the behaviour of the constituent atoms. The suggestion that there is no plant ecology, no animal ecology and no human ecology but 'ecology'5 finds a way of expression in the ecosystem concept. As well as the study of the ecosystem as a whole entity, the functioning or physiology of its constituent parts must be understood, and two parts of this are fundamental: the flow of energy and the transport of matter in the system
Biology · Environmental resource management · Geography · Land use · Botany and Plant Ecology Studies · Ecology · Environmental Science · Mediterranean and Iberian flora and fauna · Plant Ecology and Soil Science
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1971 - 2008 (38) |
| Highly cited | No |