"Towards establishing ecology as a science instead of an art": the work of John T. Curtis on the plant community continuum

Abstract

Web Ecology 2: 1-6.AGORA is a lighter channel of communication between readers and contributors; it aims to stimulate discussion and debate, particularly by presenting new ideas and by suggesting alternative interpretations to the more formal research papers published in WEB ECOLOGY and elsewhere. A lighter prose is encouraged and no summary is required. Formal research papers, however short, will not be considered.

Community concepts in plant ecology: from Humboldtian plant geography to the superorganism and beyond

“…Gleason's thesis was influential among the pioneers of gradient analysis of the 1960s, such as John Curtis (1959;McIntosh, 1993;Nicolson, 2001) and Robert Whittaker (1951, 1953Westman and Peet, 1982). However, ideas similar to Clements' concept of a high level of interspecific integration within the community unit may be discerned within early systems ecology (Hagen, 1992;Simberloff, 1980).…”

Robert Harding Whittaker and the Individualistic Hypothesis

“…However, by 1956, the revival of the individualistic hypothesis was already well underway, through the publications of John Curtis and his collaborators at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (Nicolson ). In the mid‐fifties, Curtis was at a different stage in his career from Whittaker, who had only recently secured a junior post as an Instructor at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.…”