History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 35: The Beginnings of British Marine Biology: Edward Forbes and Philip Gosse

History of Ecological Sciences, Part 51: Formalizing Marine Ecology, 1870s to 1920s

“…British marine biology, which Edward Forbes and Philip Henry Gosse had advanced (Egerton 2010), retained its momentum, seen in the dredging work of John Gwyn Jeffreys (1809–1885), William Carpenter (1813–1885), Wyville Thomson (1830–82), and Alfred Norman (1831–1918), all providing a context for the Challenger Expedition (Herdman 1923:8–10, 37–68, Lane 1969:45–46, Deacon 1971:306–332, 2004 a , b , Thomas 1971, Heppell 1973, Schlee 1973:94–103, Ward 1974:95–107, Thomas 1976, Mills 1980 b , 1983:7–10, Rice and Wilson 1980:378–384, Vanney 1993:208–211, Rice 2004). That expedition was an early example of “big science,” which means a big commitment of government support (Burstyn 1968 b :665).…”

“…The immediate stimulus for the voyage of the Challenger , December 1872–May 1876, was the zoological success and temperature records from deep sea dredging during the summers 1868–1871 by Carpenter and Thomson, using British naval vessels, in waters near the British Isles (Lane 1969:46, Linklater 1972:13–14, Schlee 1973:99–103, Mills 1975:5–6, 1983:10–18, Deacon 1997:333–334, Rozwadowski 2005:35, 152–162). Forbes had provided logical arguments for why marine life could not exist more than 300 fathoms deep, which won general acceptance, until actual live specimens began to be dredged up from much deeper depths (Ward 1994:98–102, Saldanha 2002:235, Egerton 2010:182–183, 188). Thomson summarized their discoveries in The Depths of the Sea (1873).…”

History of Ecological Sciences, Part 53: Organizing Ecologists before 1946

“…Charles Darwin, on a British naval expedition, explored around two ports of Brazil, Bahia (Salvador) and Rio de Janeiro, in 1832 (von Hagen 1945:169–229, 1948:167–181, Chardon 1949:141–167, Goodman 1972:272–280, Egerton 2010 b :402–405), and other Victorian naturalists—Wallace, Bates, Spruce—independently explored Brazil's Amazonia in the mid‐1800s (von Hagen 1948:213–263, Goodman 1972:284–292, Egerton 2012 a :168–172, 2012 b ). Swiss‐American zoologist Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) led a Thayer Expedition from Boston to the Amazon in 1865–1866, collecting over 80,000 specimens (Lurie 1960:345–349, 1970, Goodman 1972:336–338, Winsor 1991:67–72, Kury 2001).…”

“…The British Isles has a long tradition of ecologically relevant natural history studies, including those by Gilbert White, William Kirby with William Spence, John Curtis, Charles Lyell, Edward Forbes, Hewett Watson, Charles Darwin, Henry Bates, Alfred Wallace (Egerton 2007, 2010 a , b , c , d , 2011 a , b , c , d , 2012 a , b , 2013). Even a mining engineer, Thomas Belt (1832–78), published an important study on ant–plant mutualism (Walker 1991, Van Riper 2004, Egerton 2013 a :40–42).…”

History of Ecological Sciences, Part 58A: Marine Ecology, mid‐1920s to about 1990, Featuring Beebe, Bigelow, Ricketts

“…Popularizers are included because they published original observations and inspired youths to become marine ecologists. Just as Philip Gosse's popularization of marine biology in the mid‐1800s had advanced that science (Egerton :190–194), so Beebe, Carson, and Cousteau advanced science with their popularizations of marine ecology a century later. Evidence?…”