Updated 16/02/2012
Some Seminal Readings on major concepts in Ecology
Niche
Grinnell’s The Niche Relationships of the Californian Thrasher
Hutchinson’s Concluding Remarks
?Hubbell’s Neutral theory in community ecology and the hypothesis of functional
equivalence
Origin and maintenance of diversity
Hutchinson’s Homage to Santa Rosalia; or, Why are there so many kinds of animals?;
Ehrlich and Ravens’ Butterflies and Plants: A study in Coevolution
MacArthur’s Population ecology of some warblers of northeastern coniferous forests
The influence of predation on populations and communities
Holling’s The components of Predation as Revealed by a study of the Small Mammal
Predation of the European Pine Sawfly
Paine’s Food web complexity and Species diversity
Competition/Disturbance
Connell’s The influence of interspecific competition and other factors on the distribution
of the barnacle Chthamalus stellatus
Lindeman’s The Trophic-Dynamic aspect of Ecology
The fundamental importance of scale in ecology
Levin’s The Problem of Pattern and Scale in Ecology
Turner’s Landscape Ecology - The effect of Pattern on Process
Sustainability
Hardin’s The Tragedy of the Commons
Costanza’s The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital
?Rees’s Globalization and Sustainability: Conflict or Convergence?
?Folke’s Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems
analyses
Physiological ecology
Garnier’s Resource capture, biomass allocation and growth in herbaceous plants
Coley’s Resource availability and plant anti-herbivore defence
Chapin et al’s The ecology and economics of storage in plants
Biogeochemistry
Likens Effects of Forest Cutting and Herbicide Treatment on Nutrient Budgets in the
Hubbard Brook Watershed-Ecosystem
Vitousek’s N limitation on land and in the sea: How can it occur?
Chapin’s The mineral nutrition of wild plants
Redfield’s The biological control of chemical factors in the environment
Updated 16/02/2012
The Ecosystem perspective
Lindeman’s The Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology
Tansley’s The use and abuse of vegetational concepts and terms
Odum’s Strategy of Ecosystem Development
?Shurin’s All wet or dried up? Real differences between aquatic and terrestrial food webs
?Walker et al 2004. Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–ecological
Systems
Behavioural ecology
?Axelrod and Hamilton’s The evolution of cooperation
Macroecology
Brown’s Macroecology: The division of food and space among species on continents
Paine’s Macroecology: does it ignore or can it encourage further ecological syntheses
based on spatially local experimental manipulations?
Philosophy
Ayala’s On the Scientific Method, Its Practice and Pitfalls
?Naess’s writings on Deep ecology
? indicates a paper which is not yet a classic, but whose content will in my opinion
probably lead it or associated writings to become categorised as ‘seminal’ in the future.
Axelrod and Hamilton. 1981. The evolution of cooperation. Science 211: 1390 - 1396.
Redfield, A.C. The biological control of chemical factors in the environment, American
Scientist, 1958
(Tansley, 1935; Holling, 1959; Paine, 1966; Rees, 2002; Hubbell, 2005; Folke, 2006)
Reference books
(Whittaker and Levin, 1975; Real and Brown, 1991)
A selection from the 100 most frequently cited papers on the topic of Ecology in the ISI
Web of Science catalogue (compiled January 2012)
(Lindeman, 1942; Macarthur, 1958; Bazzaz, 1979; McNaughton, 1985; Turner, 1989;
Wiens, 1989; Chapin et al., 1990; Holling, 1992; Levin, 1992; Tilman and Downing,
1994; Vitousek, 1994; Tilman et al., 1996; Schluter, 2001; Brown et al., 2004)
Full references:
Bazzaz, F. A., 1979: PHYSIOLOGICAL ECOLOGY OF PLANT SUCCESSION.
Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 10: 351-371.
Brown, J. H., Gillooly, J. F., Allen, A. P., Savage, V. M., and West, G. B., 2004: Toward
a metabolic theory of ecology. Ecology, 85: 1771-1789.
Chapin, F. S., Schulze, E. D., and Mooney, H. A., 1990: THE ECOLOGY AND
ECONOMICS OF STORAGE IN PLANTS. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics, 21: 423-447.
Updated 16/02/2012
Folke, 2006: Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems
analyses
Global Environmental Change, 16: 253-267.
Holling, C. S., 1959: The components of predation as revealed by a study of small
mammal predation of the European pine sawfly. The Canadian Entomologist, 91:
293-320.
Holling, C. S., 1992: CROSS-SCALE MORPHOLOGY, GEOMETRY, AND
DYNAMICS OF ECOSYSTEMS. Ecological Monographs, 62: 447-502.
Hubbell, S. P., 2005: Neutral theory in community ecology and the hypothesis of
functional equivalence. Functional Ecology, 19: 166-172.
Levin, S. A., 1992: THE PROBLEM OF PATTERN AND SCALE IN ECOLOGY.
Ecology, 73: 1943-1967.
Lindeman, R. L., 1942: The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology. Ecology, 23: 399-418.
Macarthur, R. H., 1958: POPULATION ECOLOGY OF SOME WARBLERS OF
NORTHEASTERN CONIFEROUS FORESTS. Ecology, 39: 599-619.
McNaughton, S. J., 1985: ECOLOGY OF A GRAZING ECOSYSTEM - THE
SERENGETI. Ecological Monographs, 55: 259-294.
Paine, R. T., 1966: Food Web Complexity and Species Diversity. The American
Naturalist, 100: 65-75.
Real, L. A. and Brown, J. H., 1991: Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers with
Commentaries: Chicago.
Rees, W., 2002: Globalization and Sustainability: Conflict or Convergence? . Bulletin of
Science, Technology and Society, 22: 249-282.
Schluter, D., 2001: Ecology and the origin of species. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 16:
372-380.
Tansley, A. G., 1935: The use and abuse of vegetational concepts and terms. Ecology, 16:
284-307.
Tilman, D. and Downing, J. A., 1994: BIODIVERSITY AND STABILITY IN
GRASSLANDS. Nature, 367: 363-365.
Tilman, D., Wedin, D., and Knops, J., 1996: Productivity and sustainability influenced by
biodiversity in grassland ecosystems. Nature, 379: 718-720.
Turner, M. G., 1989: LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY - THE EFFECT OF PATTERN ON
PROCESS. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 20: 171-197.
Vitousek, P. M., 1994: BEYOND GLOBAL WARMING - ECOLOGY AND GLOBAL
CHANGE. Ecology, 75: 1861-1876.
Whittaker, R. H. and Levin, S. A., 1975: Niche: Theory and Application: Dowden,
Hutchinson and Ross.
Wiens, J. A., 1989: SPATIAL SCALING IN ECOLOGY. Functional Ecology, 3: 385397.