Paul B. Sears and the Ecological Society of America.
Burgess, Robert L.
ABSTRACT. Paul B. Sears, perhaps more than any other person,
epitomized American plant ecology. In a professional career spanning
almost 7 decades, he made major contributions to vegetation mapping,
paleoecology and Pleistocene history, vegetation studies, conservation,
human ecology and our use of land; and particularly, the varied roles of
scientists in modern society. He introduced his work in most of these
subjects by presenting papers at the annual meetings of the Ecological
Society of America (ESA). As a member or chair of numerous committees,
Sears pushed the ESA to become involved in supporting the teaching of
ecology in college curricula, conservation efforts, applied ecology,
human ecology and outreach to government and the public. He also served
the ESA as an editor, vice president and president. His influence is
still felt in the ESA, although few realize where the ideas originated.
Sears was named Eminent Ecologist by the ESA in 1965, a title as
appropriate today as it was then.
INTRODUCTION
After earning a Bachelor of Science degree at Ohio Wesleyan
University in Delaware, Ohio, Paul B. Sears went to the University of
Nebraska, a young school, but one that attracted a hero of early
ecology, Charles Edwin Bessey who separated himself from the eastern
botanical tradition by adopting a European, predominantly German, mode
of teaching, where laboratories and field experience played a major role
in training students (Cittadino 1980, 1990). Years before, Bessey had
hand-carried the first microscope across the Mississippi (at a time
before bridges) to Iowa State, then moved to Nebraska (Pool 1915).
Bessey fostered the young discipline that was to become ecology through
his "Botanical Seminar," (Bot Sem), whose early participants
included Roscoe Pound and Frederic Clements (Stieber 1980). They
produced The Phytogeography of Nebraska (Pound and Clements 1897), one
of the foundations of American plant ecology. In contrast to university
protocols today, Pound and Clements presented the results of this
research jointly in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Doctor of Philosophy degree.
At Nebraska, under the direction of Bessey, Sears embarked on a
study of the cytological and developmental characteristics of the
dandelion, Taraxacum laevigatum (Willd.) DC, group. After completing a
Master of Arts degree at Nebraska in 1915 (Sears 1917), he went to The
Ohio State University for a 4-year stint as an Instructor in Botany. He
then matriculated at the University of Chicago for doctoral study under
the direction of Henry Chandler Cowles, famed "physiographic ecologist." Through 1922, Sears continued to study the dandelion
group for his doctorate and published two papers from his dissertation
(Sears 1922a, 1922b). He then abandoned cytology in favor of ecology,
conservation and societal issues, which dominated the remainder of his
life through teaching positions at the University of Oklahoma, Oberlin
College and Yale University and during his retirement years in New
Mexico.
Sears was a major contributor to a variety of sciences, regions,
aspects and organizations (Stuckey 1990). After a term as President of
the Nebraska Academy of Science in 1925 (Moore 1985), Sears served the
Ohio Academy of Science for over half a century. He was one of only two
ecologists to lead the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (in 1956; the other was Thomas Park in 1961) (Blair 1961), and
was president of the American Society of Naturalists in 1959. In
addition to his many other activities, Sears, throughout his career,
contributed significantly to The Ecological Society of America (ESA), as
discussed below.
INVOLVEMENT IN THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Sears joined the fledgling Ecological Society (founded in 1915)
during his graduate student days at the University of Chicago. Cowles
was president of the Society in 1918 and influenced many of his students
to join. Dues at that time were $1.00 a year. Over the next 40 years,
Sears presented 22 papers at ESA meetings, arranged symposia, chaired
sessions, held office, edited journals, served on over a dozen important
committees and gave the ESA (and the science of plant ecology) the
benefit of his wisdom, experience and vision.
Participation at Meetings
Sears presented his first ESA paper at the 1923 meeting at the
University of Cincinnati with the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS). At 2:00 PM on Monday, 31 December 1923,
in Hanna Hall Annex, Sears presented a paper entitled, A Map of the
Virgin Forest of Ohio, with Notes on Plant Succession in the Erie Basin,
in a symposium on Ohio ecology (Sears 1924). One of the legacies that
Paul Sears left to Ohio was a method of vegetation mapping (see Stuckey,
this volume), which culminated in the beautiful map published by the
Ohio Biological Survey (Gordon 1966).
In 1931, at the New Orleans AAAS meeting, Sears and Elsie Janson of
The University of Michigan collaborated on a paper, The Rate of Peat
Accumulation in the Ohio--Michigan Area (Sears and Janson 1931). They
reported on a series of analyses originally generated by his interest in
pollen analysis and its potential for paleoccological reconstructions of
both climate and vegetation (see Shane, this volume).
Members at the annual ESA business meeting convened in Cabannis
Hall in Richmond, Virginia on 29 December 1938, and in an action that
was to have far-reaching effects, entertained, discussed and passed a
motion by Sears to create a reserve of $100 or more each year, as the
treasury warranted (Park 1939). Disbursements from this reserve fund
were to be made at the discretion of the Executive Committee of the
Society. Although the amount was small, the concept was discussed for
the next 15 years, until the official establishment of an ESA Endowment
in 1954 (Dice and others 1955, Preston 1954, Test 1955). The early
stages were crucial and the Society now enjoys the income from a
substantial endowment fund.
Also in 1938, the ESA established a Committee on Summer Symposia,
with Sears as chair (Anonymous 1938, Scars 1939). Every year since its
founding, the ESA had held summer meetings, usually with the AAAS or one
of its geographic subdivisions. The meetings were field-oriented, with
excursions or field trips. The ESA wished to formalize participation in
the summer programs and did so through Sears' committee. The AAAS
met in Milwaukee in June 1939, and Sears' report stressed the
success of the symposium on land use, subsequently published in the
Journal of Forestry (Anonymous 1939a, 1939b, 1940). Previous summer
symposia had been arranged by William S. Cooper in Rochester in 1936 and
by Howard DeForest for the Denver meetings in June 1937. By late 1938,
the Summer Symposia Committee had been expanded (Sears 1939) with the
addition of John Aikman, George Nichols, Albert Wright, R. E. Coker and
Clarence Korstian, all of whom were or became president of the ESA.
Sears was a pioneer in the study of fossil pollen grains, often
preserved in cold, acid peat bogs of the glaciated regions of North
America. Throughout much of his early work, the thrust was to relate the
pollen assemblages to one or more paleovegetation communities, as a
means to infer past climates. At the December 1932 meeting at the Hotel
Traymore in Atlantic City, Sears presented a paper, "Post-glacial
climatic forest succession in the eastern United States" (Sears
1932) based on his work in Ohio and Michigan, as part of a symposium on
forest succession arranged and chaired by George Elwood Nichols.
The next few years were instrumental in characterizing Sears as
both an ardent conservationist and as a human ecologist. He was chair of
botany at the University of Oklahoma at a time when a major drought
affected the Great Plains. A great exodus took thousands of migrants to
California. From this experience came his first book, Deserts on the
March (Sears 1935a), whose title was derived in part from the ancient
proverb, Where man walks, deserts follow in his footsteps. Sears was a
trained ecologist and recognized that cycles, particularly drought
cycles, were common in nature. But the economic crisis was partly due to
mistreatment of the land by the resident population.
As a follow-up to his book, Sears presented Ecological Notes on the
Dust Bowl Area of the Southern Great Plains at the 21 st Annual Meeting
of the ESA in the Municipal Auditorium in St. Louis, at 9:00 AM 2
January 1936 (Sears 1935b). These communications served to establish
this Ohio ecologist as both an expert on land use and a sympathetic
advocate of the neglected, the marginal and the downtrodden segments of
society; in other words, an incipient "human ecologist."
The emerging interest in human ecology surfaced again in December
1937, with a paper on Ecology and human culture forms at the
Indianapolis meeting (Sears 1937). Alfred E. Emerson chaired the session
and Sears was listed as a Research Associate of the Teachers College of
Columbia University. In his capacity as chair of the Summer Symposia
Committee, Sears arranged for a session at the Ottawa meeting in the
summer of 1938 on The Influence of Fire on Forests, Wildlife and Public
Welfare, (Anonymous 1938a, 1938b), again tying the still adolescent
science of ecology to the essential needs and rational desires of the
human population. This general theme continued for the summer meetings
of 1939 in Milwaukee (Anonymous 1939b), with the joint symposium with
the Society of American Foresters on land use, including Aldo
Leopold's seminal contribution, A Biotic View of Land (Sears 1939).
During the Philadelphia meeting in December 1940, Scars and Charles C.
Adams shared a role as "discussants" for a major symposium on
human ecology (Anonymous 1940c, Sears 1940).
At the Dallas meetings of December 1941, which were held despite
the declaration of war, Benjamin Carroll Tharp of the University of
Texas organized a symposium on Bio-Ecology, (Anonymous 1941), apparently
capitalizing on the volume published 2 years earlier (Clements and
Shelford 1939). Sears, now at Oberlin College, published an abstract
entitled, Population, Resources and Culture Patterns in Ohio (Sears
1941) in which he demonstrated how the forest and nonforest percentages
of the state had been reversed by a 1,000-fold population increase, from
roughly 6 square miles (3,840 acres) per person at the time of the
American Revolution to about 4 acres per person in 1940. He recognized
four phases in Ohio's history: 1) a primitive hunting economy
before 1786, 2) a pioneer agriculture economy from 1786-1850, 3) an
expanding industrial transition from 1850-1900, and 4) a neotechnical
urban economy since about the turn of the 19th century (Sears 1941).
Although neither the concepts nor the terms probably originated with
Sears, his application to Ohio and the interrelationships with ecology
were new.
A year later, Sears sent an abstract for the planned meeting in New
York City in December 1942. The meetings were cancelled due to war
mobilization efforts and a government request to curtail civilian
travel. Nevertheless, Sears proposed "A useful empirical
formula," in a "bioecology" session to be chaired by S.
Charles Kendeigh. Resources (R), population (P) and culture (C) were
related by the formula, R/P = (f)C, which Sears said was appreciated by
civilization (Sears 1942).
Sears advocated the teaching of ecology, urging the ESA to play an
active role in advocating that ecology courses be offered in college and
university curricula, as well as building an ecological competence and
conscience in the public schools. In June 1944, he was a discussion
leader for a symposium on the Teaching of Ecology, jointly sponsored by
the ESA and Section Q (Education) of the AAAS, held in Cleveland
(Anonymous 1944a). Sears spoke on The teaching of ecology in the
biological sciences. At the St. Louis meeting in March of 1946, the
first held after the war, S ears chaired a conference on teaching,
inviting individual course and curriculum descriptions from those who
contributed to the symposium in Cleveland. Finally, at the Boston
conclave in December 1946, Sears presented, The Importance of Ecology in
the Training of Engineers (Sears 1946a), perhaps foreshadowing much of
the controversy over conservation, natural resources and wild America
that eventually led to the first Earth Day in April of 1970. Also in
that year, Scars summarized his pollen studies at Itasca (Sears 1946b)
and presented an analysis of sagebrush dynamics in Montana (Sears
1946c).
In March 1947, Scars participated in a symposium on Bottom
Sediments, jointly sponsored with the American Society of Limnology and
Oceanography. On 31 December 1947, with Ira T. Wilson of Heidelberg
College presiding, Sears presented, Forest Succession, Climate and
Chronology of the Middle West. Fossil pollen grains are indeed
"bottom sediments," and Sears summarized some 20 years of work
in paleoecology with this presentation, which was expanded further for
publication (Sears 1948a). In 1948, a symposium on Cooperation and
Conflict Among Living Organisms was organized through the joint efforts
of the Botanical Society of America, the ESA, the Institute of Ethnic
Affairs, the Institute of General Semantics, the National Indian
Institute, The Ohio State University Personnel Research Board, the
Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, the Society for Applied
Anthropology and the Sociometric Institute. The symposium was held in
Washington, DC, September 11-13, 1949, and Sears presented Conflict and
Its Resolution in the Plant Realm (Anonymous 1948c).
During the decade of the 1950s, Sears combined his continuing
research thrusts in paleoecology with his interests in human ecology and
applied ecology and his status as a past-president and "elder
statesman" in the ESA. He presented nine papers, mostly in
symposia, at ESA meetings, ranging from the emperical New Evidence of
Present Climatic Trend (unpublished) based on pollen profile
interpretation to the philosophical The Place of Ecology Among the
Sciences (Sears 1960a). Additional contributions are in Sears (1950a,
1951, 1953, 1954 and 1957), several of which stimulated the large
contingent of young postgraduate ecologists emerging then from the
nation's graduate schools.
Service on ESA Committees
Sears functioned on 12 different ESA committees, during a period
spanning more than three decades. Both published and unpublished records
of these various committees tend to be uneven and incomplete.
Consequently, it is difficult to trace all of the actions in a
consistent way, as reports may not have been submitted or even written
and important items may have been omitted. These items came to attention
only after careful examination of later records that refer to earlier
actions or activities.
Beginning in the early 1930s, Sears was appointed to the two major
committees in the Society: The Committee for the Preservation of Natural
Conditions and The Committee for the Study of Plant and Animal
Communities (Shelford 1934, 1936; Anonymous 1937a). Both were instigated
by Victor Shelford and aimed (at least initially) at finding ways to
preserve natural areas for scientific study and social enjoyment
(Crocker 1991). Sears apparently served until the late 1940s, but
whether continuously is not known. He chaired the Committee for the
Study of Plant and Animal Communities from 1946 to 1948 (Anonymous 1946,
1948b; Sears 1947, 1948). By 1949, both committees were disbanded,
following the establishment, through the ESA, of the Ecologist's
Union, which a few years later was incorporated as The Nature
Conservancy For the past 55 years, The Nature Conservancy has matured
into a successful "land preserving" organization. Sears was
certainly a part of the early ESA activities that first conceived and
then established it (Dexter 1978).
Sears chaired the Committee on Summer Symposia from 1938 through
1940 (Anonymous 1940a, Sears 1939), apparently the only years in which
either the concept or the committee functioned. The World War II
reduction on domestic travel disrupted scientific meetings in a major
way and, as a result, advance planning for summer symposia was no longer
necessary. In addition, the ESA already was considering the appointment
of a program chairman assisted by a committee to deal with all program
matters, including the annual meeting and the summer field meetings with
AAAS.
From the middle 1930s to the late 1940s, the ESA had a Committee on
Applied Ecology and Scars served for 8 or 9 years, mostly as a member of
the "executive group" (Aikma 1945, Anonymous 1937b).
Apparently, much interest in applied aspects of ecological science was
generated from a variety of sources. The great drought of 1930-1936
brought attention to problems of crop production and soil erosion.
Forestry was becoming more scientific and dam building was an incipient
boom industry. Congress created the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933
and the first project, Norris Dam on the Clinch River, was completed in
1937. (Morgan 1971). The role of ecologists in military concerns was
becoming a dominant discussion topic. Several symposia were held and
many papers had an applied focus. This activity subsided through the
1950s and 1960s, only to resurface when several premature obituaries for
Lake Erie were written, a massive oil spill devastated the Santa Barbara
Channel and the Cuyahoga River burned more than once in downtown
Cleveland. This triumvirate of human influenced problems spawned the
first Earth Day in 1970, soon followed by an Applied Ecology Section in
the ESA and in 1991, a third major journal, Ecological Applications. The
legacy of the Committee on Applied Ecology was put to good use and Sears
made important contributions to this legacy in its adolescent years.
Additionally, Sears served on the Membership Committee in 1949 and
1950 (Anonymous 1951), on the Endowment Committee in 1952 (Buell 1953),
as Chairman of the Committee on Human Ecology in 1952 (Anonymous 1952)
and as member through 1957, and on the Finance Committee, with Heinie
Oosting and Frederick Test in 1954 (Anonymous 1954). He was also
appointed to a Desert Laboratory Committee in 1940 (Anonymous 1940b),
perhaps related to the attempt by the Carnegie Institution of Washington to divest itself of the facilities on Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, the
laboratory that supported Forrest Shreve, T. D. Mallory, William A.
Cannon, Daniel Trembly McDougall and many others since the turn of the
century (McIntosh 1983, Bowers 1988). No further details have been
located on this effort. Also in 1939, stemming from the grassland
subcommittees of the Committee for the Preservation of Natural
Conditions, including the Oklahoma Center, a Committee on Ecology of
Grasslands was sponsored by the National Research Council with
membership (including Scars) drawn heavily from the ESA (Coker 1940). In
1946, National Academy of Science President Alfred C. Redfield appointed
Scars to a 3-year term on the Conservation Council (Dreyer 1946) and in
1951 and 1952, Scars served as the ESA's representative on the
Natural Resources Council of America (Sears 1952).
Two other committee assignments arc of note. Sears served on the
Nominating Committee in 1945, 1946, 1949, 1953 and 1958, more than any
other ecologist (Darrow and others 1948; Coker and others 1950, 1954).
The committee was charged, with preparing a slate of officers each year,
and by 1958, with the task of selecting an "Eminent Ecologist"
from the ranks. The 1949 committee, chaired by Sears, nominated Emma
Lucy Braun for President of the ESA (Coker and others 1950), and she
became the first woman president in 1950. Perhaps Scars seized an
opportunity both to elect a woman president and to honor a fellow
Ohioan.
In March 1958, Sears asked the ESA establish a committee of the
social applications of ecological science (Billings and others 1958).
Scars' efforts in both human ecology and applied ecology stimulated
this committee. In response, the ESA Council voted to create a Panel on
Ecological Policy (Anonymous 1959b). In 1959, the National Science
Foundation granted the ESA $24,000 for an Ecology Study Committee and
pledged to support its work for 3 years (Anonymous 1959). Sears was
appointed chair (Olmsted and others 1962). Through 1964, that committee
examined all aspects of ecological science and the role of the ESA in
responding to national and global needs. The committee, including James
Bonner, Stanley Cain, George Clarke, Arthur Hasler and Thomas Park,
recommended more attention to human ecology and more involvement in
ecological education (Olmstead and others 1962). In 1962, Sears
suggested that the ESA offer to review the new materials being developed
by BSCS, the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (Olmsted 1962). The
American Institute of Biological Sciences accepted the offer and
ecologists provided continuous involvement in the "Green
Version" of high school biology texts. The committee also worked on
an endowment for the Society and greatly expanded both the dollars and
its focus. Public policy was a continuing theme (Sears and Cantlon 1963)
and some of the results of the Ecology Study Committee deliberations are
evident today in the Public Affairs Office of the ESA.
In the early 1970s, the ESA worked to establish The Institute of
Ecology, ostensibly as an action arm for the science that would function
in Washington D.C. and increase influence in governmental affairs
related to ecology and the environment (Ecological Society of America
and others 1970a, 1970b). By the early 1980s, that institute was
officially disbanded (Doherty and Cooper 1990) and the staff of the
ESA's Public Affairs Office absorbed some of its functions.
Service as Editor and Officer
When Sears was at the University of Oklahoma, he was appointed to a
3-year term on the Editorial Board of Ecological Monographs (Anonymous
1934, Nichols and others 1934), then a new journal only in its third
volume and struggling to continue publishing during the Great
Depression. A few years later, he served on the Editorial Board of
Ecology (Botany) (Allee and others 1944, Anonymous 1944b). At that time,
the ESA had fewer than 600 members, and dues were $5.00 a year (Burgess
1977).
Sears served as vice president of the ESA both in 1943 (Weaver and
others 1943) and in 1947 (Emerson and others 1943), the only person to
hold this office twice. Following his second term as vice president,
Sears was elected President of the Society in 1948 (Darrow and others
1948). As is true of many societies where turnover of officers is an
annual event and election is mostly an honorary recognition, Sears'
administration was relatively uneventful. The Society was trying to put
its affairs in order following World War II, membership was starting to
grow and millions of returning service members were clamoring for higher
education under the GI Bill of Rights. During the late 1940s
and early 1950s, many courses, curricula and graduate programs in
ecology developed in American colleges and universities and the ESA had
a major role in this revival (Burgess 1981).
Since the administration of Ellsworth Huntington, second president
of the ESA in 1917, it became customary for the past (retiring)
president to present an address to the membership at the annual meeting
(Anonymous 1917, Huntington 1918). This tradition persists. In 1947,
Aldo Leopold was the ESA president and was prepared to deliver his
address at the Boston meetings. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack
while fighting a grass fire near his now famous "shack"
(Anonymous 1948 a) and it fell to Sears to read The Land Ethic
(Anonymous 1949a), a philosophical essay that underpins the conservation
and environmental movements.
The next year, Sears delivered The Living Landscape as his own
presidential address (Anonymous 1949b, Sears 1950b), incorporating many
of the concepts pioneered by Leopold and leading ultimately to the
relatively new subdiscipline known as landscape ecology.
Honored by the ESA
Paul Bigelow Sears was named Eminent Ecologist by the ESA in 1965
(Anonymous 1965). This award is the ultimate recognition of Sears'
decades of research, teaching, service to the ESA and leadership in
science and its applications. In part, his citation read:
We salute and applaud you as teacher, writer, spokesman for
biologists in general and for ecologists in particular; we
appreciate you as statesman par excellence, especially for your
long-time attention to the importance of improving our
understanding of the mutual relationships between science and human
affairs. We agree with you when you said, 'Failure to use science
as a source of perspective in our present stage of culture degrades
its function and may in time be disastrous.' We are especially
impressed by these words of yours, 'As a touchstone to test the
effectiveness of a scientific education, I would suggest the final
ability to read and enjoy the landscape. While there is life there
is hope, but only for the enlightened' (Anonymous 1965).
Other Contributions
Sears also contributed to ecological history and biography. Based
his long association with The Ohio State University, Sears (1960) wrote
a tribute to Edgar Nelson Transeau. In a seminal paper (Sears 1956),
Sears discussed the working milieu of scientists in a still young
discipline. Sears (1969) also discussed ecology in a small volume on
botanical history in the United States, which was prepared for the XI
International Botanical Congress at the University of Washington in
Seattle in 1969.
Paul Bigelow S ears lived a life immersed in the science of
ecology. Using the ESA as both a springboard and a primary vehicle, he
conducted research, instructed at colleges and universities and accepted
professional service, all with unending dedication to principles and
ideas. Most of these ideas were broached, tested and nurtured through
his ESA involvement, and to the benefit of ecological sciences. Before
his death at the age of 99, Sears saw most of his efforts come to
fruition. No more fitting honor could be bestowed.
LITERATURE CITED
Aikma JM. 1945. Report of the Committee on Applied Ecology. Ecology
26(2):229-230.
Allee WC, Juday C, Korstian CF. 1944. Report of the Nominating
Committee. Ecology 25(2):269.
Anonymous. 1917. Programme of the Pittsburgh Meeting. Bull Ecol Soc
Am 1 (11):2.
Anonymous. 1934. Ecological Society of America Officers and
Editorial Boards 1934. Bull Ecol Soc Am 15(2): 12.
Anonymous. 1937a. Public Contact Committees. Committee on the
Preservation of Natural Conditions for the United States. Bull Ecol Soc
Am 18(4):64-68.
Anonymous. 1937b. Committee on Applied Ecology. Bull Ecol Soc Am
18(4):68.
Anonymous. 1938a. Appointments. Bull Ecol Soc Am 19(1):6.
Anonymous. 1938b. The Ottawa meeting. Bull Ecol Soc Am 19(1):3.
Anonymous. 1938c. The influence of fire on forests, wild life, and
public welfare. Bull Ecol Soc Am 19(2):14-5.
Anonymous. 1939a. The Milwaukee meeting. Bull Ecol Soc Am 20(1):3.
Anonymous. 1939b. The Milwaukee meeting. Bull Ecol Soc Am 20(2):20.
Anonymous. 1940a. The Seattle meeting. Call for papers. Bull Ecol
Soc Am 21 (1):3.
Anonymous. 1940b. Committee appointments. Bull Ecol Soc Am 211):4.
Anonymous. 1940c. Human ecology. Bull Ecol Soc Am 21(4):31.
Anonymous. 1941. General session on bio-ecology. Bull Ecol Soc Am
22(4):43-5.
Anonymous. 1944a. Ecology in general courses in biological science.
Bull Ecol Soc Am 25(2):10.
Anonymous. 1944b. Election of officers. Bull Ecol Soc Am 25(1):2.
Anonymous. 1946. Chairmen of committees. Bull Ecol Soc Am 27(2):44.
Anonymous. 1948a. Aldo Leopold. Bull Ecol Soc Am 29(2):35.
Anonymous. 1948b. Chairmen of committees. Bull Ecol Soc Am
29(2):36.
Anonymous. 1948c. Symposium on Cooperation and Conflict among
Living Organisms. Bull Ecol Soc Am 29(3):53-5.
Anonymous. 1949a. The land ethic. Bull Ecol Soc Am 30(1):7.
Anonymous. 1949b. The New York meeting. Program and abstracts. Bull
Ecol Soc Am 30(4):48-67.
Anonymous. 1951. Report of the Membership Committee for 1950. Bull
Ecol Soc Am 32(1):22.
Anonymous. 1952. the Ecological Society of America. List of
officers, editors, committee chairmen. Bull Ecol Soc Am 33(3):76.
Anonymous. 1954. Standing committees. Bull Ecol Soc Am 35(1):34-5.
Anonymous. 1959a. The Ecology Study Committee. Bull Ecol Soc Am
40(1):8.
Anonymous. 1959b. The minutes of the annual business meeting. Bull
Ecol Soc Am 40(1):28-9.
Anonymous. 1965. Paul B. Sears, Eminent Ecologist-1965. Bull Ecol
Soc Am 46(4):151-2.
Billings WD, Cain SA, Davis DE, Platt R. 1958. Report of the
Executive Committee and Council. Bull Ecol Soc Am 39(1):36-8.
Blair WF. 1961. Report of the representative to AAAS. Bull Ecol Soc
Am 42 (1):24-5.
Bowers JE. 1988. A sense of place. The life and work of Forrest
Shrove. Tucson: Univ Arizona Press 195 p.
Buell ME 1953. New business. Bull Ecol Soc Am 34(1):27-9.
Burgess RL. 1977. The Ecological Society of America: Historical
data and some preliminary analyses. In: Egerton FN, editor. History of
American ecology. New York: Arno. p 1-24.
Burgess RL. 1981. United States. In: Kormondy EJ, McCormick JF,
editors. Handbook of contemporary developments in world ecology.
Westport (CT): Greenwood. p 67-101.
Cittadino E. 1980. Ecology and the professionalization of botany in
America, 1890-1905. Stud Hist Biol 4:171-198.
Cittadino E. 1990. Nature as the laboratory. Darwinian plant
ecology in the German Empire, 1880-1900. New York: Cambridge Univ Press
199 p.
Clements FE, Shelford VE. 1939. Bio-Ecology. New York: John Wiley.
425 p.
Coker RE. 1940. Report on the National Research Council. Ecology 21
(2):305-6.
Coker RE, Hutchinson G E, ZoBell CE, Sears PB. 1950. Report of the
Nominating Committee. Bull Ecol Soc Am 31(1):15-6.
Coker ER, Sears PG, Gates FG. 1954. Report of the Nominating
Committee. Bull Ecol Soc Am 35(1):29-30.
Croker RA 1991. Pioneer ecologist. The life and work of Victor
Ernest Shelford 1877-1968. Washington(DC): Smithsonian Inst Press 222 p.
Darrow R, Metcalf ZP, Aikman JM. 1948. Report of the Nominating
Committee.
Bull Ecol Soc Am 29(1): 17.
Dexter RW. 1978. History of the Ecologist's Union--Spin-off
from the ESA and prototype of The Nature Conservancy. Bull Ecol Soc Am
59(3): 146-7.
Dice LR, Oosting HJ, Test FH, Buell ME 1955. Suggested revisions of
the Constitution and Bylaws, Ecological Society of America. Bull Ecol
Soc Am 36(2):58-64.
Doherty J, Cooper AW. 1990. The short life and early death of The
Institute of Ecology: a case study in institution building. Bull Ecol
Soc Am 71 (1):6-17.
Dreyer WA. 1946. Proceedings Ecological Society of America, 1945.
Bull Ecol Soc Am. 27(2):28-43.
Ecological Society of America and Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co.
1970a. National Institute of Ecology: An inquiry. Washington (DC). Vol 1
: 77 p, Vol 2:125 p.
Ecological Society of America and Peat, Marwick, Mtchell & Co.
1970b. National Institute of Ecology. An operational plan. Washington
(DC). 42 p.
Emerson FW, Egglcton FE, Redfield AC. 1943. Report of the
Nominating Committee. Bull. Ecol Soc Am 29(1): 15.
Gordon RB. 1966. Natural vegetation of Ohio at the time of the
earliest land surveys. [Map in color at 1:500,000] Columbus: Ohio Biol
Surv.
Huntington E. 1918. Climate and the evolution of civilization. In:
Lull RS, editor. The evolution of the earth and its inhabitants. New
Haven (CT): Yale Univ Press p 147-93.
McIntosh RP. 1983. Pioneer support for ecology. BioScience 33(2):
107-12.
Moore RH. 1985. The Paul Sears I know. Trans Nebraska Acad Sci
13:107-10.
Morgan AE. 1971. Dams and other disasters, a century of the Army
Corps of Engineers in civil works. Boston: Porter Sargent. 422 p.
Nichols GE, Transeau EN, Weese AO. 1934. Report of the Nominating
Committee. Ecology 15(2):214-15.
Olmsted CE. 1962. Annual Report of the Committee on Education. Bull
Ecol Soc Am 43(1):22-3.
Olmsted CE, Bonner J, Cantlon J, Sprugel G Jr, Cain SA, Hasler AD,
Scars PB, Clarke GL, Park T. 1962. Report of the Ecological Study
Committee. Bull Ecol Soc Am. 43(1):21.
Park O. 1939. Report of the Secretary. Ecology 20(2):318-19.
Pool RJ. 1915. A brief sketch of the life and work of Charles Edwin
Bessey. Am J Bot 2:505-18.
Pound R, Clements FE. 1897. The phytogeography of Nebraska. Lincoln
(NB): Jacob North. 442 p.
Preston FW. 1954. Report of the Finance Committee. Bull Ecol Soc Am
35(1): 14-7.
Reed JE 1964. Ecology Study Committee. Bull Ecol Soc Am 45(1):21-2.
Sears PB. 1917. Amiotic parthenogenesis in Taraxacum vulgare (Lam.)
Schrk. and T. laevigatum (Willd.) DC. OJSREPLACE. 27:97-100.
Sears PB. 1922a. Variations in cytology and gross morphology of
Taraxacum. I. Cytology of Taraxacum laevigatum. Bot Gaz. 73(4):308-325.
Sears PB. 1922b. Variations in cytology and gross morphology of
Taraxacum. II. Senescence, rejuvenescence, and leaf variation in
Taraxacum. Bot Gaz. 73(6):425-446. Sears PB. 1924. [Description of] A
map of the virgin forest of Ohio, with notes on plant succession in the
Eric Basin [abstract]. Bull Ecol Soc Am 5(1):16.
Sears PB. 1932. Post-glacial climatic forest succession in eastern
United States [abstract]. Bull Ecol Soc Am 13(4):12-3 (unnumbered).
Sears PB. 1935a. Deserts on the March. Norman: Univ Oklahoma Press.
256 p.
Sears PB. 1935b. Ecological notes on the "Dust Bowl" area
of the southern Great Plains [abstract]. Bull Ecol Soc Am 16(4):44.
Sears PB. 1937. Ecology and human culture forms ]abstract]. Bull
Ecol Soc Am 18(4):51.
Scars PB. 1939. Report of the Committee on Summer Symposia. Ecology
20(2):323-24.
Sears PB. 1940. Report of the Committee on Summer Symposia. Ecology
21 (2):301.
Sears PB. 1941. Population, resources, and culture patterns in Ohio
[abstract]. Bull Ecol Soc Am 22(4):43.
Sears PB. 1942. A useful empirical formula [abstract]. Bull Ecol
Soc Am 23(4):66.
Sears PB. 1946a. The importance of ecology in the training of
engineers [abstract[.
Bull Ecol Soc Am 27(4):59.
Sears PB. 1946b. The position of Bison antiquas (B. taylori) in the
pollen profile at Itasca Lake Park, Minnesota [abstract]. Bull Ecol Soc
Am 27(1):22.
Sears PB. 1946c. Successional behavior of sagebrush in southwestern
Montana [abstract]. Bull Ecol Soc Am. 27(4):58.
Sears PB. 1947. Report of the Committee for the Study of Plant and
Animal Communities. Bull Ecol Soc Am 28(1): 13-4.
Sears PB. 1948a. Forest sequence and climatology in northeastern
North America since early Wisconsin time. Ecology 29(3):326-333.
Sears PB. 1948b. Report of the Committee for the Study of Plant and
Animal Communities. Bull Ecol Soc Am 29(1): 11.
Sears PB. 1950a. Conservation in theory and practice. Ohio J Sci
50(4):149-155.
Sears PB. 1950b. The living landscape. In: Sears PB. Charles
Darwin. the naturalist as a cultural force. New York: Scribner. p 84-95.
Sears PB. 1951. Human ecology: a new source of perspective. New
Outlook 4(30):50-5.
Sears PB. 1952. Report of the Representative of the Ecological
Society of America on the Natural Resources Council of America. Bull
Ecol Soc Am 33(1):25-6.
Scars PB. 1953. An ecological view of land-use in Middle America.
Ceiba 3(3): 159-165.
Sears PB. 1954. Human ecology: a problem of synthesis. Science
120(3128):959-963.
Scars PB. 1956. Some notes on the ecology of ecologists. Sci
Monthly 83(1):22-7.
Scars PB. 1957. Natural and cultural aspects of floods. Science
125(3242):806-7.
Sears PB. 1960a. The place of ecology among the sciences. Bull Ecol
Soc Am 40(4):112.
Sears PB. 1960b. Resolution of respect, Edgar Nelson Transeau
1875-1960. President (1934) of the ESA. Bull Ecol Soc Am 41 (2):62-4.
Sears PB. 1969. Plant ecology. In: Ewan J, editor. A short history
of botany in the United Stares. New York: Hafner. p.124-131.
Sears PB, Cantlon JE. 1963. Report of the Ecology Study Committee.
Bull Ecol Soc Am 44(1):2(I.
Sears PB, Jansou E. 1931. The rate of peat accumulation in the
Ohio--Michigan area [abstract]. Bull Ecol Soc Am 12(4): 10-1
(unnumbered).
Shelford VE. 1934. Report of the Committee on the Study of Plant
and Animal Communities and the Committee on the Preservation of Natural
Conditions. Ecology 15(2):208-9.
Shelford VE. 1936. Report of the Committees on the Study of Plant
and Animal Communities, and Preservation of Natural Conditions. Ecology
17(2):312-4.
Steiber MS. 1980. Delectus Huntiana 2. Bull Hunt Inst Bot Document
2(2):3-5.
Stuckey RL. 1990. Paul Bigelow Sears (1891-1990): Eminent scholar,
ecologist, and couservationist. Ohio J Sci 90(5):186-90.
Test FH. 1955. Report of the Treasurer. Bull Ecol Soc Am
36(1):13-5.
Weaver JE, Vorhies CT, Coker RE. 1943. Report of the Nominating
Committee. Ecology 24(2):282.
ROBERT L. BURGESS (1931-2002) (1), College of Environmental Science
and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, NY
(1) Postumously published.