scholarly journals Marine Sciences: from natural history to ecology and back, on Darwin's shoulders

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinando Boero
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Marine Biology ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Marine Ecology ◽  
Biological Oceanography ◽  
Marine Realm ◽  
Marine Station ◽  
Synthetic Approaches ◽  
Analytical Tools

The naturalist Charles Darwin founded modern ecology, considering in a single conceptual framework the manifold aspects regarding the organization of life at various levels of complexity and its relationship with the physical world. The development of powerful analytical tools led to abandon Darwin's natural history and to transform naturalists, as Darwin labelled himself, into the practitioners of more focused disciplines, aimed at tackling specific problems that considered the various aspects of the organization of life in great detail but, also, in isolation from each other. Among the various disciplines that stemmed from the Darwinian method, ecology was further split into many branches, and marine ecology was no exception. The compartmentalization of the marine realm into several sub-domains (e.g., plankton, benthos, nekton) led to neglect of the connections linking the various parts that were separated for the ease of analyses that, in this way, prevented synthetic visions. The way marine sciences were studied also led to separate visions depending on the employed tools, so that ship-based biological oceanography developed almost separately from marine station-based marine biology. The necessity of putting together such concepts as biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is rapidly leading to synthetic approaches that re-discover the historical nature of ecology, leading to the dawn of a new natural history.

John Robertson Henderson (1863–1925): Scotland, India and anomuran taxonomy

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-75
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Christian College ◽  
Apparent Absence ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Marine Station ◽  
The University ◽  
Crustacean Taxonomy

John Robertson Henderson was born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he qualified as a doctor. His interest in marine natural history was fostered at the Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research at Granton (near Edinburgh) where his focus on anomuran crustaceans emerged, to the extent that he was eventually invited to compile the anomuran volume of the Challenger expedition reports. He left Scotland for India in autumn 1885 to take up the Chair of Zoology at Madras Christian College, shortly after its establishment. He continued working on crustacean taxonomy, producing substantial contributions to the field; returning to Scotland in retirement in 1919. The apparent absence of communication with Alfred William Alcock, a surgeon-naturalist with overlapping interests in India, is highlighted but not resolved.

The Legacy of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians’

2019 ◽  
pp. 156-195
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Medical Student ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

The penultimate chapter looks at the longer-term impact of the efflorescence of evolutionary speculation in early-nineteenth-century Edinburgh on later generations of natural historians. First it examines the evangelical reaction against progressive models of the history of life and its role in the eclipse of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians.’ Next it examines to the evolutionary theory proposed by Robert Chambers in his anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) to assess its possible debt to the Edinburgh transformists of the 1820s and 1830s. Finally it turns to the important question of the possible influence of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians’ on Charles Darwin during his time as a medical student in Edinburgh in the years 1825 to 1827, during which period he rubbed shoulders with many of the key proponents of evolutionary ideas in the city.

Seumas O’Sullivan and Revivalist Nature Poetry

2019 ◽  
pp. 203-222
Author(s):  
Seán Hewitt
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Nature Poetry ◽  
Celtic Revival ◽  
Natural Historian

The Irish Revival was, amongst other things, an attempt to ‘re-enchant’ the Irish natural world as both a protest against Anglicisation and Enlightenment values. Through a study of the poetry of a lesser-known Revivalist poet, Seumas O’Sullivan, who was a keen natural historian, and thus engaged with the popular discourses and practices of natural science in the period, this chapter discusses Revivalist nature poetry as a form of ‘re-enchantment’. In doing so, it also considers how engagement with natural history in the period effected a shift in the poetic relationship to materiality, considering the movement between Celtic Revival poetry and later Revivalist work in term of a closer attention to the physical world.

Australian Bryozoa Volume 1

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Invasive Species ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Marine Biology ◽  
Freshwater Species ◽  
Aquatic Animals ◽  
Marine Fouling ◽  
Biology Students ◽  
The World ◽  
Fouling Organisms

Bryozoans are aquatic animals that form colonies of connected individuals. They take a variety of forms: some are bushy and moss-like, some are flat and encrusting and others resemble lace. Bryozoans are mostly marine, with species found in all oceans from sublittoral to abyssal depths, but freshwater species also exist. Some bryozoans are of concern as marine-fouling organisms and invasive species, while others show promise as sources of anticancer, antiviral and antifouling substances. Written by experts in the field, Australian Bryozoa Volume 1: Biology, Ecology and Natural History is the first of two volumes describing Australia’s 1200 known species of bryozoans, the richest diversity of bryozoans of any country in the world. It contains chapters on the discovery of bryozoans, their morphology, classification and fossil history, their roles in biosecurity and marine benthic environments, and potential uses in biotechnology and ocean acidification. It provides an authoritative reference for biology students, academics and others interested in marine biology.

scholarly journals Editorial Foreword

2005 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-441
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Trautmann
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Earth History ◽  
The People ◽  
Editorial Foreword

POWER FLOWER Imperial science and its collaborations, its landscapes, and its audiences is the theme of many interesting studies of late, including several pieces in this journal, such as Robert Shanafelt, “How Charles Darwin Got Emotional Expression out of South Africa (and the People who Helped Him)” (2003: 783–814), and Saul Dubow, “Earth History, Natural History, and Prehistory at the Cape, 1860–1875” (2004: 107–33). The first essay examines the practice and narrativizing of flower-collecting under imperial conditions.

Darwin’s forgotten weevil

Zootaxa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2675 (1) ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROLF G. OBERPRIELER ◽  
RICHARD T. THOMPSON ◽  
MAGNUS PETERSON
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Current Distribution ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Diagnostic Features ◽  
History Museum ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Senior Synonym ◽  
Fragmented Distribution

G. R. Waterhouse (1839) described the first species of weevil from the specimens collected by Charles Darwin in Australia in 1836. Named Belus testaceus, it was subsequently forgotten in all literature on Australian Belidae. Study of the type, as preserved in the Natural History Museum, London, revealed its name to be a senior synonym of Belus linearis Pascoe, 1870 (syn. n.). Known from only another six specimens taken about a century ago at the same locality, King George Sound (present-day Albany) in Western Australia, plus another four of uncertain origin, this species, now in the genus Stenobelus Zimmerman, appears to be restricted to the southern tip of Western Australia but of unknown current distribution, if it is indeed still extant. The only other species of the genus, S. tibialis (Blackburn), has a wider but highly fragmented distribution across Australia, apparently being common only in the acid swamplands (wallum) of south-eastern Queensland. The larval hostplants of both species are unknown. Diagnoses are provided for the genus Stenobelus as well as for its two species, and the holotypes of all applicable names are illustrated, together with the diagnostic features of the genus. Six species recently transferred to Stenobelus from Rhinotia by Legalov (2009) are again excluded from this genus, and the name of the subgenus Germaribelus Legalov, 2009 is placed in synonymy with Rhinotia Kirby, 1819 (syn. n.).

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