What is an ecologist these days? This nebulous scientific discipline, perpetually self-conscious of its red-headed stepchild status among “hard” scientists, has spent the last three decades acting out a napoleon complex through research into the Sacred F’s: anything with Fur, Fins, Feathers or Flowers. For a discipline with a terminal identity crisis, it’s been a highly effective financial strategy that’s led to a good run. Research in “ecology” – the study of interactions – boomed in the 1970s as legal mandates pumped money into the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and Clean Air Act. But the low hanging fruit of addressing discrete environmental flashpoints – e.g. point source pollutants like industrial discharges and indicator species like the northern spotted owl – has been picked. Here’s the catch: the future of our society resides not in warm and fuzzy critters, but rather more abstracted, non-point resources: water and carbon. Political winds are shifting, and funding is going with it. And all of a sudden, ecologists are being left without a story to tell that justifies their purpose.
The response by ecologists so far has been to morph into “ecosystem biogeochemists” or "global biologists" (titles that are simultaneously all-compassing and vaguely generic… kinda like Amway, for scientists). Yes, research ecologists are here to save us again, pretending all along that they were integrative masters of soil science, hydrology, terrestrial biology, and atmospheric science – or that all those groups somehow managed to miss seeing the forest through the trees because their models were too simplistic. Self-preservation is the most powerful motivator, and a discipline that focused laser like on the mating patterns of Sierra Club pin up creatures is now finding absurdly creative ways to tap into the new funding stream (track the rhetoric emerging under the NEON umbrella for examples).
Honestly, do we really need a newly reinvented group of egoists at the science table? You can bet the cadre of ecologists who find a seat on the water/carbon gravy train will be leading the charge towards obscurity and esoterica. At the same time, an acknowledged glut of peer reviewed papers is contributing to the marginalization of environmental sciences as tools to effectively guide policy at a critical juncture.
It’s not knowledge we lack. What we lack is the ability to simply and elegantly understand what we know and draw conclusions. Personally, my money is against born-again ecologists contributing to the formation of a useful, cohesive message. But like any good scientist, I ask only one thing: please prove me wrong.
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