Big Ecology

Scientific collaborations have had a long and illustrious history. InBig Ecology, David C. Coleman documents his historically fruitful ecological collaborations in the early years of studying large ecosystems in the United States. As Coleman explains, the concept of the ecosystem-a local biological community and its interactions with its environment-has given rise to many institutions and research programs-the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research program is an example. Coleman's insider account of this important and fascinating trend toward big science takes us from the paradigm of collaborative interdisciplinary research, starting with the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957, through the International Biological Program (IBP) of the late 1960s and early 1970s, to the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) programs of the 1980s. These programs have fostered newer initiatives, such as the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) and the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and Coleman describes how these initiatives, all highly collaborative, will contribute to a better understanding of biodiversity and global change, and ecosystem structure and function.