Ecology Society Reaches Rare Consensus On Research Agenda

SNOWBIRD, UTAH--Time was when five ecologists couldn't sit in a room without arguing about what exactly their field was and where it was headed. Last month, however, about 2,000 of these scientists agreed on precisely those issues. The result is a document that commits ecologists to examine topics important to both science and society. Although the document summarizing that consensus has a long title, The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative: An Ecological Research Agenda for the Nineties, its message is short and direct. "We're really saying something quite bold: that critical ecological problems [worth researching] are tied to the needs of society," says Simon Levin, president of the Ecological Society of America, which prepared the agenda and presented it to members at last month's 75th annual meeting here. That approach bucks a tradition in which scientists study what intrigues them and are motivated primarily by their desire to make intellectual advances. "Our willingness to attach research priorities to societal needs is a rather dramatic statement," adds Levin, an ecologist at Cornell University. By early 1991 the society hopes to have a final version of its agenda that it can take on the road in a campaign for greater recognition of the field. "What we're calling for is a substantial increase in support for the fundamental research that needs to be done to address these issues," says Jane Lubchenco, chairman of zoology at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Even if the effort generates no new funds, Lubchenco and others believe the science and its scientists will still have benefited. The committee that penned the document was apprehensive about its reception. "I expected people to say there was no way [we could] set priorities," says Levin. "But no one said it was silly. They recognized the importance of setting an agenda, and had no qualms about the focus." Jane Lubchenco, chairman of zoology at Oregon State University, is a sort of woman who would make any Girl Scout leader proud. Last month she won over several thousand cantankerous colleagues (most of them male) with her straightforward, level-headed presentation of one of the more controversial undertakings of her professional group, the Ecological Society of America. As leader of the committee that wrote The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative: An Ecological Research Agenda for the Nineties, it fell on her shoulders to present that document to her peers--and gain their approval. She attributes her stage presence and her love of biology in part to many years as a Girl Scout growing up outside Denver. "I had lots of leadership opportunities. I had to run lots of meetings and give lots of speeches," she recalls. As a student in an all-girls high school, she also was quite active on the debate team and in extracurricular events. Indeed, her youth and her subsequent acceptance into a special nontraditional undergraduate program at Colorado College helped her develop into the scientist she is today. Before her senior year in college, she took a graduate invertebrate zoology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and was one of the few selected to do independent research. With invertebrate zoologist W.D. Russell-Hunter as her mentor, "I got a taste of what research was like, and I just loved it," she recalls. Lubchenco's background has helped her develop an appreciation for ecology's varied perspectives, an approach that helped build consensus for the society's new research agenda. Unlike most ecologists, who are schooled in one department's or one professor's approach to the science, Lubchenco hopped around the country following her husband, ecologist Bruce Menge. As a result, from 1969 until 1975 she trained at three very different institutions: the University of Washington in Seattle; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. She earned her Ph.D. at Harvard in 1975 and stayed on as an assistant professor until moving to Oregon. Even though she spends many hours shepherding her department and the research agenda, she still manages to find time for fieldwork. It was the combination of the intellectual challenge and the opportunity to get involved in things that were aesthetically pleasing that hooked her on biology, she says. As a population and a community ecologist, Lubchenco devotes her summers to exploring the slippery shores of the rocky intertidal coastline of the Pacific Northwest. "There's so many beautiful plants and animals; the seaweeds are really gorgeous," she says. "I really enjoy being out there. It's very calming." --E.P. The agenda outlines goals for research, education, and application in three areas: anticipating and preparing for global change, saving biological diversity, and maintaining a sustainable biological ecosystem. Those goals were selected because of their potential for contributing to fundamental ecological knowledge and for the potential to respond to human concerns regarding a sustainable environment. While these goals may not seem revolutionary, few ecologists would have accepted them even a decade ago. But times have changed, and so has the science. The public is more aware of environmental issues than ever before, and opportunities for ecologists have never been greater. Those changes are what prompted the ecological society to create a research agenda. Its purpose was threefold: to point the way for its members, to explain the field to the rest of the world, and to stake out a role that ecologists can play in current efforts to preserve the environment. "I think the society has come an incredible distance in the past three to five years in starting to realize the benefits of acting somewhat collectively and cooperatively instead of individualistically," says James Brown, an ecologist at the University of New Mexico. "And whether we like it or not, our time has come. We're right on center stage. Environmental issues are big issues." The health of the planet is a subject ecologists know a lot about. And the new research agenda is meant to erase their status as the Rodney Dangerfields of science: few people really know what ecology really is or what ecologists can offer. To the dismay of scientists, the public tends to use environmentalism and ecology interchangeably. "In fact, ecology is a scientific discipline, it's not an attitude [like environmentalism]," explains James MacMahon, dean of the college of science at Utah State University in Logan. Moreover, when companies and governments make decisions about the environment, these scientists are the last ones who are consulted. "Nonecologists are very quick to offer their advice--and their advice is taken," complains Patrice Morrow, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota. Ecologists bear some of the blame. Too often, they are viewed as too parochial, curious only about local problems in natural systems close to home. They also tend to be a fractious group, with one subdiscipline pitted against another--population ecology versus physiological ecology, applied versus basic, theoretical versus experimental. But ecologists don't want to be left behind as environmentalism becomes a pressing national cause. Hence the need for a research agenda. "Unless we do get our act together, other constituencies are going to reinvent ecology for us," says Hal Mooney, an ecologist at Stanford University. In addition, program officers from federal agencies had suggested that strategic plans would increase ecology's credibility among legislators and policy makers. That, in turn, could lead to bigger budgets. Sensing in 1988 that such a document was needed, then ESA president Mooney asked his vice president, marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco, to draw up such a plan. Lubchenco assembled a diversified committee that, with $125,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, devoted three meetings and numerous late nights in front of their computers to hashing out a report. Knowing that they had taken a new approach, Lubchenco and her committee were more than a little anxious when she presented the interim report at the ESA meeting. The committee warned the audience that there would be limited time for comments, and invited those present to air their views more fully at a workshop the next morning. Aware of the tension in the room, Lubchenco took the floor. Slowly, clearly, and deliberately, she explained each section. Then she offered a particular research project as an example of how the agenda tied into what scientists were doing. The audience, much to her relief, was impressed. Even so, when the committee convened that follow-up workshop, it expected the document might be torn apart. Instead, members were pleasantly surprised when only about 50 people showed up, many with specific, positive suggestions. There were few disparaging remarks. "Most are comfortable with the document," says Manuel Molles, an ecologist from the University of New Mexico. Lubchenco attributes the panel's success to the makeup and vision of the 16 committee members, to the contents of the report, and to the iterative process by which it was created. Within the committee, each section was rewritten by various members, and each draft was thrown out and then pieced back together at each meeting. But they didn't stop there. She and other committee members have talked about the document at numerous gatherings. The group hosted a workshop at the society's 1989 annual meeting, and invited input from members through the society's publications. Then Lubchenco asked the society's six sections and the regional groups for their criticisms. A draft was sent to 220 people for review, and 250 more copies have been distributed as a result of the August meeting. "We've had lots and lots of people give us suggestions," she says. "Everyone who has wanted to be involved has been involved." As a result, she believes that the report reflects the views of the society as a whole and not just a few people. The presentation itself provided a way to deflect confrontation. The workshop opened with formal critiques from three scientists. Those critiques, with Mooney's opening remarks during the comment session--the document was too narrow, too broad, too basic, and too applied--softened potentially caustic comments from the floor. They helped everyone recognize that no research agenda could be perfect. The initiative omits little, an approach that helped to mollify scientists concerned that their interests be represented. But it left some members feeling dissatisfied. "There are too many things in an unranked order," says Morrow. "There's not enough urgency." Ron Taper, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New Mexico, agrees. "The reality of the situation is we've got maybe 10 to 20 years," he adds. "It's time we all bite the bullet and focus on things of immediate, practical importance. We need priorities so we get things done." Lubchenco says that those and other criticism will be incorporated into subsequent drafts. Eugene Odum, a grandfather of the field and an ecologist at the University of Georgia, was loudly applauded when he urged that the agenda be more interdisciplinary. "Anything we suggest is not going anywhere unless it includes economics," he argues. Several scientists called for research on the human influences, and a bold statement on the need to curb human population growth. "They are telling us that part of the document needs to say that applied needs can drive basic questions, says Lubchenco. The next version should be ready in October, and a final one published in early 1991. Then the society hopes to set up workshops for ecologists to spell out their research priorities and increase their efforts to communicate these ideas to policy makers, the public, and the federal government. Even without an influx of new money, however, Lubchenco thinks that the work will have an impact on her field. Four young faculty came up to her after her presentation to tell her that the agenda had given them new research ideas and helped them understand how to improve their teaching methods. "And that meant a lot to me," she says.

Ecology Society Reaches Rare Consensus On Research Agenda

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