Modeling Nature

A history of population ecology which traces two generations of science and scientists from the opening of the 20th century through 1970. Kingsland chronicles the careers of key figures and the field's theoretical, empirical and institutional development, with attention paid to tensions between the descriptive studies of field biologists and later mathematical models. This text debates the rise of "the new natural history" and examines the ecology's future as a large-scale scientific enterprize.