Ecology in the long manuscript version of Darwin's Origin of species and Linnaeus' Oeconomy of nature.

Abstract

IN the midst of celebrations of the centennial of the public announcement of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, it might seem inappropriate to turn our attention to discuss Darwin's views on what was soon to be christened ecology.' Although Darwin's expression of his ecological ideas might appear to be only incidental to his arguments for the reality of evolution and for the importance of natural selection as a mechanism of evolution, yet full understanding of the action of natural selection requires analysis of the relations of plants and animals to each other and to their environment, and study of the of the struggle for existence leads directly into ecology. And thus ecology is an indispensable adjunct to the study of evolution. This paper will examine Darwin's ecological views, the relation of these views to his theory of evolution and their probable sources his experience and his reading. Darwin's influence on the history of ecology resulted the very christening of the science itself by Ernst Haeckel who once explained that By ecology we mean the body of knowledge concerning the economy of nature and who concluded in a word, ecology is the study of all those complex interrelationships referred, to by Darwin as the conditions of the struggle for existence. 2