Pioniers zonder opvolgers. De moeizame ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse plantenecologie

Abstract

Pioneers without successors. The haphazard development of Dutch plant ecology Dutch botany in the nineteenth century focussed on the description of the flora of The Netherlands and its colonies. From 1900 onwards plant physiology gained momentum, but field work and laboratory activities were not linked together. Consequently, favourable conditions for the development of plant ecology were lacking. Unlike in the homeland this prerequisite was fulfilled in the Netherlands East Indies. The botanical garden in Buitenzorg under the directorship of Melchior Treub was a well-known international centre for the study of tropical vegetation. However, this did not change the poor linkage between field and experimental botany in The Netherlands. Plant ecological investigations were rare and did not form a coherent discipline. Interesting publications from the pioneer period (1870-1954) are discussed here. Most of these plant ecological publications were PhD-theses. The oldest ones were a mixture of descriptions of local floras and plant communities and some aspects of the environmental conditions. Environmental factors, particularly chalk, were discussed or even sampled, but experiments to assess causal relationships were not carried out. In two theses published about 1930 the ecological component was more explicit. Apart from the above-mentioned correlative descriptions these dissertations dealt with the germination and establishment of plants with reference to the factor salt. In addition, this problem was investigated experimentally. Salt plants and their ecophysiology were treated in two theses from about 1940. The.se studies were inspired by Th. Weevers. Weevers was professor of plant physiology and at the same time a great naturalist. This unusual combination e.xplains why these exceptional specimens of pure ecology in the pioneer period of Dutch plant ecology could occur. L.G.M. Baas Becking published the first textbook of plant ecology in 1934. It is the only broad-scale publication that emphasized fundamental issues of ecology. Advanced plant ecology commenced around the middle of the twentieth century. D. Bakker introduced in his 1951 thesis a multi-dimensional analytical approach in combination with field work. He was the first who practised autecology as a discipline. The Institute for Ecological Research was founded in 1954 and in 1961 Bakker became the first professor of plant ecology.