Representations of the Natural System in the Nineteenth century

‘The Natural System’ is the abstract notion of the order in living diversity. The richness and complexity of this notion is revealed by the diversity of representations of the Natural System drawn by ornithologists in the Nineteenth Century. These representations varied in overall form from stars, to circles, to maps, to evolutionary trees and cross-sections through trees. They differed in their depiction of affinity, analogy, continuity, directionality, symmetry, reticulation and branching, evolution, and morphological convergence and divergence. Some representations were two-dimensional, and some were three-dimensional; n-dimensional representations were discussed but never illustrated. The study of diagrammatic representations of the Natural System is made difficult by the frequent failure of authors to discuss them in their texts, and by the consequent problem of distinguishing features which carried meaning from arbitrary features and printing conventions which did not. Many of the systematics controversies of the last thirty years have their roots in the conceptual problems which surrounded the Natural System in the late 1800s, problems which were left unresolved when interest in higher-level systematics declined at the turn of this century. From the symposium ‘Making Sense of Science Making Diagrams’, held at the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology meeting, London, Ontario, 1989.     

How to make oneself nature's spokesman? A latourian account of classification in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century natural history

Classification in eighteenth-century natural history was marked by a battle of systems. The Linnaean approach to classification was severely criticized by those naturalists who aspired to a truly natural system. But how to make oneself nature's spokesman? In this article I seek to answer that question using the approach of the French anthropologist of science Bruno Latour in a discussion of the work of the French naturalists Buffon and Cuvier in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. These naturalists followed very different strategies in creating and defending of what they believed to be a natural classification in zoology. Buffon failed, whereas Cuvier's work appeared to be very successful. My argument will be that, to explain Buffon's failure and Cuvier's success, we should not focus on the epistemological or theoretical concerns and justifications of these naturalists, but on the concrete and heterogeneous means or tools through which animals were mobilized, stabilized and combined into ever more comprehensive systems of classification.     

Weeds of Kentucky and Adjacent States. A field guide. By Patricia Dalton Haragan The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0336

In 1843 S. B. Buckley (1809–1884) traveled up the St. Johns River, Florida in search of plants, shells, and possibly other natural history objects. Buckley encountered many difficulties in interior Florida and his trip did not live up to his original expectations. It was unfortunate that the took years to distribute his plant specimens, since few botanists or naturalists had preceded him into that poorly explored region.     

A pervasive denigration of natural history misconstrues how biodiversity inventories and taxonomy underpin scientific knowledge

Embracing comparative biology, natural history encompasses those sciences that discover, decipher and classify unique (idiographic) details of landscapes, and extinct and extant biodiversity. Intrinsic to these multifarious roles in expanding and consolidating research and knowledge, natural history endows keystone support to the veracity of law-like (nomothetic) generalizations in science. What science knows about the natural world is governed by an inherent function of idiographic discovery; characteristic of natural history, this relationship is exemplified wherever an idiographic discovery overturns established wisdom. This nature of natural history explicates why inventories are of such epistemological importance. Unfortunately, a Denigration of Natural History weakens contemporary science from within. It expresses in the prevalent, pervasive failure to appreciate this pivotal role of idiographic research: a widespread disrespect for how natural history undergirds scientific knowledge. Symptoms of this Denigration of Natural History present in negative impacts on scientific research and knowledge. One symptom is the failure to appreciate and support the inventory and monitoring of biodiversity. Another resides in failures of scientiometrics to quantify how taxonomic publications sustain and improve knowledge. Their relevance in contemporary science characteristically persists and grows; so the temporal eminence of these idiographic publications extends over decades. This is because they propagate a succession of derived scientific statements, findings and/or conclusions - inherently shorter-lived, nomothetic publications. Widespread neglect of natural science collections is equally pernicious, allied with disregard for epistemological functions of specimens, whose preservation maintains the veracity of knowledge. Last, but not least, the decline in taxonomic expertise weakens research capacity; there are insufficient skills to study organismal diversity in all of its intricacies. Beyond weakening research capacities and outputs across comparative biology, this Denigration of Natural History impacts on the integrity of knowledge itself, undermining progress and pedagogy throughout science. Unprecedented advances in knowledge are set to follow on consummate inventories of biodiversity, including the protists. These opportunities challenge us to survey biodiversity representatively—detailing the natural history of species. Research strategies cannot continue to ignore arguments for such an unprecedented investment in idiographic natural history. Idiographic shortcuts to general (nomothetic) insights simply do not exist. The biodiversity sciences face a stark choice. No matter how charismatic its portrayed species, an incomplete ‘Brochure of Life’ cannot match the scientific integrity of the ‘Encyclopedia of Life’.     

What does it mean to be wild? Assessing human influence on the environments of nonhuman primate specimens in museum collections

ObjectivesNatural history collections are often thought to represent environments in a pristine natural state—free from human intervention—the so‐called “wild.” In this study, we aim to assess the level of human influence represented by natural history collections of wild‐collected primates over 120 years at the Smithsonian Institution''s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).Materials and MethodsOur sample consisted of 875 catarrhine primate specimens in NMNH collections, representing 13 genera collected in 39 countries from 1882 to 2004. Using archival and accession information we determined the approximate locations from which specimens were collected. We then plotted location coordinates onto publicly available anthrome maps created by Ellis et al. (Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2010, 19, 589), which delineate terrestrial biomes of human population density and land use worldwide since the 1700s.ResultsWe found that among primates collected from their native ranges, 92% were from an environment that had some level of human impact, suggesting that the majority of presumed wild‐collected primate specimens lived in an environment influenced by humans during their lifetimes.DiscussionThe degree to which human‐modified environments may have impacted the lives of primates currently held in museum collections has been historically ignored, implicating unforeseen consequences for collection‐based research. While unique effects related to commensalism with humans remain understudied, effects currently attributed to natural phenomena may, in fact, be related to anthropogenic pressures on unmanaged populations of primates.     

Evolutionary Theory and the Florence Paleontological Collections

Florence has a tradition of Natural Philosophy, and since as early as the sixteenth century fossils were collected by the Granduke. The Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence houses today collections that belonged to Nicolas Steno, when fossils were for the first time used as documents to reconstruct Earth history. Natural philosophers and geologists, both Italian and foreigners, continued to study fossils collected in Tertiary strata of Tuscany until the nineteenth century, when the first speculations on the origin of species were proposed. Charles Darwin himself mentions fossil vertebrates that are today on show in our museum. In the last years, this part of the history of science has been proposed to the public. The aim was to foster an understanding of the centrality of fossils in two cultural revolutions, the discovery of deep time and the birth of evolutionary theory–connected among themselves and with the emergence of geology. Dedicated volumes, public conferences, guided visits to the collections, and field trips to paleontological sites have attracted an attentive and responsive public, showing that the history of science can help deliver modern evolutionary thinking. Other activities aimed at students of all ages have also shown that the interaction between schools, university teachers, and museum personnel is vital to form the mind of future generations on the reality of the evolution of natural systems.     

The role of the amateur in mycology—what would we do without them!

The amateur's role in the history of mycology will be traced from its early roots deeply based in the collection of fungi for food to the amateur's present day activities. Attention will be drawn to the most important key amateur figures studying fungi solely or as a wider part of natural history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the early part of the present century. How their work influenced the development of mycology will be demonstrated. It is often forgotten that the authorities attached to fungal names, including those we use in mycology on a daily basis, often belong to amateurs. The true professions of these amateurs, the net-work of correspondents they developed, etc. will be revealed and discussed in the context of an overall understanding of fungi as organisms. In addition the formation of mycological societies, and how they have become a focus of amateur activity and a source of accurate and disciplined information valuable to professional scientists will be plotted. The kind of work undertaken by amateurs I refer to will be demonstrated by documenting the activities of the British Mycological Society which celebrated its centenary in 1996. The continuing work of this band of workers and their counterparts throughout the world in the closing years of the millennium will be described. It is argued that they are nationally important and necessary resources, despite many governments or their advisers, especially the most influential ones, being under the delusion that systematics is not cutting edge science. It is also emphasized that amateurs will have an even more important role to play in the future as custodians of knowledge—until hopefully opinions change. The essential points of this paper were addressed to the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Mycological Society of Japan held at Kyoto University, Kyoto, on 16–17, May 1998.     

Christian Ludwig Brehm (1787–1864) über Spezies und Subspezies von V?geln

Zusammenfassung Christian Ludwig Brehm wollte die Kenntnis der Naturgeschichte jeder europ ?ischen Vogelart, einschlie?lich ihrer jahreszeitlichen Wanderungen, vertiefen und analysierte deshalb auch die Variation der V?gel in vielen Einzelheiten. Von den geographischen Subspezies in verschiedenen Gebieten Europas, die er beschrieben hat, wurden 55 sp?ter anerkannt. Darüber hinaus glaubte Brehm, dass viele weit verbreitete Artenzur Brutzeit in Mitteleuropa ein ?kologisch bestimmtes, mikrogeographisches Mosaik unterschiedlich differenzierter Populationen bilden. Diese von ihm ebenfalls mit Subspezies-Namen versehenen „Formen“ haben sich sp?ter als individuelle Varianten von morphologisch einheitlichen Brutpopulationen herausgestellt und k?nnen nicht mit eigenen Namen taxonomisch unterschieden werden. Jedoch wurde in sp?teren Jahrzehnten bei vielen Vogelarten innerhalb von geographischen Subspezies die Existenz von ?kologischen Sippen, die sich durch biologische Besonderheiten unterscheiden, festgestellt. Brehms taxonomisches System der V?gel umfasste wie das seiner Kollegen Spezies und diesen untergeordnete Subspezies (die er zun?chst Nebenarten genannt hatte). Ab 1826 behandelte Brehm die Subspezies als jeweils eigene Fortpflanzungsgemeinschaften begrifflich wie „Arten“, aber bündelte die meisten gleichzeitig zu polytypischen Spezies. Seine eigenwillige Bezeichnungsweise (Nomenklatur) von Arten und Unterarten (Subspezies) wurde durch nahezu alle Ornithologen im 20. Jahrhundert missverstanden. In seinemHandbuch der Naturgeschichte aller V?gel Deutschlands (1831) nummerierte Brehm, beginnend mit der Ziffer 1, die jeweils mit einem Binomen gekennzeichneten Subspezies einer polytypischen Art (z. B. 1–3) und fügte ihnen den gemeinsamen Artnamen jeweils in Klammern hinzu. Die Subspezies-Abfolge (z. B. 1–5) der n?chsten polytypischen Art beginnt wieder mit der Zahl 1. Monotypische Arten sind nicht nummeriert. In sp?teren Listen (1855a, b) hat er das hierarchische System von Genus, Spezies und Subspezies klarer dargestellt als in früheren Publikationen. Insgesamt betonte Brehm in seinem Werk die Analyse der kleinsten morphologisch-?kologischen Einheiten (Subspezies), w?hrend seine Kollegen und Widersacher F. Faber und C. W. L. Gloger deren Synthese zu weit umgrenzten taxonomischen Arten hervorhoben.

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Christian Ludwig Brehm (1787–1864) on species and subspecies of birds

Summary C. L. Brehm’s main ornithological objective was to increase the knowledge of the natural history of the European bird species including their seasonal migrations. For this reason he analyzed in detail the variation of birds and described many subspecies from different regions of Europe. 55 of his geographical subspecies have later been accepted as valid. In addition, Brehm suggested that,during the breeding season, most widely distributed species of birds form an ecologically determined microgeographical mosaic of slightly differentiated populations each of which he also distinguished by a separate subspecies name. However, these named groups later turned out to have been based on individual variants of widespread breeding populations which cannot be designated with separate taxonomic names. On the other hand, during the 20^th century, the existence of ecological forms within subspecies differing in certain biological characteristics has been confirmed for many bird species. Like his colleagues, Brehm distinguished species and subspecies of birds. Beginning in 1826, he treated the subspecies as separate reproductive communities conceptually like „species“. At the same time, however, he grouped most of them into polytypic species. In hisHandbook of the Natural History of all the Birds of Germany (1831) Brehm numbered the subspecies of a particular species consecutively (e. g. 1–3) and gave each of them a Latin binomen followed in parentheses by their common species name. The sequence of subspecies composing the next species (e. g. 1–5) begins again with that species’ subspecies number 1. Monotypic species are not numbered. In later lists (1855a, b) he presented the hierarchic system of genus, species and subspecies more clearly than in his earlier publications. Generally speaking, Brehm emphasized in his work the analysis of the smallest morphological-ecological units (subspecies), while his colleagues and adversaries F. Faber and C. W. L. Gloger practiced the combination (synthesis) of subspecies into broadly delimited taxonomic species.

     

On Whose Authority? Temminck’s Debates on Zoological Classification and Nomenclature: 1820–1850

By following the arguments between Coenraad J. Temminck and fellow ornithologists Louis J.-P. Vieillot and Nicholas Vigors, this paper sketches, to a degree, the state of zoological classification and nomenclature between 1825 and 1840 in Europe. The discussions revolved around the problems caused by an unstable nomenclature, the different definitions of genera and species and the best method to achieve a natural system of classification. As more and more naturalists concerned with classifying and arranging the groups of birds joined these discussions, a broad platform for debate emerged around the 1840s that gave a major impulse to the disciplines of taxonomy and systematics. Natural history ceased to be dominated by a few influential scientific authorities and became the scientific field where debate preceded agreement and, with it, progress. With this ‘democratization’ of natural history, Temminck’s status significantly changed between 1815 and 1840. After that year, his own views on classification along with certain economical and political developments in The Netherlands led Temminck to abandon the arena of ornithology and therefore, to lose his scientific authority.     

Fostering the rebirth of natural history

Natural history as we have known it is in decline. A growing movement is emerging across disciplines, to understand its decline, and nurture its rebirth. A network of like-minded scientists, resource managers, educators, writers and artists-natural historians-recently convened four consecutive Natural History Initiative workshops to move past the forensic study of natural history, and instead focus on solutions, conspiring to identify opportunities that dovetail the practice of natural history with essential needs of modern science and society, and suggest ways forward. This series of workshops occurred at various locations in the western United States during the winter and spring of 2011, and recently culminated in a Synthesis Summit on 20-24 June 2011.     

Identification Keys,the “Natural Method,” and the Development of Plant Identification Manuals

The origins of field guides and other plant identification manuals have been poorly understood until now because little attention has been paid to 18th century botanical identification guides. Identification manuals came to have the format we continue to use today when botanical instructors in post-Revolutionary France combined identification keys (step-wise analyses focusing on distinctions between plants) with the “natural method” (clustering of similar plants, allowing for identification by gestalt) and alphabetical indexes. Botanical works featuring multiple but linked techniques to enable plant identification became very popular in France by the first decade of the 19th century. British botanists, however, continued to use Linnaeus’s sexual system almost exclusively for another two decades. Their reluctance to use other methods or systems of classification can be attributed to a culture suspicious of innovation, anti-French sentiment and the association of all things Linnaean with English national pride, fostered in particular by the President of the Linnean Society of London, Sir James Edward Smith. The British aversion to using multiple plant identification technologies in one text also helps explain why it took so long for English botanists to adopt the natural method, even after several Englishmen had tried to introduce it to their country. Historians of ornithology emphasize that the popularity of ornithological guides in the 19th and 20th centuries stems from their illustrations, illustrations made possible by printing technologies that improved illustration quality and reduced costs. Though illustrations are the most obvious features of late 19th century and 20th century guides, the organizational principles that make them functional as identification devices come from techniques developed in botanical works in the 18th century.     

New approach for evaluating habitat stability using scarce records for both historical and contemporary specimens: a case study using Carabidae specimen records

Natural history collections, such as specimen records, are crucial resources for conservation and habitat management. However, these data are usually scarce compared to physical environmental data (e.g., digital terrain maps) that we often have little species data and a lot of physical environmental data with which to evaluate habitats. In this paper, we propose a method for evaluating habitat stability using scarce natural history records and abundant physical environmental data. We used both historical and contemporary specimen records of carabid beetles (areas in which records of the same species were recorded during both periods) and evaluated the attributes of these areas using terrain characteristics. We found two common terrain characteristics among the occupied areas: large total river length and low variation in elevation. These terrain characteristics suggest that habitats of carabid species have been conserved in disturbed and wet environments for a long time. These results are consistent with the ecological characteristics of carabid beetles. Our study shows that scarce natural history collections, combined with ingenuity, can be useful for evaluating habitats.     

The Young Naturalists' Society and Natural History in the Northwest

SYNOPSIS. The beginnings of professional natural history inSeattle date from 1879. In this year a group of young men whowere completely untrained in the sciences formed the Young Naturalists'Society. The society quickly grew to eventually become a majorinstitution for natural history investigations in the PugetSound area at the end of the nineteenth century. The activitiesof the Young Naturalists included collecting a large and impressivecabinet, exchanging specimens with naturalists throughout theUnited States, organizing expeditions for marine investigations,and providing educational opportunities for the public throughlectures, public exhibits, newspaper reports, and summer Chautauqua.As the society became more professional in its work, it developedstrong ties to the University of Washington. In fact, by themid-1890s it was difficult to separate the natural history worksponsored by the University from the studies under the aegisof the Young Naturalists. Eventually the society disbanded andbecame absorbed by the various natural science departments ofthe University and by the Washington State Museum. The importanceof the Young Naturalists' was through its critical role in providingthe foundation for the development of a professional naturalhistory community in Seattle.     

The Bee Battles: Karl von Frisch,Adrian Wenner and the Honey Bee Dance Language Controversy

In 1967, American biologist Adrian Wenner (1928–) launched an extensive challenge to Karl von Frisch’s (1886–1982) theory that bees communicate to each other the direction and distance of food sources by a symbolic dance language. Wenner and various collaborators argued that bees locate foods solely by odors. Although the dispute had largely run its course by 1973 – von Frisch was awarded a Nobel Prize, while Wenner withdrew from active bee research – it offers us a rare window into mid-twentieth century discussions about animals, language, and cognition. Historians, sociologists, and scientists have commented on the debate and its outcome, but none has seriously questioned why von Frisch and Wenner pursued such different explanations of the bees’ dances. In this paper, I explore von Frisch and Wenner’s differing visions of animals and their behaviors and show how these contributed to their respective positions. Von Frisch’s early-twentieth-century training in experimental physiology disposed him to focus on individual animals, their abilities, and their behaviors’ evolutionary significance. Wenner, by contrast, was trained in mathematics and statistics and the Schneirla school of behavior. He viewed the bees’ behaviors probabilistically with an eye toward the entire hive and its surroundings and ultimately explained them in terms of simple stimulus–response conditioning. Finally, while the debate was resolved in von Frisch’s favor, he neither waged nor won the battle by himself. Instead, I show that practitioners, whose agendas ranged from the nascent fields of sociobiology to cognitive ethology, took up the cause of the communicating bees. Winner of the 2005 International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology Marjorie Grene Graduate Student Essay Prize.     

Threads that Guide or Ties that Bind: William Kirby and the Essentialism Story

Nineteenth-century British entomologist William Kirby is best known for his generic division of bees based on tongues and his vigorous defence of natural theology. Focusing on these aspects of Kirby’s work has lead many current scholars to characterise Kirby as an “essentialist.” As a result of this characterisation, many important aspects of his work, Monographia Apum Angliæ (1802) have been over-looked or misunderstood. Kirby’s religious devotion, for example, have lead some scholars to assume Kirby used the term “type” for connecting an ontological assumption about essences with a creationist assumption about species fixity, which I argue conceals a variety of ways Kirby employed the term. Also, Kirby frequently cautioned against organising a classification system exclusively by what he called “analytic reasoning,” a style of reasoning 20th century scholars often associate with Aristotelian logic of division. I argue that Kirby’s critique of analytic reasoning brought the virtues of his own methodological agenda into sharp relief. Kirby used familiar metaphors in the natural history literature – Ariadne’s thread, the Eleusinian mysteries, and Bacon’s bee and spider metaphors – to emphasise the virtues of building tradition and cooperation in the goals and methodological practices of 19th century British naturalists.     

Naturalists, Molecular Biologists, and the Challenges of Molecular Evolution

Biologists and historians often present natural history and molecular biology as distinct, perhaps conflicting, fields in biological research. Such accounts, although supported by abundant evidence, overlook important areas of overlap between these areas. Focusing upon examples drawn particularly from systematics and molecular evolution, I argue that naturalists and molecular biologists often share questions, methods, and forms of explanation. Acknowledging these interdisciplinary efforts provides a more balanced account of the development of biology during the post-World War II era. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Peripheral vision: science and creole patriotism in eighteenth-century Spanish America

This article examines the study of natural history on the imperial periphery in late colonial Spanish America. It considers the problems that afflicted peripheral naturalists—lack of books, instruments, scholarly companionship, and skilled technicians. It discusses how these deprivations impacted upon their self-confidence and credibility as men of science and it examines the strategies adopted by peripheral naturalists to boost their scientific credibility. The article argues that Spanish American savants, deprived of the most up-to-date books and sophisticated instruments, emphasised instead their sustained experience of local nature and their familiarity with indigenous knowledge. It details how some creole naturalists, such as the Mexican José Antonio Alzate, questioned the applicability of European classificatory systems to American fauna and flora, and it analyses the complex relationship between natural science and creole patriotism.