Henry Gleason
Encyclopedia
Henry Allan Gleason was a noted American ecologist
, botanist
, and taxonomist
, most recognized for his endorsement of the individualistic/open community concept of ecological succession
.
, and after undergraduate and master's work at the University of Illinois
earned a PhD from Columbia University
in 1906. He held faculty positions at the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan
, before returning to the East Coast, to the New York Botanical Garden
in the Bronx
, New York
, where he remained for the rest of his career, until 1950.
In Gleason's early ecological
research on the vegetation
of Illinois
, around 1909-1912, he worked largely within the theoretical structure endorsed by ecologist
Frederic Clements
, whose work on succession
was the most influential during the first decades of the twentieth century. Building on Henry C. Cowles
's landmark research at the Indiana Dunes and some of the ideas of his mentor Charles Bessey at the University of Nebraska, Clements had developed a theory of plant succession in which vegetation could be explained by reference to an ideal sequence of development called a sere. Clements sometimes compared the development of seres to the growth of individual organism
s, and suggested that under the right circumstances, seres would culminate in the best adapted
form of vegetation, which he called the climax
state. In his early research, Gleason interpreted the vegetation of Illinois using Clementsian concepts like associations
, climax states, pioneer species, and dominant species.
However, in 1917, Gleason began to express significant doubts on the usefulness of some of Clements's widely-employed vocabulary, especially the use of the organism metaphor
to describe the growth of vegetation, and the treatment of the units of vegetation as including climaxes. (What units should be used in the analysis of vegetation was a widely disputed issue in early twentieth-century ecology.) In 1926, Gleason expressed even stronger objections to Clements's theory. First, he argued that Clements's identification of particular kinds
of vegetation assumed too much homogeneity, since areas of vegetation are actually similar to one another only to degrees. Second, he argued that Clements's associating particular vegetation types with particular areas underestimated the real diversity of vegetation. These objections together cast doubt, for Gleason, on the "integrity of the association
concept" itself—on identifying any grouping of species as amounting to a nameable association, like "oak-maple association," as botanists and ecologists (including Gleason himself) normally had.
As an alternative to describing vegetation in terms of associations
, Gleason offered "the Individualistic concept of ecology," in which "the phenomena of vegetation depend completely upon the phenomena of the individual" species (1917), and plant associations are less structured than he thought Clements's theory maintained. At times, Gleason suggested that the distribution of plants approaches mathematical randomness
.
Clements never responded in print to Gleason's objections and alternative models, and they were largely ignored until the 1950s, when research by a number of ecologists (particularly Robert Whittaker
and John T. Curtis) supported Gleasonian models. Subsequently, 'species-individualistic' models have become prevalent in community ecology.
Frustration due to dismissal of his ecological ideas without serious consideration may have contributed to Gleason's general abandonment of ecology. From the 1930s onward, he shifted the focus of his work to plant taxonomy, where he became an influential figure, working for many years at the New York Botanical garden, and authoring with Arthur Cronquist
one of the authoritative floras of northeastern North America.
His elder son, Henry Allan Gleason Jr (1917–2007), was a linguist
and Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto
. His second son, Andrew Gleason
, (1921–2008), was a mathematician and Professor Emeritus at Harvard University
.
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
, botanist
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
, and taxonomist
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
, most recognized for his endorsement of the individualistic/open community concept of ecological succession
Ecological succession
Ecological succession, is the phenomenon or process by which a community progressively transforms itself until a stable community is formed. It is a fundamental concept in ecology, and refers to more or less predictable and orderly changes in the composition or structure of an ecological community...
.
Life and work
Gleason was born in Dalton City, IllinoisDalton City, Illinois
Dalton City is a village in Moultrie County, Illinois, United States. It is in the center of the state near the Macon County line, located along Route 121 at its intersection with Route 128 and between the larger villages of Bethany and Mount Zion...
, and after undergraduate and master's work at the University of Illinois
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
earned a PhD from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1906. He held faculty positions at the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, before returning to the East Coast, to the New York Botanical Garden
New York Botanical Garden
- See also :* Education in New York City* List of botanical gardens in the United States* List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City- External links :* official website** blog*...
in the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, where he remained for the rest of his career, until 1950.
In Gleason's early ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
research on the vegetation
Vegetation
Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, around 1909-1912, he worked largely within the theoretical structure endorsed by ecologist
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
Frederic Clements
Frederic Clements
Frederic Edward Clements was an American plant ecologist and pioneer in the study of vegetation succession.-Biography:...
, whose work on succession
Ecological succession
Ecological succession, is the phenomenon or process by which a community progressively transforms itself until a stable community is formed. It is a fundamental concept in ecology, and refers to more or less predictable and orderly changes in the composition or structure of an ecological community...
was the most influential during the first decades of the twentieth century. Building on Henry C. Cowles
Henry Chandler Cowles
Henry Chandler Cowles was an American botanist and ecological pioneer . Born in Kensington, Connecticut, he attended Oberlin College in Ohio. He studied at the University of Chicago with the plant taxonomist John M. Coulter and the geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin as main teachers. He...
's landmark research at the Indiana Dunes and some of the ideas of his mentor Charles Bessey at the University of Nebraska, Clements had developed a theory of plant succession in which vegetation could be explained by reference to an ideal sequence of development called a sere. Clements sometimes compared the development of seres to the growth of individual organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
s, and suggested that under the right circumstances, seres would culminate in the best adapted
Adaptation
An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....
form of vegetation, which he called the climax
Climax community
In ecology, a climax community, or climatic climax community, is a biological community of plants and animals which, through the process of ecological succession — the development of vegetation in an area over time — has reached a steady state. This equilibrium occurs because the climax community...
state. In his early research, Gleason interpreted the vegetation of Illinois using Clementsian concepts like associations
Association (ecology)
An association is the "ultimate classification level" of ecological systems. Local conditions permit several understory species to coexist with the same overstory dominants, and associations refer to the many co-occurring species rather than just the few dominant ones.Associations have:#A...
, climax states, pioneer species, and dominant species.
However, in 1917, Gleason began to express significant doubts on the usefulness of some of Clements's widely-employed vocabulary, especially the use of the organism metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
to describe the growth of vegetation, and the treatment of the units of vegetation as including climaxes. (What units should be used in the analysis of vegetation was a widely disputed issue in early twentieth-century ecology.) In 1926, Gleason expressed even stronger objections to Clements's theory. First, he argued that Clements's identification of particular kinds
Natural kind
In philosophy, a natural kind is a "natural" grouping, not an artificial one. Or, it is something that a set of things has in common which distinguishes it from other things as a real set rather than as a group of things arbitrarily lumped together by a person or group of people.If any natural...
of vegetation assumed too much homogeneity, since areas of vegetation are actually similar to one another only to degrees. Second, he argued that Clements's associating particular vegetation types with particular areas underestimated the real diversity of vegetation. These objections together cast doubt, for Gleason, on the "integrity of the association
Association (ecology)
An association is the "ultimate classification level" of ecological systems. Local conditions permit several understory species to coexist with the same overstory dominants, and associations refer to the many co-occurring species rather than just the few dominant ones.Associations have:#A...
concept" itself—on identifying any grouping of species as amounting to a nameable association, like "oak-maple association," as botanists and ecologists (including Gleason himself) normally had.
As an alternative to describing vegetation in terms of associations
Association (ecology)
An association is the "ultimate classification level" of ecological systems. Local conditions permit several understory species to coexist with the same overstory dominants, and associations refer to the many co-occurring species rather than just the few dominant ones.Associations have:#A...
, Gleason offered "the Individualistic concept of ecology," in which "the phenomena of vegetation depend completely upon the phenomena of the individual" species (1917), and plant associations are less structured than he thought Clements's theory maintained. At times, Gleason suggested that the distribution of plants approaches mathematical randomness
Randomness
Randomness has somewhat differing meanings as used in various fields. It also has common meanings which are connected to the notion of predictability of events....
.
Clements never responded in print to Gleason's objections and alternative models, and they were largely ignored until the 1950s, when research by a number of ecologists (particularly Robert Whittaker
Robert Whittaker
Robert Harding Whittaker was a distinguished American plant ecologist, active in the 1950s to the 1970s.Born in Wichita, Kansas, he obtained a B.A. at Washburn Municipal College in Topeka, Kansas, and, following military service, his Ph.D...
and John T. Curtis) supported Gleasonian models. Subsequently, 'species-individualistic' models have become prevalent in community ecology.
Frustration due to dismissal of his ecological ideas without serious consideration may have contributed to Gleason's general abandonment of ecology. From the 1930s onward, he shifted the focus of his work to plant taxonomy, where he became an influential figure, working for many years at the New York Botanical garden, and authoring with Arthur Cronquist
Arthur Cronquist
Arthur John Cronquist was a North American botanist and a specialist on Compositae. He is considered one of the most influential botanists of the 20th century, largely due to his formulation of the Cronquist system. Two plant genera in the aster family have been named in his honor...
one of the authoritative floras of northeastern North America.
His elder son, Henry Allan Gleason Jr (1917–2007), was a linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
and Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
. His second son, Andrew Gleason
Andrew Gleason
Andrew Mattei Gleason was an American mathematician and the eponym of Gleason's theorem and the Greenwood–Gleason graph. After briefly attending Berkeley High School he graduated from Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, then Yale University in 1942, where he became a Putnam Fellow...
, (1921–2008), was a mathematician and Professor Emeritus at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
.
Awards
- Honorary Fellow of the Association for Tropical Biology (and Conservation) 1963,
Works by Gleason
(many are available in Google Scholar as copyrights are long expired)- Gleason, Henry A. 1901. The flora of the prairies. B. S. Thesis. University of Illinois.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1907. A botanical survey of the Illinois River Valley sand region. Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist., Bull. 7:149-194.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1907. On the biology of the sand areas of Illinois. II. A botanical survey of the Illinois River Valley sand region. Ill. Lab. Nat. Hist., Bull. 7:149-194.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1908. A virgin prairie in Illinois. Ill. Acad. Sci., Trans. 1:62.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1909. The vegetational history of a river dune. Ill. Acad. Sci., Trans. 2:19-26.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1909. Some Unsolved Problems of the Prairies. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 36(5): 265-271.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1910. The vegetation of the inland sand deposits of Illinois. Ill. Lab. Nat. Hist., Bull. 9:23-174.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1912. An Isolated Prairie Grove and Its Phytogeographical Significance. Botanical Gazette 53(1): 38-49.
- Gleason, Henry A. and Frank C. Gates. 1912. A Comparison of the Rates of Evaporation in Certain Associations in Central Illinois. Botanical Gazette 53(6): 478-491.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1917. The Structure and Development of the Plant Association. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 43: 463-481.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1922. On the Relation between Species and Area. Ecology 3(2): 158-162.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1922. The Vegetational History of the Middle West. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 12: 39-85.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1925. Species and Area. Ecology 6(1): 66-74.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1926. The Individualistic Concept of the Plant Association. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 53: 7-26
- Gleason, Henry A. 1927. Further Views on the Succession-Concept. Ecology 8(3): 299-326.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1936. Is Sunusia an Association? Ecology 17(3): 444-451.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1939. The Individualistic Concept of the Plant Association. American Midland Naturalist 21(1): 92-110.
- Gleason, Henry A. 1975. Delving into the History of American Ecology. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 56(4): 7-10.
Works on Gleason
- Barbour, Michael G. 1996. Ecological Fragmentation in the Fifties. in William Cronon, editor. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
- McIntosh, Robert P. 1975. H. A. Gleason - "Individualistic Ecologist" 1882-1975: His Contributions to Ecological Theory. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 102(5): 253-273.
- Mitman, Gregg. 1995. Defining the Organism in the Welfare State: The Politics of Individuality in American Culture, 1890-1950. in Sabine Maasen, Everett Mendelsohn and Peter Weingart, editors. Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
- Nicolson, Malcolm and Robert P. McIntosh. 2002. H.A. Gleason and the Individualistic Hypothesis Revisited. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 83: 133-142.
- Tobey, Ronald C. 1981. Saving the Prairies: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895-1955. Berkeley: University of California Press. (ISBN 0-520-04352-9)
- Worster, Donald. 1994. Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, 2nd ed. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
External links
- Henry A. Gleason records at the New York Botanical Garden
- History of Ecology and the American Environment at the Library of Congress