American Scientist

Stephen Forbes and the Rise of American Ecology. Robert A. Croker. x + 232 pp. Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. $39.95.

As the science of ecology enters the 21st century, offering promise as the key to understanding ecosystems, controlling pests and preserving biodiversity, it is instructive to revisit the career of Stephen Alfred Forbes, pioneering contributor to economic entomology and ornithology as well as ecology. Robert A. Croker's comprehensive biography, Stephen Forbes and the Rise of American Ecology, follows Forbes from his birth in 1844 and childhood on the rugged prairie frontier through an active career that lasted into old age (he died in 1930).

The fifth of six children born into austere conditions, Stephen thrived intellectually, influenced by his family's emphasis on education, public service, patriotism and family loyalty. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War and was mustered out four years later as a Captain, the veteran of two dozen battles and skirmishes and a four-month stint as a prisoner of war.

His adjustment to civilian life after the war was difficult. Studying medicine, farming and teaching in public schools offered little satisfaction; instead, he found his bent in natural history. The publication of his first paper in 1870, a discourse on the plants of southern Illinois, gained him access to the community of botanists and entomologists, and he gradually established contacts with the centers of learning in North America and Europe.

Even though Forbes was largely self-taught, his knowledge so impressed the distinguished faculty at Illinois State Normal University near Bloomington that he was appointed curator of the natural history museum there in 1872, at the age of 28. (The museum's extensive collections included material gathered in the Rockies and Colorado River country by the previous curator, John Wesley Powell.) Forbes's executive talents shone as he organized the public school teachers of the state in revising the natural history curriculum with an emphasis on field investigations.

Ever committed to public service, Forbes undertook two projects. One addressed the needs of the state's fisheries industry, and the other focused on a question raised by fruit growers: Did birds benefit agriculture by feeding on insect pests, or did they injure it by feeding on beneficial insects? Both projects required quantitative and qualitative data that had to be gathered through time-consuming examination of the contents of the crops of birds and the stomachs of fish. Forbes's modus operandi was to avail himself of the assistance and practical knowledge of the fishermen and fruit growers; the experience was educational for both parties. The seemingly simple questions addressed in these projects turned his attention to the fundamentals of ecology (a term adapted in 1893 from oekologie, which had been coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866).

A few years into Forbes's curatorship, the Normal museum was converted at his suggestion to a state biological laboratory for natural history. His industriousness, organizational ability and credibility with the State Legislature marked him for higher office, and in 1882 he became state entomologist.

In 1884, Forbes transferred to Illinois Industrial University at Champaign (eventually to become the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), taking with him the State Entomologist's Office and the State Laboratory of Natural History, as well as his specimens and books. In the process he acquired a new title, professor of zoology and entomology, and within a few years he was made Dean of the College of Natural Sciences.

In 1887, after more than a decade of intense investigation of the biological systems of fresh waters, Forbes gave a talk titled "The Lake as a Microcosm," which set forth for the first time the holistic nature of the aquatic ecosystem. He described the lake as "a little world within itself" with a "dynamic equilibrium of organic life and activity," noting that anything that affects a given species in the lake "must have its influence of some sort upon the whole assemblage." Forbes went on to describe the food web interactions that supported the community. The published talk became a foundation stone of ecology, leading investigators out of the laboratory, where the focus was on individual species, to the natural community, where the focus was on dynamic equilibrium.

Forbes provided a concept (an ecology that included human beings and the impact of their activities on the ecosystem of which they were a part) around which the growing community of biologists could rally. Darwin's theory of evolution took on new meaning when viewed in an ecological context. "Survival of the fittest" was the selective pressure that drove the process of species formation.

Forbes's investigations were strikingly diverse and prolific: In his 60-year career he published more than 400 papers on entomology, ornithology, aquatic biology and natural resource management. Although the economic aspects of entomology drew a number of able leaders to the programs sponsored by federal legislation within the Land Grant University system, Forbes stood virtually alone in his championing of ecology. His ecological investigations had implications for such concepts of modern ecology as predation, fecundity, resource partitioning, diffuse competition, competitive exclusion, population oscillation and biological control.

Many professional honors were bestowed on Forbes. At various times he was president of the American Association of Economic Entomologists, the Entomological Society of America and the Ecological Society of America, and in 1918 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He eventually settled comfortably into the role of elder statesman and family patriarch. His stature has only increased since his death, as environmental awareness has grown.

Drawing on rich primary sources, including Civil War documents, and on information provided by cooperative descendants of Forbes, Croker portrays both the public and private man with narrative skill. A vivid picture emerges of the dashing young cavalryman, devoted husband and father, indefatigable investigator, and gracious guru. Unfortunately, this wealth of biographical material is not integrated into the broader conceptual framework that was guiding the remarkable industrial and agricultural revolution of the time. The entomological work that contributed to Forbes's synthesis of ecological concepts is discussed in some detail. However, little information is provided about the giants of entomology and ecology on whose shoulders Forbes stood: Asa Fitch, Cyrus Thomas, Benjamin D. Walsh and Charles V. Riley, to name a few. But these flaws are easy enough to forgive in this otherwise excellent biography of this remarkable contributor to the fields of ecology, entomology, limnology and ornithology.—Edward H. Smith, Entomology, Cornell University