Natural history & ecology as alternative stable states
The alternative stable states concept in ecology posits that disruptions of ecological processes can alter the structure of communities and ecosystems, shifting them to a novel alternative state (Beisner et al. 2003). The relationship between natural history and ecology can be understood through extending this concept to the history of the field itself. Each has its own basin of attraction, with their internal feedback regulations promoting their stability as prestigious relevant disciplines at the socio-academic levels. In the case of natural history, discoveries and propositions of innovative hypotheses stimulated debate and curiosity, while influencing new naturalists motivated to understand nature. However, developments on computational and mathematical applications in the twentieth century promoted a desire on early ecologists to propose theories to solidify the field, causing the fuss capable of changing the course of natural history to an alternative stable state as modern ecology.
Ecology started to transform in the mid-twentieth century from a purely descriptive science to a quantitative field. Early ecologists with an above average mathematical affinity, aimed to propose models that represented fundamental aspects of nature in a predictable mathematical fashion. However, the breakthroughs did not come out of nowhere, and influential figures, like G.E. Hutchinson, R.H. McArthur, J. Roughgarden, J. Lubchenco, R. Levins, E.C. Pielou, E.O. Wilson, and others, had strong natural history backgrounds. A genuine, and somewhat passionate, interest for their systems of study allowed them to propose significant hypotheses and theoretical advances. However, ecology was subjected to an educational paradigm shift. The modern era transitioned from organism-oriented to become a question-oriented field (Greene 2005), where researchers first asked and then searched for ideal systems, with no strings attached.
Nonetheless this paradigm shift undermined the natural history state of mind of biology. Natural history-oriented researchers were referred to as old-fashioned and out of touch with the cutting-edge; ”naturalist” as an adjective became pejorative, meaning lack of hypothesis-testing (Futuyma 1998). Accordingly, in the last 50 years the number of offered courses in organism biology, taxonomy, and field biology at colleges and universities declined by approximately 50%, and the number of textbook pages dedicated to whole-organism biology by 30% (Tewksbury et al. 2014). However, we should recognize that science and society benefit from a detailed knowledge of organisms in their environment (i.e., natural history). As the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated, the improvement of human health and prophylaxis depends on understanding the interface between people, organisms, and eco-evolutionary dynamics (Banerjee et al. 2021; Roche et al. 2020). More than 70% of emerging infectious diseases are associated with animals, consequently affecting humans as part of their life cycles (WHO 2015). Therefore, strategies developed to control disease outbreaks rely on knowledge about the distribution, behavior, and physiology of final and intermediate hosts, and of the pathogens themselves, helping to reduce infection, spread, and deaths. And the acquisition of this knowledge is the essence of natural history.