Charles Sutherland Elton
Charles Sutherland Elton |
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Charles Sutherland Elton
Personal life
Charles Sutherland Elton was born in Manchester, a son of the literary scholar Oliver Elton and the children's writer Letitia Maynard Elton (née MacColl). He had an older brother, Geoffrey Elton,[2] who died at 33, and to whom Charles Elton in many of his writings attributes his interest in scientific natural history. Charles Elton married the English poet Edith Joy Scovell in 1937, a first five-year marriage to Rose Montague having ended in amicable divorce.[3] Charles and Joy had two children, Catherine Ingrid Buffonge MBE and Robert Elton.[4]
Professional life
Charles Elton was educated at
In 1921, while still an undergraduate, Elton assisted
Elton's early career was influenced by
In 1932, Elton established the Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford, which became a centre for collecting data on fluctuations in animal
Elton's great interest in nature conservation and problems in management of nature reserves led him to be instrumental in establishing the Nature Conservancy Council in 1949. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1953 and received the society's Darwin Medal in 1970.[11]
Intellectual heritage
In 1927, Elton published his classic Animal Ecology, outlining the principles behind ecological studies of
In later works on the niche theory, Elton's definition – the
After the Second World War, Elton became much more concerned with the impact of invasive species on natural ecosystems. His 1958 book The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants founded invasion ecology as a separate sub-discipline.[13] This book became the basis of the study of biological invasions. It was the first of its kind to warn about the harmful effects and damages invasive species can have on an ecosystem. The first part of the book focuses on the invader species and their mode of transport into the new environment. The second part of the book focuses on the struggle between invasive species and the indigenous, though some invaders enter habitats with no prior species filling their specific niche. The final part of The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants deals with the issue of conservation and its importance to maintain species diversity.[14]
Bibliography
- Animal Ecology, 1st ed., 1927, Sidgwick and Jackson, London. Reprinted several times, e. g. 2001, The University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-20639-4. 2nd ed., The Ecology of Animals, 1946, London: Methuen
- Voles, Mice and Lemmings: Problems in population dynamics 1st ed., 1942. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Facsimile reprint, 1969, New York: Wheldon & Wesley Ltd. ISBN 9780854860081
- The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, 1958, Methuen, London. Reprint, 2000, The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-20638-6
- The Pattern of Animal Communities, 1st ed., 1966, London: Methuen. 2nd ed., 1979, London: Chapman & Hall ISBN 0-412-21880-1
References
- .
- The University of Chicago Press, 1991.
- ^ General Registry Office records 1928, 1937.
- ^ Article.[dead link]
- ^ JSTOR 770268.
- JSTOR 2256248.
- ^ JSTOR 1193.
- Clarendon Press, 1922.
- ^ V. E. Shelford, Animal Communities in Temperate America. Chicago, Il: The University of Chicago Press, 1913.
- ^ C. S. Elton, Animal Ecology. Britain: William Clowes and Sons Ltd, 1968 reprint.
- ^ Chrono-Biographical Sketch: Charles Elton.
- ^ T. W. Schoener, "The Ecological Niche", pp. 79–113, 1989; J. M. Cherrett et al., Ecological Concepts, Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1989.
- ^ M. A. Davis, K. Thompson and J. P. Grime, "Charles S. Elton and the dissociation of invasion ecology from the rest of ecology". Diversity & Distributions, 7:97–102, 2001 Full text Archived 13 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ C. S. Elton, The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, London: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1958.
External links
- Charles Sutherland Elton – English Ecologist
- Elton's Ecologists: A History of the Bureau of Animal Population
- "Special Issue: Fifty years of invasion ecology – the legacy of Charles Elton". Diversity and Distributions. 14 (2): 161–439. March 2008. S2CID 11883735.
- Fifty years of invasion ecology – the legacy of Charles Elton, Symposium 12–14 November 2008, hosted by DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
- Works by or about Charles Sutherland Elton at Internet Archive