David C. Coleman and Terry Camp

Odum School of Ecology University of Georgia

March 2011

The Prehistory of the Odum School of EcologyEarly History, Collaboration and Funding: The Antecedents of the Odum School of Ecology

1The Prehistory of the Odum School of Ecology

The Prehistory of the Odum School of EcologyEarly History, Collaboration and Funding: The Antecedents of the Odum School of Ecology

David C. Coleman and Terry CampOdum School of EcologyUniversity of Georgia

Introduction

The Odum School of Ecology has a fascinating history, evolving over more than sixty years. As an organization, it dates from the formation of offsite research groups that led to the formation of the Institute of Ecology in 1966. The Institute, in turn, had an extensive pre-history, dating from the early establishment of biological research on Sapelo Island, and on the Savannah River Site, both in the early 1950s. The history reflects the professional evolution of Eugene Odum, and the management abilities of Frank Golley, who were truly the driving forces for the developments that are revealed in this article.

Our purpose is two-fold: to provide a look back across more than sixty years of collaborative environmental research in the southeastern USA, and follow its evolution into numerous interdisciplinary regional and national programs that exist today; and also to acknowledge the influence of one interdisciplinary program, encompassed by the Institute of Ecology, that early on comprised nearly one-half of all the funded research efforts in the University of Georgia (Frank B. Golley, pers. comm.). Then, as now, there were competitors for environmental research dollars in the southeast: Robert Platt and his group at Emory University, and Stanley Auerbach at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Gene Odum’s group at UGA. The pioneer funding agency for ecosystem research was the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and Gene Odum and his eager team of investigators worked to expand the resource base.

Eugene P. Odum (top) and Frank B. Golley (bottom).

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Using a chemical analogy for the environment of the group led by Eugene Odum: The reactants were coming; the catalysts were being put into place! What set Odum and his young colleagues apart was the importance of the ecosystem approach: the need to (1) study entire ecological systems, not just its parts, and (2) the interaction of human activities with natural ones, leading to the need for extensive interdisciplinary collaboration.

In May of 1966, a group of scientists from SREL and those on campus cooperated in the establishment of the Institute of Ecology, in the conference room of the Zoology Department on the seventh floor of the Biological Sciences Building. It was convened by Gene Odum, who was elected as the Director. Our operational mode built on an across-disciplines model, which Odum termed a “T-model” of organization (with the disciplines arrayed across the top, the Institute integrating, via the downward stroke of the “T”). Scientists present included: Bob Beyers, Frank Golley, Carl Monk and Dave Coleman from SREL, Dirk Frankenberg, Bob Johannes, John Kerr, Don Scott, and Dick Wiegert from Zoology, Joe Edmisten and Gayther Plummer from Botany, and John McGinnis from Botany and Statistics.

The atmosphere was charged with excitement, particularly for the participants from SREL, who could see great possibilities ahead. Some of the more senior members from campus, namely Drs. Plummer and Scott, were more reserved, inclined to more of a wait-and-see attitude. Gene Odum wanted to charge ahead, despite some detractors, who had some influence on campus. Notable among these was Dr. Howard Teas, the Director of the Biological Sciences program at UGA. He had sent around a letter, copied to many department heads and the President and Vice Presidents, claiming that Gene Odum was really promoting “Odumology”, and he wanted to rein Dr. Odum in. This was reminiscent of the earlier battles Odum had with members of the former department of Biology, who claimed that Ecology was not a stand-alone discipline. That had impelled Odum to write his textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology, which first appeared in 1953 (Craige, 2001).

The objectives of the Institute of Ecology were to include as many departments as possible, to extend the coverage as much as possible. Very soon thereafter in Fall 1967, Dac Crossley joined Entomology to bring expertise in radiotracer studies and insect ecology, and Bernie Patten joined Zoology in April 1968, to teach courses and conduct research in Systems Ecology (Golley, 2001).

This was a time of intense research activity, with Frank Golley and Richard Clements, a research associate specializing in soils, beginning a multi-year project for a sea-level canal to be excavated across Panama. The idea behind this AEC-funded program, funded through the Battelle Columbus Laboratory, was to examine the feasibility of using nuclear explosives to do the bulk of the excavation. Many studies of basic ecology of plants and animals found on the transects were carried out as well (F.B. Golley, unpublished).

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Prehistory of Environmental Research at UGA

In the late 1940’s, a small delegation of scientists including Donald Scott and Gene Odum visited Sapelo Island and were entertained by the then-owner, Richard J. Reynolds. In 1952, Reynolds invited a delegation, led by UGA President O.C. Aderhold, to consider the possible interests in research and education in biology, agriculture, and forestry. On return to campus, Aderhold invited the delegation, including Odum, George King (administrative associate), C.C. Murray (dean of agriculture) and J.D. Weddell (dean of forestry) to make statements regarding “your views relative to uses that the university could make of the island”(Pomeroy and Scott, 2001).

Of the four, only Gene Odum was enthusiastic about the opportunities. The deans saw little possibility of conducting research on an isolated island in view of the fact that they already had a network of experiment stations on the mainland. In the next few months, Odum and Scott collaborated on a preliminary proposal to establish a biological research laboratory on Sapelo. The proposal emphasized the possibilities of coordinated research in aquatic and terrestrial environments and had a total budget of $50,000.

Reynolds and his staff responded favorably and negotiated a contract with president Aderhold and George H. Boyd (who was simultaneously head of the biology department, director of general research, and dean of the graduate school!).

In the summer of 1953, the contract between the University of Georgia and Reynolds’s Sapelo Island Agriculture and Forestry Foundation was finalized with a startup budget of $25,000. Robert A. Ragotzkie, who had just received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Wisconsin, was hired as the resident director of the Marine Biology Laboratory, and arrived on Sapelo Island in early 1954. By September 1954, Theodore J. Starr, a microbiologist from UGA, and Larry Pomeroy, an invertebrate zoologist out of Rutgers, had joined the staff. Ragotzkie reported to Boyd, who controlled the budget and chaired an oversight committee (Pomeroy and Scott, 2001).

A few years later, the Sapelo Marine Station became a part of the Institute of Marine Sciences, headed by Dr. Ed Chin. In the 1990’s, Sapelo scientists and the faculty on campus collaborated on a Land-Margin Ecosystems Research LMER) grant, which was later incorporated into the Long-Term Ecological Research network program as the Georgia Coastal Ecosystem study, which has been very successful over many years.

Early staff of the Marine Biology Laboratory: Louis (Chief) Olson, Johnnie Wilson, Theodore J. Starr, Glasco Bailey, Robert A. Ragotzkie, and Lawrence R. Pomeroy. (courtesy Barrett and Barrett)

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An additional off-campus research effort in Ecology included collaborative research with scientists at the Tall Timbers Research Station Tallahassee, Florida, led by Dr. Edward Komarek, who was then on the advisory board of the State Game and Fish Commission (now part of the Department of Natural Resources). The focus of research at Tall Timbers was, and is, fire ecology. For five years, the program was administered by a joint zoology/forestry committee with Gene Odum, chair; Donald J. Weddell, dean of forestry; James Jenkins, instructor in forestry (and Ph.D. candidate under Odum); Donald Scott, assistant professor of zoology; and R.J. Richardson, assistant director of the Rock Eagle 4-H Center (Odum, 2001). All of these efforts reflected the drive and enthusiasm of Eugene P. Odum, who always strove to get significant amounts of extramural funding for ecological research programs. For more information on the early history of Professor Odum, see Craige (2001), and Barrett and Barrett (2001).

The Early History of Research on the Savannah River Plant (later Savannah River Site)

The forerunner of SREL occurred in 1951, with the first grant from the AEC for ecological inventories at the Savannah River Site for $10,000, providing for three graduate students, a vehicle, and miscellaneous expenses (Odum, 2001). This research program began one of the longest continuing contracts between a federal government agency and a university (Smith et al., 2001). It subsequently led to the formation of the Laboratory of Radiation Ecology, which later became the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, on the Savannah River Site (SRS) south of Aiken, South Carolina (Golley, 2001).

The early stages of the establishment of ecological research on the SRS were strongly influenced by the desire of the AEC to support research at several regional educational institutions in the southeastern US. They asked for the University of South Carolina to submit a proposal for “preinstallation” inventories, and also consulted with AEC scientists in Washington, D.C. and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. By insisting on an initially low level of funding (Odum et al. had originally asked for $150,000!), a self-selection process occurred leaving the field almost wide-open for Odum and his students to start the first studies. The long-term focus of Odum and colleagues was to work with “the new tools of the atomic age,” namely, radiation effects on organisms and ecosystems, and using radiotracers to delineate foodwebs in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

The initial headquarters for on-site research was in a rented two-story barn, to house the field equipment and some laboratory equipment, including microscopes, invertebrate extraction funnels, etc. In 1954, the on-site scientific operations were transferred to two rooms in the Bush House on the second floor, and the U.S. Forest Service occupied the rest of the house (Smith et al., 2001).

5The Prehistory of the Odum School of Ecology

By 1961, it was apparent that the UGA research effort needed housing of its own, and in 1962, Frank Golley was named head of the Laboratory of Radiation Ecology, housed in Building 772-G, an old antiaircraft gun emplacement and barracks near the northern boundary of SRS.

In the first year, Golley quickly added Dick Wiegert, a newly-minted Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and J. Frank McCormick, a new Ph.D. from Dr. Robert Platt’s group at Emory University, Atlanta. Two years later, McCormick moved to the University of North Carolina, freeing up a position to hire Dr. Carl Monk, an assistant professor from the University of Florida, to replace him. Robert Beyers, an aquatic ecosystems ecologist from the University of Texas (a student of H.T. Odum) and Dave Coleman, fresh from a postdoctoral with Amyan Macfadyen in the U.K., to replace Dick Wiegert, who moved to the Athens campus in fall of 1966, filled out the roster of early additions to SREL (Golley, 2001). Mike Smith arrived in 1966 as a postdoctoral from the University of Florida, and Whit Gibbons, with a new Ph.D. degree from Michigan State University, joined the staff in the summer of 1967.

We digress from this chronological account to discuss the milieu of SREL, and the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia. In its early history, SREL was viewed by Gene Odum, and several of the scientists there as a sort of “farm team” to send rising young ecologists to the main campus (Smith et al., 2001). Those were heady times, with first Dick Wiegert going up to join the Department of Zoology in fall of 1966, followed by Frank Golley to Zoology and Carl Monk to Botany in 1967. Carl was being wooed by Cornell University at that time, and when Carl chose to go to Athens, Cornell hired Robert Whittaker, so we knew Gene Odum and the departments on campus were building a star-studded cast!

In the early years, we used to travel from SREL to the campus at Athens at least once a month, driving the 260 mile round-trip over mostly two-lane roads before Interstate 20 opened up across the Piedmont region of Georgia. We would check out references in the Science library (then in the basement of the Geology and Geography building), and usually have lunch with Gene Odum in the Student Center. Occasionally there would be a late afternoon monthly meeting of the newly-formed Institute of Ecology either on the seventh floor of the Biosciences building or from 1966 onward, over in the

The staff of SREL, spring 1966. Back row, left to right: Jim Mayenschein, Jim Williams, Helen Morrisset, Robert Beyers, Dave Coleman, Carl Monk, Frank Golley, Ron Blessing, J.B. Gentry, Dick Wiegert. Front row: Sarah Collie, Ann Parrott, Fran Beverly, Ann Loyal.

6 The Prehistory of the Odum School of Ecology

“Rock House,” which was the Lumpkin family’s home when UGA was mostly farmland, back in the 1820’s. Gene Odum was the driving force in these meetings, always trying out his ideas and thoughts about moving ecosystem science forward. It was occasionally difficult to convince him of the logic of one’s own ideas, but in future meetings, if he liked what you had said he would bring it up, rephrasing it in his own unique way, and make it much more intriguing and worthy of consideration.

Coleman pursued several lines of research at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, beginning by using radionuclides to tag food items in the field, to study microbial and faunal food webs. To gain the information and expertise necessary to carry out this work, Dick Wiegert and Frank Golley at the SREL encouraged him to go “to the source of knowledge,” D.A. (“Dac”) Crossley, Jr., in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Dac invited him to visit Oak Ridge in October 1965 and spend 3-4 days on a short tutorial concerning the mathematical calculations of biological half-lives, culture methods, etc. Dac provided an overview of what they covered in a two week short-course in four days. It was impressive, how much could be done by such a talented and focused person, all of this presented with a wonderfully dry sense of humor.

Returning to SREL, Coleman consulted further with Gene Odum, who argued that using the gamma-emitting radioisotope of Zinc, Zinc-65, would be the most efficacious way to trace carbon through food webs in the soil. Some trial experiments were performed using a rather difficult old gamma detector and then, he discussed the situation with Frank Golley. Golley had access to some Atomic Energy Commission year-end funding, and proceeded to authorize purchase of a pulse-height analyzer, complete with automatic sample changer (total cost: $15,000, more than a year’s salary), to measure the radioactivity in the samples of scores of species and hundreds of microarthropods Coleman would be counting. All this was quite a heady experience for someone who had been used to minimal equipment, apart from microscopes. Coleman was provided with a separate room in a laboratory at SREL, he erect a barrier of lead bricks on a lab bench, and inoculated flasks with liquid nutrient medium to which were added large quantities (milliCuries) of the Zinc-65 tracer. Coleman grew up fungal mats of a prevalent fungus isolated from the old-field site, Field 3-412 on the SRS. He proceeded to set up field plots and followed the movement of the

Major SREL ecologists Michael H. Smith (top), Rebecca R. Sharitz (middle), and J. Whitfield Gibbons.

7The Prehistory of the Odum School of Ecology

isotope from the fungal hyphae into fungal-feeding mites and then into predatory microarthropods that fed upon them. This led to a refereed paper (Coleman and McGinnis, 1970).

Shortly before Dick Wiegert moved to Athens in 1966, he urged Coleman to accompany him in April to work at the Atomic Energy Commission-funded Ecosystem study site at El Verde, Puerto Rico. Dick had begun work with H.T. Odum, Gene’s younger brother, on termites (Nasutitermes costalis) at the radiation and control sites of the Luquillo rain forest. Dick suggested that Coleman set up

a short-term study project with him. Frank Golley readily provided travel funds. This led to a short paper on the biomass of nematodes in the litter and soil of the study sites, which appeared in the Tropical Rain Forest volume (Odum and Pigeon, 1970).

H.T. Odum was quite an experience to encounter; he made his brother Gene seem shy and retiring in comparison. H.T. was always on the move, trying out ideas as fast as he could talk, and generally leaving us breathless trying to keep up with the flow of his ideas. One evening on our way back from dinner down on the beach at Luquillo, we stopped at a roadside market for cool beers. Dick Wiegert and I, no slouches in beer drinking, were impressed at the way in which H.T. opened a can of local beer, draining it dry in one gulp.

Years later, the Graduate Ecology Program at Colorado State University invited H.T. to present a general lecture and graduate seminars. He opened his attaché case with over 500 acetate sheets, and proceeded to talk about Ecosystems, the Maximum Power Principle and other big ideas. When a stack of at least 200 of them fell to the floor, he said: “no problem, I will just pick up where I left off;” and continued through another > 100 visuals. He was truly a polymath, and the world of ecosystem science lost two giants when Gene died in early August 2002 and his brother only three weeks later.

Brothers Eugene P. and Howard T. Odum.

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Early History of Collaborative Research in Ecology and Hydrology

A number of interdisciplinary environmental research programs were established within the Institute of Ecology, with outreach to other academic organizations on campus. Noteworthy among these was the addition of Philip Johnson to the faculty of the Warnell School of Forestry in 1968. Soon afterward, he developed a research proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) in collaboration with USFS Scientists at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in western North Carolina. This study, part of the Eastern Deciduous Forest Biome (EDFB) program of the International Biological Program (IBP) focused on the hydrology and biogeochemistry of four watersheds at Coweeta: a reference or undisturbed hardwood forest, a seven-year-old coppice hardwood forest following clear cutting, a thirteen-year old white pine forest, and an old field to forest succession treatment (Swank et al., 2001).

Midway through the grant period, Johnson moved to NSF headquarters in Washington, and Dac Crossley took over as the UGA lead-PI on the grant, with Wayne Swank continuing as the Forest Service coordinator of research activities. For the next ten years, the collaboration of Carl Monk, Dac Crossley and Wayne Swank at Coweeta

inspired and provided funding support for a cadre of graduate students. By 1980, the Coweeta program became one of six founding sites in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network, which succeeded the IBP, whose principal funding had ended in July 1974 (Coleman, 2010). The Coweeta LTER is into its sixth renewal proposal funding segment as of this writing in 2011.The Coweeta program is one of the longest-lived of the LTER network, which has expanded to include 26 sites and a network site at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

In 1967, President Aderhold authorized the Institute to move into the old Lumpkin family home (the “Rock House”) just north of Conner Hall. It set up on the second floor, and was the center of activities for collaborative studies for several years until the Institute moved into the new Ecology Building in 1974.

One of the highlights of activity in those years was nationwide and global interest in the environment, which culminated in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. A small cadre of graduate students in Ecology at that time, including Jack Webster, Jack Waide, Tom Callahan, and Ariel Lugo were among the students involved in planning activities.

Dac Crossley and Wayne Swank

9The Prehistory of the Odum School of Ecology

This was also the year in which Gene Odum, Paul Ehrlich, and Barry Commoner were featured in an article on the environment in Time magazine (February 2, 1970).

The way of true love and setting up housing is seldom straight, and the early history of the Institute of Ecology followed that pattern. In the early 1970’s, a facilities grant was obtained from the National Science Foundation, with Don Scott as lead PI and Odum and Golley as co-PIs. The University of Georgia needed to come up with matching funds, which had been guaranteed at the time of the submission of the proposal. The matching money disappeared mysteriously, and the Institute had to set up temporary quarters in Psychology/Journalism for two years (D.A. Crossley, Jr., pers. comm.). Frank Golley had quite a time lining up the matching funds, but finally the crisis was solved and the building was erected in 1974, with staff, faculty and students moving into the new building, sharing space with the Institute of Natural Resources (Dr. Ronald North, Director), and the Institute of Marine Sciences (Dr. Ed Chin, Director).

In addition to off-campus research, old-field studies were carried out by several students working with Gene Odum, at the Horseshoe Bend (HSB) Research area, two miles east of campus on former dairy land. Some of the early research there was carried out by Gary Barrett, a graduate student who got his Ph.D. with Gene Odum in 1967, and Ronald Pulliam, an eager young undergraduate student. Both came back to UGA in later decades and became directors of the Institute of Ecology. For thirty years, a thriving agroecosystem research study was carried out at HSB, under the auspices of the National Science Foundation’s Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) program (Hendrix et al., 2001). The inter-generational impacts of graduate studies in the Institute of Ecology are typified by the career of the early Ph.D. students in the program, James T. (Tom) Callahan, and Elizabeth Blood. Callahan obtained his Ph.D. in June 1972 jointly with Coleman and Crossley as co-advisors, and then was hired by the Environmental Studies office of the National Science Foundation. He was the “cognizant official” in charge of the second half of

Earth Day 1970 was organized at UGA by Balance, a group formed by Ecology graduate students. Photo of Rich Mural, Ph.D. ‘78, Zoology, by Pat Huie from the Athens Daily News and Banner Herald, March 15, 1970.

Gary W. Barrrett (top) and H. Ron Pulliam (below), both one-time students and later directors of the Institute of Ecology.

10 The Prehistory of the Odum School of Ecology

the IBP program, and then, in concert with Deputy Director John L. Brooks, oversaw the establishment of the LTER program, which began in 1980 (Callahan, 1984; Coleman, 2010). Dr. Elizabeth Blood, who obtained her Ph.D. degree in 1980 with Bernie Patten, and a few years later, joined the National Science Foundation, where she now is the principal liaison officer in charge of the large interdisciplinary research program, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON).

In summary, the atmosphere of those early years was very charged with excitement. The interactions took what now seem rather unusual forms, to deal with the laws and practices of the times. There were not only the discussions over lunch (one of our favorites was the hot “Georgia Club” sandwich in the Savannah Room that was offered for seventy-nine cents, with iced tea available for another fifty cents). In addition, the carload of us from SREL who came up to campus monthly (or weekly, when Mike Smith, Whit Gibbons and Dave Coleman team-taught the Population Ecology course in the winter quarters of 1969-70) took advantage of the kind hospitality of Dr. John McGinnis, who was a member of the Athens Moose Club. With Clarke County being totally “dry”, that was the place in town to retire to of an evening and have further discussions over some cold beers.

Doubtless, such energetic and intellectually-stimulating interactions take place with other groups of scientists and researchers in general. The combined effect was very salutary for the progress of the scientists in the early days of the Institute of Ecology literally forty years ago. The successor organization, the Odum School of Ecology, is one of the fruits of those early labors.

Bernie Patten (right) with students in the 1980s.

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References

Barrett, G.W., and T.L. Barrett (Eds.). Holistic Science—the evolution of the Georgia Institute of Ecology (1940-2000). Taylor & Francis, New York. 366 p.

Callahan, J. T. 1984. Long Term Ecological Research. BioScience 34: 363-367.

Coleman, D.C. 2010. Big Ecology: the Emergence of Ecosystem Science. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. 236 p.

Coleman, D. C., and J. T. McGinnis. 1970. Quantification of fungus—small arthropod food chains in the soil. Oikos 21:134-137.

Craige, B.J. 2001. Eugene Odum. Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalist. University of Georgia Press, Athens. 226 p.

Golley, F.B., 2001. Establishing the network. Pp. 38-67 In: Barrett, G.W., T.L. Barrett (Eds.). Holistic Science—the evolution of the Georgia Institute of Ecology (1940-2000). Taylor & Francis, New York.

Hendrix, P. F., E.P. Odum, D. A. Crossley, Jr. and D. C. Coleman. 2001. Horseshoe Bend Research: Old-field Studies (1965-1975) and Agroecosystem Studies (1976-2000). Pp. 164-177 in G.W. Barrett and T.L. Barrett (eds.).Holistic Science—the evolution of the Georgia Institute of Ecology (1940-2000). Taylor & Francis, New York

Odum, E.P., 2001. Turning Points in the History of the Institute of Ecology. Pp. 15-37 In: Barrett, G.W., T.L. Barrett (Eds.). Holistic Science—the evolution of the Georgia Institute of Ecology (1940-2000). Taylor & Francis, New York.

Pomeroy, L.R., and D.C. Scott, 2001. The University of Georgia Marine Institute: the first decade. Pp. 128-142. In: Barrett, G.W., T.L. Barrett (Eds.). Holistic Science—the evolution of the Georgia Institute of Ecology (1940-2000). Taylor & Francis, New York.

Smith, M.H., E.P. Odum, and R.R. Sharitz, 2001. Savannah River Ecology Laboratory: a model for a cooperative partnership between a university and the federal government. Pp. 95-127 In: Barrett, G.W., T.L. Barrett (Eds.). Holistic Science—the evolution of the Georgia Institute of Ecology (1940-2000). Taylor & Francis, New York.

Swank, W.T., J.L. Meyer, and D.A. Crossley, Jr. 2001. Long-Term Ecological Research: Coweeta history and perspectives. Pp. 143-163 In: Barrett, G.W., T.L. Barrett (Eds.). Holistic Science—the evolution of the Georgia Institute of Ecology (1940-2000). Taylor & Francis, New York.