Charles Sutherland Elton | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 29 March 1900 Manchester, England |
| Died | 1 May 1991 (aged 91) Oxford, England |
| Alma mater | Oxford University |
| Known for | Eltonian niche,food chain |
| Spouses | Rosé Montague (1928)(divorced) Edith Joy Scovell (1937) |
| Awards | Linnean Medal(1967) Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement(1976) Darwin Medal(1970) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Animal ecology,zoology |
| Institutions | Oxford University |
| Doctoral students | Dennis H. Chitty,Francis C. Evans,William W. Murdoch,Michael Smyth |
Charles Sutherland EltonFRS[1] (29 March 1900 – 1 May 1991) was an Englishzoologist and animal ecologist. He is associated with the development ofpopulation andcommunity ecology, including studies ofinvasive organisms.
Charles Sutherland Elton was born inManchester, a son of the literary scholarOliver 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 poetEdith 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]
Charles Elton was educated atLiverpool College andOxford University, from which he graduated in zoology in 1922, with a first in his field research project and a third in the exams, and where he subsequently had his entire academic career.[5] During his studies at Oxford he conceptualized his ideas about animal ecology, aiming to turnnatural history into the science of ecology by applying scientific methods to studying the lives of animals in their naturalhabitats and interactions with the environment.
While still an undergraduate, Elton assistedJulian Huxley on the1921 Oxford University Spitsbergen expedition, where he made an ecological survey ofArcticvertebrates. This he continued on three more Arctic expeditions in 1923, 1924 and 1930. He also spent some time on fieldwork inSt. Kilda, Scotland.[6] HisArctic experience led to a consultancy with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1926–1931, to study fluctuating populations of animal species of interest to thefur trade.[7] He later made similar studies of British mouse andvole populations. He spent many years on field research inWytham Woods, Oxford.[5]
Elton's early career was influenced byAlexander Carr-Saunders,Victor Ernest Shelford andGordon Hewitt. In 1922 Alexander Carr-Saunders wroteThe Population Problem: A Study of Human Evolution, where he outlines how the influence of overpopulation in humans has cascading effects on plant and animal life around the world.[8] Elton later applied these ideas of fluctuation to animals. Victor Ernest Shelford wroteAnimal Communities in Temperate America in 1913, where he outlines three main principles of ecology: (1) emphasis on the importance of studying the physiology of the organism, rather than the physiology of a specific organ; (2) evaluation of the "phenomena of behaviour and physiology" in relation to the natural environments; and (3) relation of the ecology of plant life to that of animal life.[9] In Gordon Hewitt's 1921 bookThe Conservation of the Wildlife of Canada, Elton noticed theCanadian lynx andsnowshoe hare population cycles, and developed greater understanding of population fluctuations in Arctic vertebrates with theHudson's Bay Company.[10]
In 1932, Elton established the Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford, which became a centre for collecting data on fluctuations in animalpopulations. In the same year, theJournal of Animal Ecology was founded, with Elton as its first editor. In 1936, he was appointed reader in animal ecology at Oxford University, andCorpus Christi College elected him a senior research fellow. During theSecond World War, the Bureau of Animal Population was entrusted by theAgricultural Research Council to find efficient methods for controlling rats, mice and rabbits. After the Second World War, Elton started a 20-year survey of animals and theirinterrelationships on Oxford University'sWytham estate, covering those in meadows, woods and water. After his retirement, he did some studies in tropical America.
Elton's great interest innature conservation and problems in management of nature reserves led him to be instrumental in establishing theNature Conservancy Council in 1949. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1953 and received the society's Darwin Medal in 1970.[11]
In 1927, Elton published his classicAnimal Ecology, outlining the principles behind ecological studies ofanimal behaviour andlife history, such asfood chains, size of food items,ecological niche, and the concept of apyramid of numbers to represent the structure of anecosystem in terms of feeding relationships. There he also introduced ideas such as thefood cycle, the connection between various parts of the ecosystem, and the concept of food pyramid and trophic levels.[7] He also discussed how ecosystems are organized and ordered, in what later became the foundation of the ecosystem concept. Elton was the first to discuss the ecological significance ofpopulation cycles. He also described how predators had an influence on prey, and so on generating cycles.
In later works on the niche theory, Elton's definition – theEltonian niche – in terms of functional attributes of organisms (or its position in thetrophic web), has been viewed by some authors as opposed toJoseph Grinnell's earlier definition emphasising states of the environment suitable for the species. Others have argued there are more similarities than differences between the two versions of theniche concept.[12]
After the Second World War, Elton became much more concerned with the impact ofinvasive species on naturalecosystems. His 1958 bookThe Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants foundedinvasion 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 theindigenous, though some invaders enter habitats with no prior species filling their specific niche. The final part ofThe Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants deals with the issue of conservation and its importance to maintain species diversity.[14]
