Frank Edwin Egler (April 26, 1911 – December 26, 1996) was an American

plant ecologist Plant ecology is a subdiscipline of ecology which studies the distribution and abundance (ecology), abundance of plants, the effects of environmental factors upon the abundance of plants, and the interactions among and between plants and other ...

and pioneer in the study of vegetation science. In addition to his groundbreaking research, he assisted

Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose influential book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental m ...

in preparing ''

Silent Spring ''Silent Spring'' is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading d ...

''.

Early life and education

Egler was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, growing up on Manhattan's West Side. Fifth-grade bird-watching trips to green spaces in the city instilled a love of nature in the frail boy. He went on to the

New York State College of Forestry The New York State College of Forestry, the first professional school of forestry in North America, opened its doors at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, in the autumn of 1898., It was advocated for by Governor Frank S. Black, but after jus ...

at Syracuse, to pursue a career in landscape engineering, but switched to

plant ecology Plant ecology is a subdiscipline of ecology which studies the distribution and abundance of plants, the effects of environmental factors upon the abundance of plants, and the interactions among and between plants and other organisms. Examples o ...

and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, graduating in 1932. At Chicago, he was a student in the last course taught by Henry C. Cowles. Egler obtained his M.S. in plant ecology from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 1934, and his Ph.D. from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1936. At Minnesota, he studied with

William Skinner Cooper William Skinner Cooper (25 August 1884 – 8 October 1978) was an American ecologist. Cooper received his B.S. in 1906 from Alma College in Michigan. In 1909, he entered graduate school at the University of Chicago, where he studied with Henry Chan ...

, joining one of the most remarkable cohorts of students ever assembled under one professor (Burgess, p. 193). It included Rexford F. Daubenmire,

Murray Fife Buell Murray Fife Buell (October 5, 1905 – July 3, 1975) was an American ecologist and palynologist. Personal life Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Buell earned a B.S. at Cornell University in 1930. He then attended the University of Minnesota, where h ...

, and Henry J. Oosting (who went on to become presidents of the

Ecological Society of America The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a professional organization of ecological scientists. Based in the United States and founded in 1915, ESA publications include peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets, and teaching resources. I ...

). Egler had intended to continue under Cooper for his Ph.D., but switched to George E. Nichols and Yale, after Nichols offered him a fellowship to study the vegetation around the Egler summer home in northern Connecticut. Egler had already embarked on its study for his dissertation when Nichols made the offer. Egler liked to trace his intellectual lineage, through Cooper, to

Henry Chandler Cowles Henry Chandler Cowles (February 27, 1869 – September 12, 1939) was an American botanist and ecological pioneer (see History of ecology). A professor at the University of Chicago, he studied ecological succession in the Indiana Dunes of Northwes ...

. He considered Cooper to be his lifelong mentor and friend.

Academic and research career

Syracuse Forestry lured Egler back as a professor. His independence of mind combined with disruptions caused by World War Two resulted in his losing that position. At the war's end, Egler purchased his parents’ Connecticut estate and decided to settle there to become an independent researcher and scholar. He used the proceeds of a family trust fund for support, supplementing it by grants and consulting fees. Although soured on academics by his experience at Syracuse Forestry, Egler missed having students. He taught occasionally in colleges and universities. When he began his experiments with herbicides, he realized that he needed the prestige that an academic position had once given him. From 1951-1955, he was a research associate at the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

in New York City. His outspokenness on the over-use of herbicides in rights-of-way led to his being asked to resign that position just before the Museum's Department of Conservation and General Ecology was disbanded. He rebounded from that setback when he was named a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, also in 1955. Egler was a prolific writer and a prescient scientist. His 1942 paper, “Vegetation as an Object of Study,” was among the first to attempt to apply the logic of philosophy to ecology. The same year, and more than a decade before Charles Elton's influential 1958 book on the subject, he published on invasion ecology. His 1947 study of Hawaiian vegetation is one of three papers credited with helping to finally bring down the Clementsian paradigm that so dominated American ecology to that time (McIntosh, p. 134; Simberloff, p 16). Egler's entertainingly written 1951 “Commentary” on American plant ecology anticipated some of the ideas of science historian and philosopher

Thomas S. Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term '' paradigm ...

. His research with herbicides was one of the earliest attempts to experimentally test a hypothesis in plant ecology. Along with his numerous descriptive studies of vegetation, his work with herbicides helped Egler demonstrate that succession did not always go through the regular stages that Frederic E. Clements had proposed, but was as often determined by the composition of seeds present after a disturbance. This was Egler's “Initial Floristics” model.

Early conservationist

Throughout his career, Egler was active in conservation work. He was a charter member of the Ecologists’ Union and on the Board of Governors when it became

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Natu ...

. An interesting aside is that the Nature Conservancy may well have become the world's most successful environmental organization because Egler was forced out of his Museum position.

Contributions to ''Silent Spring''

Throughout his career, Egler urged ecologists to value applied and basic research equally in ecology. He urged ecologists to study human-stressed areas along with the pristine habitats they then preferred. He also wanted them to take active stances on environmental issues. When

approached him for help with ''

'', however, he had essentially abandoned those efforts in frustration and was no longer calling himself an ecologist. Contact with Carson energized him in his crusade to free his science from the influences of chemical manufacturers. While she was writing her book, he shared much of his experience and expertise with her, contributing long letters with comments and suggestions (Lear, p 400). A consequence was that a passage in ''Silent Spring'' having some of Egler's sarcasm received the most criticism from Ian Baldwin in his famously negative review in ''Science''. Egler rose to defend Carson's (and his) views in a series of publications that led to his censure by the

Entomological Society of America The Entomological Society of America (ESA) was founded in 1889 and today has more than 7,000 members, including educators, extension personnel, consultants, students, researchers, and scientists from agricultural departments, health agencies, ...

—and censure of a journal that published his views. That incident helped both to focus and to polarize the issues of professionalism and environmentalism in the science of ecology.

Later career and honors

In 1973-74, Egler served on the Standing Committee for Professionalism at the

.List of Members of the Standing Committee on Professionalism
ESA history website, link updated 2016-03-25. In 1978, the Society gave him its Distinguished Service Award. In his later years, Egler used book reviews in ''Ecology'' to keep scientists and publishers on their toes, giving praise only when he felt it was due. In his own books, he tried to develop an appreciation for good science in the lay person. Some of his works were written under the anagrammatic pseudonyms of Warren G. Kenfield (Frank Edwin Egler) and Stan R. Foote (Aton Forest).

Legacy

Egler's summer home in northern Connecticut has been preserved as a museum and Research Natural Area, and as a tribute to his life and work. The house is now managed by Aton Forest, Inc., in Norfolk, Connecticut.

Selected works

* “Vegetation as an object of study,” ''Philosophy of Science'' 9 (1942): 245-60. * “Indigene versus alien in the development of arid vegetation,” ''Ecology'' 23 (1942): 14-23. * “Arid Southeast Oahu vegetation, Hawaii,” ''Ecological Monographs'' 17 (1947): 383-435. * “Brush control – an aspect of ‘plant-community management,’” ''Electric Light and Power'' 29:3 (1951): 98-99, 151. * “A commentary on American plant ecology, based on the textbooks of 1947-1949,” ''Ecology'' 32 (1951): 673-694. * “Vegetation science concepts I: Initial floristic composition, a factor in old-field vegetation development,” ''Vegetatio'' 4 (1954):412-417. * “Science, industry, and the abuse of rights of way,” ''Science'' 127 (1958): 573-80. * “Pesticides – In Our Ecosystem,” ''American Scientist'' 52 (1964): 110-36. * ''The Way of Science: A Philosophy of Ecology for the Layman'' (New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1970). * ''The plight of the rightofway domain: victim of vandalism'' (Mt. Kisco, N.Y.: Futura Media Services, 1975), with Stan R. Foote. Some of these are available online at th
Aton Forest website
Aton Forest, List of Selected Publications
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Egler, Frank Edwin American ecologists American environmentalists American foresters 1911 births 1996 deaths Forestry academics Forestry researchers University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences alumni State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry alumni Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies alumni University of Chicago alumni State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry faculty 20th-century American botanists Scientists from New York (state) People from the Upper West Side