The Background of Ecology is a critical and up-to-date review of the origins and
development of ecology, with emphasis on the major concepts and theories shared in the
ecological traditions of plant and animal ecology, limnology, and oceanography. The work
traces developments in each of these somewhat isolated areas and identifies, where
possible, parallels or convergences among them. Dr McIntosh describes how ecology
emerged as a science in the context of nineteenth-century natural histor