balance of nature hypothesis

Nature is a highly dynamic system, experts say, and there's no such thing as perfect balance.

• ENVIRONMENT

The ‘balance of nature’ is an enduring concept. But it’s wrong.

From the ancient Greeks to the Lion King, people have sought balance in nature—but the real world isn’t like that.

Strolling across his animated kingdom—Pride Rock in the distance—Mufasa explains to his young son Simba : “Everything you see exists together, in a delicate balance.”

The line is a hallmark of the Disney movie the Lion King , which debuted in 1994. A visually rich update of the classic, also by Disney (the Walt Disney Company is majority owner of National Geographic Partners), hit theaters this July. In the quarter-century gap, the film saw a few significant changes—hand-drawn animation gave way to life-like computer-generated graphics and Beyonce’s character Nala got a whole new song. But other aspects of the movie remained unchanged, including Mufasa’s original lesson about nature being in balance.

John Kricher just rewatched the scene from 1994. While the Wheaton College professor and author of The Balance of Nature: Ecology's Enduring Myth is a fan of James Earl Jones’ deep baritone delivery, he says “it’s not sound science.”

Scientists have long abandoned the idea of there being a “balance of nature,” in favor of more dynamic ecological frameworks. But, having been ingrained in popular culture over millennia, it’s proven much harder for the public to shake. The metaphor is alive and well today, appearing everywhere from newspapers , Legos , and a health food brand name to social media , and, of course, the Lion King reboot.

The misconception impacts everything from conservation management to climate change policy; and it’s a concept that scientists would like to see plucked from the public’s vocabulary. “It's a satisfying term,” says Kricher. “But it's not useful.”

From Herodotus to Disney

The notion that nature exists in some sort of balance, or harmony, dates back to at least the ancient Greeks . The Greek writer Herodotus, for instance, was fascinated by the apparently balanced relationship between predator and prey. Cicero, a Roman politician and philosopher, imbued the idea with religious significance, presenting it as evidence of the wisdom of a Creator.

“It’s so old,” said Kim Cuddington , a professor at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, that “it's very much embedded, at least in Western culture.”

Even among scientists, the balance of nature concept persisted for centuries. Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist, alluded to it in his work on natural selection, as did his contemporaries, such as Herbert Spencer. The approach bled into the twentieth century, with, for example, the belief that leaving the wilderness wild was the best method of conservation or that pollution was a disruptor of the natural order.

But it was around that same time that people also began to challenge balance of nature thinking. In 1949, environmentalist Aldo Leopold wrote, “The image commonly employed in conservation education is 'the balance of nature.' For reasons too lengthy to detail here, this figure of speech fails to describe accurately what little we know about the land mechanism.”

Stunning photos of the Earth

Also at that time, science was becoming more data driven, and ecology a more established discipline. “When the data don't support it, then you have to revise your idea,” said Kricher, explaining that that’s exactly what happened with the balance of nature.

Ecologists shifted away from community-based sociological models to increasingly mathematical, individualist theories. And, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the phrase balance of nature largely disappeared from the scientific lexicon . “Ecologists,” said Kricher, “had a tacit understanding that the [phrase] was largely metaphorical.”

The public, however, still employs the phrase liberally. The expression is often used one of two ways, said Cuddington. Sometimes the balance is depicted as fragile, delicate, and easily disturbed. Other times it’s the opposite—that the balance of nature is so powerful that it can correct any imbalances on its own. According to Cuddington, “they’re both wrong.”

Constant change

In the 1950s, Robert MacArthur went into the remote woods of coastal Maine to observe warbler populations. He found that five different species coexisted by utilizing different parts of the same tree. The phenomenon, known as niche partitioning, implied an equilibrium. A balance.

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The study became a foundation of ecology—one that most students read in class. That included Bik Wheeler, who first came across the work while pursuing his master’s degree. Realizing that he lived near MacArthur’s field site, he proposed re-creating the seminal research.

That was 2014. In the more than half-century that had passed since MacArthur’s original research, the forest he had worked in had largely gone untouched. So, aside from a few technological improvements—such as using lasers instead of stopwatches—Wheeler was able to retrace MacArthur’s steps. His results, however, were different.

Wheeler’s paper is still pending publication and peer review, so he was unable to talk about specifics. But he says he observed only two of the same species as MacArthur , as well as a few new ones.

In other words, “it's a dynamic system,” he said. “It's not static.”

The changes that Wheeler saw are emblematic of the broader shift that’s happened across ecology, and has had real-life implications. Both the delicate and stalwart interpretations of “balance” imply that nature should be left to its own devices; that human interference ought to be minimal.

The updated view is that “change is constant,” said Matt Palmer, an ecologist at Columbia University. And as the new approach took hold, conservation and management policies also adapted. “In some ways it argues for a stronger hand in managing ecosystems or natural resources,” he said. “It's going to take human intervention.”

Palmer pointed to assisted migration—in which people help animals move across obstacles such as roads or those caused by the changing climate—as one common conservation technique that bucks the notion of a natural balance. The reintroduction of wolves in places such as Yellowstone is another example. Others noted controlled-burn fires in forest management.

But the most obvious, and pressing, manifestation is the looming climate crisis, says Corinne Zimmerman , a psychologist at Illinois State University. While the vast majority of scientists agree that efforts to address climate change must involve human action , a public misconception about nature being in balance could inhibit progress. “If nature is all robust and fine, she'll take care of herself, we don't have to do anything about our carbon footprint,” she said. “It's a very naive understanding of nature.”

Still, the term persists. A 2007 study by Zimmerman and Cuddington found that even being exposed to scientific evidence against the balance of nature did little to change people’s opinions. Those surveyed, Cuddington told Pacific Standard magazine at the time, were “almost unable to reason logically about environmental problems because they keep bumping into this cultural concept.”

The flux of nature?

Dislodging the balance of nature from the popular psyche won’t be easy. Back in the 1980s, ecologist Steward Pickett tried to aid that process by proposing a replacement: the “flux of nature.”

“I thought that there needed to be some short-hand alternative,” he said.

Although the flux alternative hasn’t yet caught on, Pickett still thinks it’s a more useful framing. The balance of nature, he says, has left the scientific discourse because it’s “vague and loaded” and the public ought to follow suit.

“We have to accept responsibility for what we're doing,” he said, “and not just say that nature will take care of it.”

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• What Is the Balance of Nature?

The ecosystem is often balanced when the living organisms such as plant, humans, and animals are in harmony. Humans are key in maintaining such a balance since the balance is dependent on their activities. However, people often carry out activities that are harmful and destructive to nature. Some, while interacting with nature, conserve it while others break it through the exploitation of forests, agricultural activities, and the introduction of invasive species. This destruction and conflict between humans and nature has led to the formation of protectionist groups and conservation activists. Because of the conflict between the nature and humans, there is a need for a balanced nature that will ensure not only the survival of plants and animals but also humans.

Natural Balance Theory

The balance of nature can be defined as a biological equilibrium between the living beings such as human, plants, and animals. At a stable equilibrium, the balance of nature asserts that any slight change in certain parameters will be corrected by a negative feedback which will eventually bring back the changed parameter to its original position of balance. The balance of nature applies in the case where there is interdependence in a population such as the predator-prey system or herbivores-vegetation system. The theory of permanently balanced nature has been criticized and dismissed by scientist, especially ecologists who have found that chaotic changes in populations are common. Despite the criticism, the theory is popular among the general public.

The concept that nature maintains its balance has existed for a long time. One of the most proponents of the theory was Herodotus who asserted that there is a perfect relationship between predators and preys which ensures that they remain in steady proportion to one another. In this wonderful relationship do not excessively feed on their prey. At some point, the theory of “balance of nature” dominated the ecological research and influence the management of the natural resources, leading to a popular doctrine among conservationist that nature would thrive if left to take care of itself and human intervention was unacceptable. The balance of nature concept was already in question by the beginning of the 20th century but the concept was abandoned by the scientists in the field of ecology in the last quarter of the century.

Human Intervention

The population of predators and prey often exhibit chaotic behaviors within the limit in which the population sizes in ways that may appear random and unpredictable but in real sense obeying the deterministic laws depending on the relationship between the population and the source of food as highlighted by Lotka-Volterra equation. Although humans have been accused of destroying the environment, some of their activities have contributed to creating modern day habitats. Some rainforests in Latin America were planted and transplanted by humans. The “fire-stick farming” practiced in Australian Aboriginal is an example of a human activity that modified the ecosystem.

The Fate of the Theory

Although the theory has been discredited by most of the ecologist, it is still widely held as true by the general public. In Midwestern America, the concept is widely held by both the science students and general students.

• Environment

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• v.12(10); 2014 Oct

The “Balance of Nature”—Evolution of a Panchreston

Daniel simberloff.

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States

The notion of a “balance of nature” stretches back at least to the ancient Greeks, but with widely varying conceptions. Originally seen as bestowed by God to protect humankind, after Darwin, the balance came to be seen as fragile, arising by natural selection, and requiring human assistance for maintenance.

The earliest concept of a balance of nature in Western thought saw it as being provided by gods but requiring human aid or encouragement for its maintenance. With the rise of Greek natural philosophy, emphasis shifted to traits gods endowed species with at the outset, rather than human actions, as key to maintaining the balance. The dominance of a constantly intervening God in the Middle Ages lessened interest in the inherent features of nature that would contribute to balance, but the Reformation led to renewed focus on such features, particularly traits of species that would maintain all of them but permit none to dominate nature. Darwin conceived of nature in balance, and his emphasis on competition and frequent tales of felicitous species interactions supported the idea of a balance of nature. But Darwin radically changed its underlying basis, from God to natural selection. Wallace was perhaps the first to challenge the very notion of a balance of nature as an undefined entity whose accuracy could not be tested. His skepticism was taken up again in the 20th century, culminating in a widespread rejection of the idea of a balance of nature by academic ecologists, who focus rather on a dynamic, often chaotic nature buffeted by constant disturbances. The balance-of-nature metaphor, however, lives on in large segments of the public, representing a fragile aspect of nature and biodiversity that it is our duty to protect.

The notion of a “balance of nature” stretches back to early Greeks, who believed gods maintained it with the aid of human prayers, sacrifices, and rituals [1] . As Greek philosophers developed the idea of natural laws, human assistance in maintaining the balance did not disappear but was de-emphasized. Herodotus, for instance, the earliest known scholar to seek biological evidence for a balance of nature, asked how the different animal species each maintained their numbers, even though some species ate other species. Amassing facts and factoids, he saw divinely created predators' reproductive rates lower than those of prey, buttressing the idea of a providentially determined balance with a tale of a mutualism between Nile crocodiles beset with leeches and a plover species that feeds on them [1] . Two myths in Plato's Dialogues supported the idea of a balance of nature: the Timaeus myth, in which different elements of the universe, including living entities, are parts of a highly integrated “superorganism,” and the Protagoras myth, in which gods created each animal species with characteristics that would allow it to thrive and, having run out of biological traits, had to give man fire and superior intelligence [1] . Among Romans, Cicero followed Herodotus and Plato in advancing a balance of nature generated by different reproductive rates and traits among species, as well as interactions among species [1] .

The Middle Ages saw less interest in such pre-set devices as differential reproductive rates to keep nature in balance, perhaps because people believed in a God who would maintain the balance by frequent direct intervention [1] . The Reformation, however, fostered further development of the concept of a providential balance of nature set in motion at creation. Thomas Browne [2] added differential mortality rates to factors maintaining the balance, and Matthew Hale [3] proposed that lower rates of mortality for humans than for other animals maintain human dominance within a balanced nature and added vicissitudes of heat from the sun to the factors keeping any one species from getting out of hand.

The discovery of fossils that could not be ascribed to known living species severely challenged the idea of a God-given balance of nature, as they contradicted the idea of species divinely created with the necessary features for survival [4] . John Ray [5] suggested that the living representatives of such fossils would be found in unexplored parts of the earth, a solution that was viable until the great scientific explorations of the late 18th and early 19th centuries [4] . Ray also argued that what would now be termed different Grinnellian ecological niches demonstrated God's provision of each species with a space of its own in nature.

According to Egerton [1] , the earliest use of the term “balance” to refer specifically to ecology was probably by Ray's disciple, William Derham [6] , who asserted in 1714 that:

“The Balance of the Animal World is, throughout all Ages, kept even, and by a curious Harmony and just Proportion between the increase of all Animals, and the length of their Lives, the World is through all Ages well, but not over-stored.”

Derham recognized that human populations seemed to be endlessly increasing but saw this fact as a provision by God for future disasters. This explanation contrasts with that of Linnaeus [7] , who saw human and other populations endlessly increasing but believed the size of the earth was also increasing to accommodate them. Derham grappled with the issue of theodicy but failed to reconcile plagues of noxious animals with the balance of nature, seeing them rather as “Rods and Scourges to chastise us, as means to excite our Wisdom, Care, and Industry” [1] .

Derham's contemporary Richard Bradley [8] , [9] focused more on biological facts and less on Providence in sketching a more comprehensive account of an ecological balance of nature, taking account of the rapidly expanding knowledge of biodiversity, noting that each plant had its phytophagous insects, each insect its parasitic wasps or flies and predatory birds, concluding that “all Bodies have some Dependence upon one another; and that every distinct Part of Nature's Works is necessary for the Support of the rest; and that if any one was wanting, all the rest must consequently be out of Order.” Thus, he saw the balance as fragile rather than robust, in spite of a constantly intervening God. Linnaeus [10] similarly marshaled observations of species interactions to explain why no species increases to crowd out all others, adding competition to the predation, parasitism, and herbivory adduced by Bradley and also emphasizing the different roles (we might now say “niches”) of different species as allowing them all to coexist in a sort of superorganismic, balanced whole.

Unlike Derham, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon [11] managed to reconcile animal plagues with a balanced nature. He perceived the balance of nature as dynamic, with all species fluctuating between relative rarity and abundance, so that whenever a species became overabundant, weather, predation, and competition for food would bring it back into balance. Buffon's successor as director of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre [12] , was probably the first to associate ecological damage caused by biological invasions with a disruption of the balance of nature. Observing damage to introduced trees from insects accidentally introduced with them, he argued that failure to introduce the birds that would eat the insects led to the damage. William Paley [13] , perhaps the inspiration for today's advocates of “intelligent design,” analogized nature to a watch. One would assume a smoothly running watch was designed with purpose, and so too nature was designed by God with balance and a purpose.

In the 19th century, evolution burst on the scene, greatly influencing and ultimately modifying conceptions of a balance of nature. Fossils that seemed unrelated to any living species, as noted above, conflicted with the balance of nature, because they implied extinction, a manifestly unbalanced event that furthermore could be seen to imply that God had made a mistake. Whereas Ray had been able to argue that living exemplars of fossil species would be found in unexplored parts of the earth, by the 19th century, this explanation could be rejected. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck [14] resolved the conflict in a different way, arguing that species continually change, so the balance remains the same. The fossils thus represent ancestors of living species, not extinct lineages. Robert Chambers [15] , another early evolutionist, similarly saw fossils not as a paradox in a balanced nature but as a consequence of the fact that, as the physical environment changed, species either evolved or went extinct.

Alfred Russel Wallace was perhaps the first to question the very existence of a balance of nature, in a remarkable notebook entry, ca. 1855:

“Some species exclude all others in particular tracts. Where is the balance? When the locust devastates vast regions and causes the death of animals and man, what is the meaning of saying the balance is preserved… To human apprehension there is no balance but a struggle in which one often exterminates another” [16] .

In modern parlance, Wallace appears almost to be asking how “balance” could be defined in such a way that a balance of nature could be a testable hypothesis.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection certainly explained the existence of fossils, and his emphasis on inevitable competition both between and within species downplayed the role of niche specialization propounded by Plato, Cicero, Linnaeus, Derham, and others [1] . Darwin nevertheless saw the ecological roles of the diversity of species as parts of an almost superorganismic nature, and his main contribution to the idea of a balance of nature was his constant emphasis on competition and other mortality factors that kept all species' populations in check [1] . His many metaphors and examples of the interactions among species, such as the tangled bank and the spinsters-cats-mice-bumblebees-clover stories in The Origin of Species [17] , contributed to a sense of a highly balanced nature, but one driven by natural selection constantly changing species, rather than by God either intervening or creating species with traits that ensure their continued existence. Unlike Wallace, Darwin did not raise the issue of whether nature was actually balanced and how we would know if it was not.

As ecology developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was inevitable that Wallace's question—how to define “balance”—would be raised again and that increasingly wide and quantitative study, especially at the population level, would be brought to bear on the matter. The work of the early dominant plant ecologist Frederic Clements and his followers, with Clements' notion of superorganismic communities [18] , provided at least tacit support for the idea of a balance of nature, but his contemporary Charles Elton [19] , a founder of the field of animal ecology and a leading student of animal population cycles, forcefully reprised Wallace's concern:

“‘The balance of nature’ does not exist, and perhaps never has existed. The numbers of wild animals are constantly varying to a greater or lesser extent, and the variations are usually irregular in period and always irregular in amplitude. Each variation in the numbers of one species causes direct and indirect repercussions on the numbers of the others, and since many of the latter are themselves independently varying in numbers, the resultant confusion is remarkable.”

Despite Elton's explicit skepticism, his depiction of energy flow through food chains and food webs was incorporated as a superorganismic analog to the physiology of individuals (e.g., [20] ). Henry Gleason, another critic of the superorganism concept, who depicted populations distributed independently, rather than in highly organized communities, was ignored at this time [21] .

However, beginning with three papers in Ecological Monographs in 1947, the superorganism concept was increasingly questioned and, within 25 years, Gleason was vindicated and his views largely accepted by ecologists [22] . During this same period, extensive work by population biologists again took up Elton's focus on population trajectories and contributed greatly to a growing recognition of the dynamism of nature and the fact that much of this dynamism did not seem regular or balanced [21] . The idea of a balanced nature did not immediately disappear among ecologists. For instance, a noteworthy book by C. B. Williams [23] , Patterns in the Balance of Nature , described the distribution of abundances within communities or regions as evincing statistical regularity that might be construed as a type of “balance of nature,” at least if changes in individual populations do not change certain statistical features (a hypothesis that Williams considered untested at the time). But the predominant view by ecologists of the 1960s saw the whole notion of a balance as, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, a distraction. Ehrlich and Birch [24] , for example, ridiculed the idea:

“The existence of supposed balance of nature is usually argued somewhat as follows. Species X has been in existence for thousands or perhaps millions of generations, and yet its numbers have never increased to infinity or decreased to zero. The same is true of the millions of other species still extant. During the next 100 years, the numbers of all these species will fluctuate; yet none will increase indefinitely, and only a few will become extinct… Such ‘observations’ are made the basis for the statement that population size is ‘controlled’ or ‘regulated,’ and that drastic changes in size are the results of upsetting the ‘balance of nature.’”

Another line of ecological research that became popular at the end of the 20th century was to equate “balance of nature” with some sort of equilibrium of numbers, usually of population sizes [25] , but sometimes of species richness. The problem remained that, with numbers that vary for whatever reason, it is still arbitrary just how much temporal variation can be accommodated within a process or phenomenon for it still to be termed equilibrial [26] . Often the decision on whether to perceive an ecological process as equilibrial seems to be based on whether there is some sort of homeostatic regulation of the numbers, such as density-dependence, which A. J. Nicholson [27] suggested as an argument against Elton's skepticism of the existence of a balance. The classic 1949 ecology text by Allee et al. [28] explicitly equated balance with equilibrium and cited various mechanisms, such as density-dependence, in support of its universality in nature [25] . Later similar sorts of mathematical arguments equated the mathematical stability of models representing nature with a balance of nature [29] , although the increasing recognition of stochastic aspects and chaotic mathematics of population fluctuations made it more difficult to perceive a balanced nature in population trajectories [21] .

For academic ecologists, the notion of a balance of nature has become passé, and the term is widely recognized as a panchreston [30] —a term that means so many different things to different people that it is useless as a theoretical framework or explanatory device. Much recent research has been devoted to emphasizing the dynamic aspects of nature and prominence of natural or anthropogenic disturbances, particularly as evidenced by vicissitudes of population sizes, and advances the idea that there is no such thing as a long-term equilibrium (e.g., [31] , [32] ). Some authors explicitly relate this research to a rejection of the concept of a balance of nature (e.g., [33] – [35] ), Pickett et al. [33] going so far as to say it must be replaced by a different metaphor, the “flux of nature.”

The issue is confounded by the fact that the perception of balance can be sought at different levels (populations, communities, ecosystems) and spatial scales. Much of the earlier discussion of a balance was at the population and community levels—Browne, Hale, Bradley, Linnaeus, Buffon, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and Darwin saw balance in the limited fluctuations of populations and the interactions of populations as one force imposing the limits. The proponents of density-dependent population regulation fall in this category as well [36] , [37] . As a balance is sought at the community and ecosystem levels, the sorts of evidence brought to bear on the matter become more complicated and abstract [37] , [38] . It is increasingly difficult to imagine what sorts of empirical or observational data could test the notion of a balance. For instance, Williams's balance of nature—evidenced by a particular statistical distribution of population sizes—would not be perceived as balanced by many observers in light of the fact that entire populations can crash, explode, or even go extinct within the constraint of a statistical distribution of a given shape. Early claims of a balance at the highest level, such as the various superorganisms (Plato's Timaeus myth, Paley's watch metaphor, Clements's superorganismic plant community) can hardly be seen as anything other than metaphors rather than testable hypotheses and have fallen from favor. The most expansive conception of a balance of nature—the Gaia hypothesis [39] —has been almost universally rejected by scientists [40] . The advent and growing acceptance of the metapopulation concept of nature [41] also complicates the search for balance in bounded population fluctuations. Spatially limited individual populations can arise, fluctuate wildly, and even go extinct, while suitable dynamics maintain the widespread metapopulation as a whole.

Yet, the idea of a balance of nature lives on in the popular imagination, especially among conservationists and environmentalists. However, the usual use of the metaphor in an environmental context suggests that the balance, whether given by God or produced by evolution, is a fragile balance, one that needs human actions for its maintenance. Through the 18th century, the balance of nature was probably primarily a comforting construct—it would protect us; it represented some sort of benign governance in the face of occasional awful events. When Darwin replaced God as the determinant of the balance with natural selection, the comfort of a balance of nature was not so overarching, if there was any comfort at all. Today, ecologists do not even recognize a balance, and those members of the public who do, see it as something we must protect if we are ever to reap benefits from it in the future (e.g., wetlands that might help ameliorate flooding from storms and sea-level rise). This shift is clear in the writings of Bill McKibben [42] , [43] , who talks frequently about balance, but about balance with nature, not balance of nature, and how humankind is headed towards a catastrophic future if it does not act promptly and radically to rebalance society with nature.

Acknowledgments

My debt will be obvious to a remarkable paper by Frank N. Edgerton on the history of the concept of a balance of nature.

Funding Statement

No funding was received for this work.

The Balance of Nature

• John C. Kricher

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The Balance of Nature: Ecology's Enduring Myth

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The idea of a balance of nature has been a dominant part of Western philosophy since before Aristotle, and it persists in the public imagination and even among some ecologists today. In this lively and thought-provoking book, John Kricher demonstrates that nature in fact is not in balance, nor has it ever been at any stage in Earth’s history. He explains how and why this notion of a natural world in balance has endured for so long, and he shows why, in these times of extraordinary human influence on the planet’s ecosystems, it is critical that we accept and understand that evolution is a fact of life, and that ecology is far more dynamic than we ever imagined. The Balance of Nature traces the fascinating history of the science of ecology and evolutionary biology, from the discipline’s early innovators to the advent of Darwin and evolution, to the brilliant and inquisitive scientific minds of today. Blending insights and entertaining stories from his own remarkable life in science, Kricher reveals how evolution is a powerful engine that drives ecological change, how nature is constantly in flux and, in effect, quite naturally out of balance—and how notions to the contrary are misguided and ultimately hazardous to us all. The Balance of Nature forcefully argues that an understanding of the dynamic nature of ecology and evolution is essential to formulating policies of environmental ethics to guide humanity toward a more responsible stewardship of our planet’s ecosystems.

"The author conveys his message in a clear writing style without using highly technical concepts or terminology."—B.R., Shmaefsky, Choice

"Kricher's book is of interest to environmental historians and historians of science not only on account of the information it contains, but also because within it there is so little of the scholarship of the history of the environmental sciences with which we, in the humanities and social sciences, are familiar."—Jane Carruthers, Environment and History

"With The Balance of Nature , John Kricher has done us the favor of producing the book our non-ecological parents should read. In a scant 200 pages of accessible prose, Kricher weaves together three themes about which any literate citizen should be aware. . . . The Balance of Nature hits its mark. Buy a copy for your parents, your students, and your children today."—Aaron M. Ellison, Ecology

"The relationship between science and non-science belief systems especially religious belief system has always been an uneasy one. Even though this book clearly sides with science in disclaiming the notion of the ‘balance of nature', it is still relevant to people who hold to the Judeo-Christian creation belief and of other religious backgrounds who are interested in the workings of the natural world."—Richard S. Mbatu, International Journal of Environmental Studies

"John Kricher masterfully describes the ancient origins of the concept of a balance of nature and its unquestioned incorporation into the thinking of many ecologists and conservationists. This concept implies an overarching purpose or design in the natural world, making it inconsistent with our understanding of how evolution works. Kricher shows that we can understand and protect natural ecosystems better by rejecting the assumption that nature is a well-designed machine and accepting the true complexity created by numerous interacting species."—Robert Askins, Connecticut College

"This is a highly readable account of ecology, rich in substance, metaphor, and examples. The author's main goal is to puncture the cozy idea that nature is in a state of balance. While the concept of balance fitted the philosophy of some of the ancient Greeks and their intellectual descendants, John Kricher explains how it has repeatedly failed the test of empirical science. Nature, he shows, is much more interesting."—Peter R. Grant, Princeton University

"A deft and inviting tour of ecology and evolution, a book of revelation about the balance of nature that really counts, namely that between ourselves and the living planet. This is an appealing read that reveals the most important story of human history."—Thomas E. Lovejoy, president of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment

"Kricher's new book challenges our long-held belief in the balance of nature. Presenting fascinating evidence in a highly readable style, Kricher makes the case that no, there is no balance within nature, but yes, we need a sounder ethic that trumpets the urgency that we must save our environment—now!"—Herb Raffaele, United States Fish and Wildlife Service

"Kricher is an excellent storyteller and this is an important story to tell. I thoroughly enjoyed this little book. It is chock full of interesting ideas that challenge conventional wisdom. The Balance of Nature is a fun read throughout, and will appeal to a broad range of readers both within and outside the discipline."—Richard Karban, coauthor of How to Do Ecology

"Kricher dispels the popularly held notion that nature exists in some single, harmonious balance, and shows how, as a consequence, we need to change the way we view nature. His passion and breadth of understanding come through very clearly. The Balance of Nature is a charming and very readable book."—Oswald Schmitz, Yale University

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Challenging Students’ Belief in the ‘Balance of Nature’ Idea

The Emergence of a Design Theory

• Published: 17 December 2018
• Volume 27 , pages 895–919, ( 2018 )

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• Georgios Ampatzidis   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3763-3579 1 &
• Marida Ergazaki 2  

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This article reports on the theoretical output of a design research study, which concerns the design of a learning environment (LE) for helping students challenge the ‘balance of nature’-idea and reach an up-to-date understanding about ecosystems’ contingency. Our focus is set on whether it is feasible to articulate an empirically tested theory of teaching/learning about contingency in nature while designing our LE. The study included an exploratory phase (EP) and three research cycles (RC1–3). The participants were first year educational sciences students who collaboratively explored computer models that simulated ecosystems’ response to changes, in order to understand the underlying contingency. In the EP, we defined learning objectives/design criteria that informed the LE’s first version. This was driven by the global/overall question of how ecosystems may function, which was explored through inter-connected local/partial questions with the aid of scaffold questions embedded in worksheets linked to the computer models. Drawing upon the RC1 results, we introduced two-version models for each change that the peer groups had to explore and assigned the first version to half and the second to the other half. These changes made it through RC2-RC3 and account for key features of the study’s theoretical output, the ‘Bifurcated Domino Path Approach’. The RC3 results show that it works effectively, and thus, we suggest that the design of LEs addressing contingency in ecosystem’s response can integrate bifurcated domino paths with several (a) forks, where some peer groups explore one version of the target phenomenon and others an alternative one and (b) meeting points, where they all share their different, contingency-indicating conclusions.

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This study was funded by the Research Committee of the University of Patras via Constantin Carathéodory 2010 project; it was also partly funded by the A.G. Leventis Foundation.

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Hellenic Open University, Parodos Aristotelous 18, 26335, Patras, Greece

Georgios Ampatzidis

Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education, University of Patras, 26504, Rio-Patras, Greece

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Appendix: The pre-post questionnaire

1.1 item 1: protected ecosystem.

Pre-test: Consider a certain forest that hosts populations of plants, animals and decomposers. This forest is a national park – namely a totally protected area where any human activity is forbidden. The size of the populations is regularly monitored by the scientists of the park who study their course in time. In the absence of natural disturbances, how do you think this forest will look some years later compared to how it initially looked according to the given description?

Post-test: Consider an aquatic park that hosts populations of plants, animals and decomposers. This aquatic park is a totally protected area where any human activity is forbidden. The size of the populations is regularly monitored by the scientists of the park who study their course in time. In the absence of natural disturbances, how do you think this aquatic park will look some years later compared to how it initially did according to the given description?

1.2 Item 3: Disturbed Ecosystem / Biotic Change

Pre-test: Consider a certain lake that hosts plant populations of phytoplankton (microscopic plants of various species) and water plants, animal populations of zooplankton (microscopic animals of various species), fish, sea birds and decomposers. The city council of a nearby city decides to add in this lake a new fish population (cyprinids). The introduction of this new fish population changes the situation within the lake: some populations decrease and some others increase in size. Sometime later, the city council decides to remove all the cyprinids from the lake and as a consequence there is no population of cyprinids left there. How do you think this lake will look some years later compared to how it initially looked (before the introduction of the cyprinids) according to the given description?

Post-test: Consider a certain forest that hosts populations of plants, animals and decomposers. The city council of a nearby city decides to add in this forest a new animal population (mongooses). The introduction of this new animal population changes the situation within the forest: some populations decrease and some others increase in size. Sometime later, the city council decides to remove all the mongooses from the forest and as a consequence there is no population of mongooses left there. How do you think this forest will look some years later compared to how it initially did (before the introduction of the mongooses) according to the given description?

1.3 Item 4: Disturbed Ecosystem/Abiotic Change

Pre-test: Consider a certain lake that hosts plant populations of phytoplankton (microscopic plants of various species) and water plants, animal populations of zooplankton (microscopic animals of various species), fish, sea birds and decomposers. The city council of a nearby city decides to throw treated wastewater in the lake for a certain period of time which increases the water salinity and, as a result, some populations decrease, some others increase in size and one fish population disappears. Sometime later, the salinity of the water restores its initial level thanks to the efforts of a group of scientists and the disappeared fish population is reintroduced. How do you think this lake will look some years later compared to how it initially did (before the salinity increase) according to the given description?

Post-test: Consider a certain lake that hosts plant populations of phytoplankton (microscopic plants of various species) and water plants, animal populations of zooplankton (microscopic animals of various species), fish and sea birds and decomposers. The city council of a nearby city decides to throw nutrients in the lake for a certain period of time and, as a result, some populations decrease, some others increase in size and one fish population disappears. Sometime later, the number of nutrients in the lake restores its initial level thanks to the efforts of a group of scientists and the disappeared fish population is reintroduced. How do you think this lake will look some years later compared to how it initially did (before the nutrients increase) according to the given description?

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Ampatzidis, G., Ergazaki, M. Challenging Students’ Belief in the ‘Balance of Nature’ Idea. Sci & Educ 27 , 895–919 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-018-0017-5

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Published : 17 December 2018

Issue Date : 14 December 2018

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-018-0017-5

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