View source for Biography:Frederic Clements

{{Short description|American plant ecologist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| image       = https://sandhillsarchive.unl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/520100_01482.jpg]]
| name        = Frederic Edward Clements
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| birth_date  =         {{birth date |1874|09|16}}
| birth_place = Lincoln, Nebraska, United States
| death_date  =         {{death date and age |1945|07|26 |1874|09|16}}
| death_place = Santa Barbara, California<ref name=UCSB>{{cite web |title=Frederic E. Clements |publisher=University of California at Santa Barbara |url=http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/westcampus/clements/bio.htm |access-date=June 28, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001002725/http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/westcampus/clements/bio.htm |archive-date=October 1, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
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| fields      = [[Biology:Plant ecology|Plant ecology]]
| workplaces  = {{hlist|University of Nebraska|[[Organization:University of Minnesota|University of Minnesota]]|Carnegie Institution of Science}}
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| alma_mater  = University of Nebraska
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| known_for   = [[Earth:Ecological succession|Ecological succession]]
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| spouse      =         Edith Gertrude Schwartz
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'''Frederic Edward Clements''' (September 16, 1874 – July 26, 1945) was an American plant ecologist and pioneer in the study of [[Biology:Plant ecology|plant ecology]]<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Kingsland|first=Sharon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2F3nAgAAQBAJ|title=Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers with Commentaries|date=2012|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-18210-0|editor-last=Real|editor-first=Leslie A.|pages=5–6|chapter=Defining Ecology as a Science|quote=Clements was important also for publishing the first American textbook in ecology, Research Methods in Ecology (1905), which discussed the statistical and graphical analytical methods he and other Nebraskan ecologists developed from 1897 to 1905. His ecological theory rested on two ideas, the concept of ecological succession of plant formations, and the treatment of the plant community as a “complex organism” undergoing a life cycle and evolutionary history analogous to the individual organism. The formal presentation of his theory appeared in 1916 in his monumental study Plant Succession.|editor-last2=Brown|editor-first2=James H.}}</ref> and [[Biology:Vegetation|vegetation]] [[Earth:Ecological succession|succession]].<ref name=MAB>{{cite book |title=Makers of North American Botany |first=Harry Baker |last=Humphrey |publisher=Ronald Press |year=1961 |isbn=9780826045201 |lccn=61-18435}}</ref>{{rp|51}}

==Biography==
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he studied [[Biology:Botany|botany]] at the University of Nebraska, graduating in 1894 and obtaining a [[Social:Doctorate|doctorate]] in 1898. One of his teachers was botanist Charles Bessey, who inspired Clements to research topics such as microscopy, plant physiology, and laboratory experimentation.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Joel|first=Hagen|date=12 September 2020|title=Frederic Edward Clements|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frederic-Edward-Clements|access-date=February 20, 2021|website=Britannica}}</ref> He was also classmate of Willa Cather and Roscoe Pound. While at the University of Nebraska, he met Edith Gertrude Schwartz (1874–1971), also a botanist and ecologist, and they were married in 1899.<ref name=UCSB/><ref>{{cite book |first=Edith S |last=Clements |title=Adventures in Ecology |year=1960 |publisher=Hafner Publishing Company |isbn=9780028429304}}</ref>

In 1905 he was appointed full professor at the University of Nebraska, but left in 1907 to head the botany department at the [[Organization:University of Minnesota|University of Minnesota]] in Minneapolis. From 1917 to 1941 he was employed as an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in [[Place:Washington, D.C.|Washington, D.C.]], where he was able to carry out dedicated ecological research.<ref name=UCSB/> While employed at  Carnegie Institution of Washington, Clements faced criticism for his experiments conducted with the purpose of creating new plant species. Due to these criticisms and as well as personal conflicts with his co workers, in the 1920s the title of director of research in experimental taxonomy was given to Harvey Monroe Hall.<ref name=":0" />

During winter he worked at [[Research station|research station]]s in Tucson, Arizona, and Santa Barbara, California, while in the summer he performed fieldwork at the Carnegie Institution's Alpine Laboratory,<ref>{{cite web | url="https://sandhillsarchive.unl.edu/project/frederic-clements/"}}</ref> a research station in Englemann Canyon on the slopes of Pikes Peak, Colorado. During this time he worked alongside staff of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service. In addition to his field investigations, he carried out experimental work in the laboratory and greenhouse, both at the Pikes Peak station and at Santa Barbara.<ref name=UCSB/><ref>{{cite web | title=History of Forest Service Research in the Central and Southern Rocky Mountain Regions, 1908-1975 | url=https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/pubs_rm/rm_gtr027.pdf | pages=17}}</ref>

==Theory of vegetation change to climax community==
From his observations of the vegetation of Nebraska and the western United States, Clements developed one of the most influential theories of vegetation development. Vegetation composition does not represent a permanent condition but gradually changes with time. Clements suggested that the development of vegetation can be understood as a unidirectional sequence of stages resembling the development of an individual organism. After a complete or partial disturbance, vegetation grows back (under ideal conditions) towards a stable "[[Earth:Climax community|climax state]]", which describes the vegetation best suited to the local conditions. Though any actual instance of vegetation might follow the ideal sequence towards stability, it can be interpreted in relation to that sequence, as a deviation from it due to non-ideal conditions.

In these studies, he and Roscoe Pound (who subsequently moved from ecology to legal scholarship) developed the widely-used method of sampling using [[Earth:Quadrat|quadrat]]s around 1898.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Pound, R. |author2=Clements, F. E.  |title=A method of determining the abundance of secondary species |journal=Minnesota Botanical Studies |volume=2 |pages=19–24 |date=June 1898}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Pound, R. |author2=Clements, F. E.  |title=Phytogeography of Nebraska |edition=Second |pages=[https://archive.org/details/phytogeographyn00poungoog/page/n69 61]–63 |date=1900 |publisher=Lincoln, Neb. Published by the Seminar |url=https://archive.org/details/phytogeographyn00poungoog}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Weaver |first1=J. E. |title=The Quadrat Method in Teaching Ecology |journal=The Plant World |date=November 1919 |volume=21 |issue=11 |pages=267–283 |doi=10.2307/2255282 |jstor=43477708|bibcode=1919JEcol...7..216A |s2cid=14481669 |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/context/agronomyfacpub/article/1516/viewcontent/Weaver_1918_The_Quadrat_Method_in_Teaching__Ecology.pdf }}</ref>

Clements's [[Earth:Climax community|climax]] theory of vegetation dominated plant ecology during the first decades of the twentieth century, though it was criticized significantly by ecologists William Skinner Cooper, Henry Gleason and Arthur Tansley early on, and by [[Biography:Robert Whittaker (ecologist)|Robert Whittaker]] mid-century, and largely fell out of favor.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ampatzidis |first1=Georgios |last2=Ergazaki |first2=Marida |date=2023-03-16 |title=Using the History of the Super-Organismic-Plant-Community Concept To Help Students Understand the Nature of Science |journal=Science & Education |language=en |doi=10.1007/s11191-023-00433-8 |bibcode=2023Sc&Ed.tmp...20A |issn=0926-7220|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=":1" />

==Community-unit view of vegetation types or plant communities==

In his 1916 publication, ''Plant Succession'', and his 1920 ''Plant Indicators'', Clements metaphorically equated units of vegetation, (now called vegetation types or plant communities) with individual organisms.<ref name=MCV>{{cite book |title=A Manual of California Vegetation |first1=John O. |last1=Sawyer |first2=Todd |last2=Keeler-Wolf |publisher=California Native Plant Society |year=1995 |isbn=9780943460260}}</ref> He observed that some groups of species, which he called "formations", were repeatedly [[Organization:Association (ecology)|associated]] together.<ref name=MCV/> He is frequently said to have believed that some species were dependent on the group, and the group on that species in an obligatory relationship.<ref name=MCV/> However, this interpretation has been challenged by the argument that Clements did not assume mutual dependence as an organizing principle of formations or plant communities.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40656-020-00317-y | doi=10.1007/s40656-020-00317-y | title=The myth of Frederic Clements's mutualistic organicism, or: On the necessity to distinguish different concepts of organicism | date=2020 | last1=Kirchhoff | first1=Thomas | journal=History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences | volume=42 | issue=2 | page=24 | pmid=32519255 | s2cid=256398149 }}</ref>    
Clements observed little overlap in kinds of species from type to type, with many species confined to just a single type.<ref name=MCV/> Some plants were widespread over vegetation types, but the areas of geographical overlap (ecotones) was narrow.<ref name=MCV/> His view of a community as a distinct unit was challenged in 1926 by Henry Gleason, who viewed vegetation as a continuum, not a unit, with associations being merely coincidental, and that any support by observations or data of clusters of species as predicted by Clements's view was either an artifact of the observer's perception or a result of defective data analysis.<ref name=MCV/><ref>{{cite book |title=Saving the Prairies: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895–1955 |first=Ronald C |last=Tobey |publisher=University of California |year=1981 |isbn=9780520043527 |url=https://archive.org/details/savingprairiesth00tobe }}</ref>

==Lamarckism==

Clements was an advocate of [[Biology:Lamarckism|neo-Lamarckian]] evolution. Ecologist Arthur Tansley wrote that because of his support for Lamarckism, Clements "never seemed to give proper weight to the results of modern genetical research."<ref>Tansley, A. G. (1947). ''Obituary Notice: Frederic Edward Clements, 1874–1945''. ''Journal of Ecology'' 34 (1): 194–196.</ref>

Science historian Ronald C. Tobey has commented that:

<blockquote>[Clements] believed that plants and animals could acquire a wide variety and range of characteristics in their struggle to survive and adapt to their environment, and that these features were heritable. In the 1920s, he conducted experiments to transform plant species native to one ecological zone into a species adapted to another, higher, zone. Clements was quite convinced of the validity of his experiments, but this experimental Lamarckism fell to experimental disproof in the 1930s.<ref>Tobey, Ronald C. (1981). ''Saving the Prairie: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895–1955''. University of Chicago Press. p. 182. {{ISBN|0-520-04352-9}}</ref></blockquote>

Clements spent much time trying to demonstrate the inheritance of acquired traits in plants. By the late 1930s scientists had provided
Darwinian explanations for the results of his transplant experiments.<ref>Hagen, Joel B. (1993). ''Clementsian Ecologists: The Internal Dynamics of a Research School''. ''Osiris''. Vol. 8, Research Schools: Historical Reappraisals. pp. 178–195.</ref>

==Honors==
In 1903, the flower ''Clementsia rhodantha'' ''[[Biology:Rhodiola rhodantha|Rhodiola rhodantha]]'' ("Clements's rose flower"), a stonecrop, was named in honor of Frederic Clements.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=N L |last1=Britton |first2=J N |last2=Rose |title=Botanical contributions: New or noteworthy North American Crassulaceae |journal=Bulletin of the New York Botanical Garden |year=1903 |volume=3 |page=3 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/97293#page/19/mode/1up}}</ref>

==Writings==
Among his works are:  
* ''The Phytogeography of Nebraska'' (1898; [https://archive.org/details/phytogeographyn00poungoog second edition, 1900])
* ''[https://archive.org/details/cu31924052310335 Research Methods in Ecology]'' (1905)
* ''[https://archive.org/details/plantphysiologye00clemuoft Plant Physiology and Ecology]'' (1907)
* ''[https://archive.org/details/cu31924000531818 Plant Succession. An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation]'' (1916)
* ''[https://archive.org/details/plantindicators00clemgoog Plant Indicators. The Relation of Plant Communities to Process and Practice]'' (1920)
*''The Phylogenetic Method in Taxonomy: The North American Species of Artemisia, Chrysothamnus, and Atriplex (1923, with Harvey Monroe Hall)''
* ''[https://archive.org/details/plantsuccessioni00clem Plant Succession and Indicators. A definitive edition of Plant succession and Plant indicators]'' (1928, reprinted 1973)
* ''Flower Families and Ancestors'' (1928, with Edith Clements)
* ''Plant Competition.  An Analysis of Community Functions'' (1929, with J.E. Weaver<!---John E. Weaver, biologist, U of Nebraska---> & H.C. Hanson. Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington
* ''The Genera of Fungi'' ([https://archive.org/details/generaoffungi1931clem 1931], repr. 1965, with C. L. Shear)
* ''Nature and structure of the climax'' (1936). The Journal of Ecology, 24(1), 252–284.


{{Botanist|Clem.|Clements, Frederic}}

== See also ==
* Suzanne Simard

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==

* [https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv571394/op=fstyle.aspx?t=k&q=edith+clements Edith S. and Frederic E. Clements Papers, 1876–1969]. [[Organization:University of Wyoming|University of Wyoming]] – American Heritage Center
* [http://digitalcollections.uwyo.edu/luna/servlet/detail/uwydbuwy~72~72~1717041~249818 AHC Digital collection of Edith S. and Frederic E. Clements]
*[https://ahcwyo.org/2011/09/28/clements-papers-document-the-history-of-ecology/ Clements Papers Document the History of Ecology] AHC blog

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clements, Frederic}}
[[Category:Plant ecologists]]

{{Sourceattribution|Frederic Clements}}