EcoEssay Series Number 1 - Response
Comment on the "Challenges of Complexity" by J.H. Brown
by Stephen R. Carpenter
New institutions (like NCEAS) should be substrate for successional change in the ecological community. Like a windfall in a forest, NCEAS is habitat for seeds of new ideas that may renew or reorganize ecology. We should take full advantage of that opportunity.
Small-scale experimentation has been the dominant approach in ecology for some time. While this approach has great power for certain questions, experiments alone are not sufficient for understanding complex ecological systems. The context provided by spatially extensive comparisons, long-term research, and theory is essential. Results of multiple approaches must be integrated to move us forward. Integration is among the principal goals of NCEAS.
While NCEAS can be a powerful force toward the renaissance of big, integrative ideas that Brown envisions, it will need help. The culture of ecology will have to shift to allocate more funding and more journal pages to synthetic activities. Reviewers will have to become more tolerant of risky ideas. Young scientists especially must be encouraged to allocate some effort to synthesis, at the expense of safer research. More senior scientists must support and lead the transition. We must relearn the skill of comparing multiple working hypotheses using all available information (in contrast to rejecting one null hypothesis at a time in narrowly focused experiments).
This transition will be difficult. Funding for ecology is scarce and competition is fierce. Pages in our most widely-read journals are limited and rejection rates are high. Synthesis involves the suppression of detail to search for general, broadly explanatory patterns. But one ecologist's detail is another ecologist's favorite organism or process. It is pathetically easy to shoot down synthetic ideas using arguments that begin "But in my ecosystem . . .". Yet in a world where few proposals can be funded, or few manuscripts can be accepted, such arguments are part of the wearisome process of rejecting enough ideas to meet the quota. Novel ideas are extraordinarily vulnerable.
If NCEAS is a new gap in the canopy of ecology, is it like a windfall or a lightning strike? If it's merely a windfall, renewal and reorganization will be local and the broader structure of the community will be unchanged. If it's a lightning strike, the patch fire could spread and create an enormous opening for novelty and innovation. Time will tell.