Modeling the Grasslands

Modeling the GrasslandsAuthor(s): Chunglin KwaSource: Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1993), pp. 125-155Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27757714 .

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CHUNGLIN KWA*

Modeling the grasslands

from 1968 to 1976 the United States engaged in an unprecendented (and never repeated) effort to boost the science of ecology by funding several large research projects developed within the framework of the American contribution to the International Biological Program (IBP). The most important were the "Biome Projects," large-scale investiga tions of the structure and functioning of ecosystems with the help of

computerized modeling. Within the biology programs of the National Science Foundation (NSF), these projects occupied a unique position by their sheer size and administrative complexity.

The most centralized project, the Grassland Biome, based at Colorado State University, featured a form of organization typical of

big science. The total ecosystem models to be developed called for a

large coordinated effort that justified the strong role accorded central

management. In some striking ways, the structure of the organization mirrored the structure of the grasslands model that it aimed to

develop. The envisaged models were to advance toward a large-scale rational management of natural resources. As we will see, the models

*Department of Science Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Neth

erlands 1018 WV. Acknowledgements: a grant from the Netherlands Organization for

the Advancement of Pure Research allowed me extensive travel in the U.S. Merton Eng land and Toby Appel have been very kind in helping me locate documents pertaining to

the IBP at the National Science Foundation. I gratefully acknowledge the permission of

the National Academy of Sciences to consult the IBP archives.

The following abbreviations are used: FS/pa, F.E. Smith, personal archives; Gbn, Grassland Biome Newsletter, mimeographed periodical issued by the Natural Resource

Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University (a complete set is kept at its library); NAS/IBP, Archives of the U.S. National Committee for the International Biological Program, kept at the National Academy of Sciences; NREL, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University; NSF, documents kept at the National Science

Foundation; OL/pa, O. Loucks, personal archives; RANN, Research Applied to Nation al Needs; RM/pa, R. Mclntosh, personal archives; SA/pa, S.I. Auerbach, personal ar

chives; USNC-IBP, U.S. National Committee for the International Biological Program.



126 KWA

were deterministic, which were incorporating a small set of variables

supposed to fix the value of all the other variables and thus of the entire ecosystem. A similarity with the organization of the Grassland Biome project is hard to miss: a small management team assigned tasks and preset outcomes to a large number of researchers.

The introduction of big science management into academic ecology did not proceed without difficulties. The Grassland Biome suffered a

major managerial crisis, resulting in the resignation of its Principal Investigator, George Van Dyne, a few months before the official termi nation of the U.S. IBP (June 30, 1974). While all participants in the Grasslands study recognized that Van Dyne's exacting and single minded style of leadership was the single most important factor lead

ing to his eventual resignation, the crisis in the Grassland Biome study revealed major tensions related to the organization of the work of the Biqme. It also brought to light important differences of opinion con

cerning the goal of ecological modeling that called into question the initial enthusiasm that had surrounded the Grassland Biome as a Big Biology project.

The term "big science" was coined in 1961 by Alvin Weinberg, the Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a nationally known science policy expert.1 Referring primarily to large physics and

engineering operations, rockets?high-energy accelerators and high-flux nuclear reactors?Weinberg linked big science to big money, big apparatuses, big teams of scientists, in a trend he regarded as inevit able. Derek de Solla Price agreed: the "state called Big Science actu

ally marks the onset of those new conditions that will break the tradi tion of centuries." The wide readership of his Little science, big sci ence signalled the extent of the interest awakened by the new concept.

Weinberg urged biologists to "accept the new style of Big Science," which, in contrast to the individualistic style of researchers in a

university department, he characterized as interdisciplinary, more

hierarchical, and closer knit. Weinberg supposed that the public would be willing to pay the higher costs of this type of science, What he deemed fit for biomedical biology, he apparently also thought appropriate for ecology.2

The U.S. Congress, through its House Subcommittee on Science, Research and Development, specifically intended the IBP to be a foray into big science when it endorsed the Program as a line item on the

NSF's budget.3 In 1966, this House Subcommittee had identified

1. Alvin Weinberg, "Impact of large-scale science on the United States," Science, 131

(1961), 161-164; Derek de Solla Price, Little science, big science (New York, 1963), 2.

2. Alvin Weinberg, Reflections on big science (Cambridge, 1967), on 108; Price (ref.

1), 31.

3. See C.L. Kwa, "Representations of nature mediating between ecology and science

policy: The case of the International Biological Programme," Social studies of science,

77(1987), 413-442.



ECOLOGY 127

ecology as "the science which covers most of the technical aspects of

pollution," and had recommended immediate increase in its support.4 A year later, the same House Subcommittee held hearings on the IBP, and declared itself convinced of the technological potential of systems ecology to "manage the ecological systems of the planet."5

As Weinberg stressed, big science finds its justification in its poten tial for solving problems too complex for individual researchers. Some problems may also stand out because of their social relevance and urgency. A crash program might then be needed, as in the case of the "war on cancer." Both considerations entered into the Congres sional discussions of the desirability of the IBP. The Biome projects were expected to provide the basic science background needed for the solution of environmental problems like pollution. The IBP ecologists

modeled their approach on cybernetics, inspired by the way engineers approach the problem of controlling complex systems. Congressmen were as optimistic as the systems ecologists about the potential of

computers for solving problems in the management of nature.6 In 1965, before the involvement of the Congress with ecology, the

President's Science Advisor designated the NSF as the coordinating agency for the IBP. The NSF, and especially its Division of Biological and Medical Sciences, had had little experience with big science pro

jects. Accordingly, NSF's share in the funding of research was low in

comparison to the organization to which Weinberg belonged.7 Officials of the NSF participated actively in the administrative

design of the Biome studies and understood that they were breaking new ground in ecology.8 The NSF would come to regard the IBP as a

4. Environmental pollution, a challenge to science and democracy. Report of the Sub

committee on Science, Research and Development. 89th Congress, 2nd session, 1966

(Washington, D.C., 1966). 5. The International Biological Program, its meaning and needs. Report of the Sub

committee on Science, Research and Development of the Committee of Science and As

tronautics of the House of Representatives (Washington, D.C., 1968), 2. These utter

ances should not be taken as empty rhetoric, but as an expression of the fact that a

representation of nature as a cybernetic machine was shared by both the system ecolo

gists involved and the members of the House Subcommittee, see Kwa (ref. 3). 6. Representative George Brown compared the IBP with the Polaris and Minuteman

projects when dismissing uncertainties about the management of the IBP; according to

him, the missile projects were subject to similar uncertainties. {House joint resolution

1240?International Biological Program). Hearings before the subcommittee on science, research and development, 90th Congress, 2nd session, 1-2 May 1968 (Washington,

D.C., 1968), 23.

7. J. Merton England, A patron for pure science (Washington, D.C., 1982); Michael

D. Reagan, Science and the federal patron (New York, 1969). 8. Cf. England (ibid.), 275; R.E. Kohler, "Warren Weaver and the Rockefeller Foun



128 KWA

temporary experiment, and to abandon its big science policy toward

ecology. But the scientists in charge wanted Big Ecology to remain. In

particular George Van Dyne believed strongly in the durability of his

approach.

When Weinberg sang the praises of big science, he had his own

type of national laboratory in mind. The invasion of big science into academia bothered him.9 However, a university was the home of the

grassland Biome project. The crisis that followed offers us an oppor tunity to study a clash between two very different organizational cul

tures, characterized by, among other things, the incompatible career

expectations of the scientists involved.10 The conflict was further determined by divergent conceptions regarding the relations between the newly developed simulation studies and the field of ecology as a whole.11 The ecologists in the Grassland Biome remained tied to

important characteristics of academic Little Ecology to a far greater extent than George Van Dyne considered desirable.

1. THE ORIGINS OF THE GRASSLAND STUDY

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences endorsed the idea of an international biological program to study the "biological basis of pro ductivity and human welfare" early in 1965. It then installed a National Committee for the IBP consisting mainly of ecologists, who did not succeed immediately in translating the proposed theme into a research program.12 In an effort to bring some order into the

apparently chaotic collection of unrelated projects under consideration

by the American IBP, the U.S. National Committee called a meeting of the members of its nine subcommittees in October 1966 in

dation program in molecular biology: A case study in the management of science," in

Nathan Reingold, ed., The sciences in the American context: New perspectives (Washing ton, D.C., 1979), 249-295; P. Abir-Am, "The discourse of physical power and biological

knowledge in the 1930s: A reappraisal of the Rockefeller Foundation's 'policy' in molec

ular biology," Social studies of science, 12 (1982), 341-382.

9. Weinberg (ref. 1), 162.

10. Cf. R. Whitley, The intellectual and social organization of the sciences (Oxford,

1984), and T. Shinn, "Scientific disciplines and organizational specificity: The social

and cognitive configuration of laboratory activities," in N. Elias, H. Martins, and R.

Whitley, eds., Scientific establishments and hierarchies (Dordrecht, 1982), 239-264. 11. Big science assumptions entering the design of an experiment or a simulation

model can be the product of complex group interactions. P. Galison, How experiments

^(Chicago, 1987), 267-278.

12. W.F. Blair, Big biology, the US/IBP (Stroudsburg, PA, 1977); F.E. Smith and R.S.

Hoffmann, "Integrated research programs in ecosystem analysis: A US contribution to

the International Biological Program," in S. Bisette, ed., Systems for stimulating the

development of fundamental research (Washington, D.C., 1978), V71-92.



ECOLOGY 129

Williamstown, Massachusetts.13 The Williamstown meeting marked the breakthrough for ecosystem

studies in the U.S. Terrestrial and aquatic ecologists combined their efforts to study ecosystems, an act symbolized by the merging of two subcommittees at the meeting: "Productivity of Terrestrial Communi ties" and "Productivity of Freshwater Communities." Henceforward, the Program for the Analysis of Ecosystems of these combined sub committees dominated the American IBP. The twenty-five ecologists present decided that the major thrust of the U.S. contribution to the IBP would be a systems analysis of ecosystems or "drainage basins."

They decided that the United States could be conveniently divided into six such ecosystems, one of them being the grasslands. The most

important result of the Williamstown meeting, however, was that the

proposed ecosystem approach inspired the American Congress with sufficient confidence in the IBP to provide generous funding for it.14

The success of the meeting is generally attributed to Frederick E.

Smith, a distinguished population ecologist at the University of Michi

gan and a former student of G. Evelyn Hutchinson at Yale.15 He was invited to the meeting by Arthur Hasler, a limnologist at the Univer

sity of Wisconsin who knew about Smith's then recent interest in

ecosystems and computer modeling. The merger of the subcommit tees was Hasler's idea and he also had Smith in mind as the director of the programs of the combination.16

George Van Dyne, who was not yet a prominent scientist, attended the Williamstown meeting as a member of the Terrestrial subcommit tee. According to Smith, Van Dyne was far ahead of everybody else in

thinking about large-scale comprehensive ecosystem studies. He had

recently moved from Oak Ridge to Colorado State University, where he hoped to direct such a program. The merged subcommittees chose

13. The subcommittees (and their chairmen) were: Productivity of terrestrial com

munities (Lawrence C. Bliss), Production processes (E.R. Lemon), Conservation of

ecosystems (John L. Buckley), Productivity of freshwater communities (Arthur D.

Hasler), Productivity of marine communities (Bostwick H. Ketchum), Human adapta

bility (Frederick Sargent II), Use and management of biological resources (George K.

Davis), Systematics and biogeography (T.H. Hubbell), and Environmental physiology

(Theodore Bullock), U.S. participation in the International Biological Program, Report No. 2, U.S. National Committee for the International Biological Program (Washington, D.C., 1967)

14. Kwa(ref. 3). 15. Interviews with Eugene Odum (11 Oct 1985), Jerry Olson (16 Oct 1985), Arthur

Hasler (21 Oct 1985), who were all present at the meeting, Odum and Olson as

members of the Procutivity of terrestrial communities sumbcommittee, Hasler as chair man of the Productivity of marine communities subcommittee.

16. Interview with F.E. Smith, 23 Sep 1985.



130 KWA

CSU's Grassland Biome study as its first project and as a pilot for five

others.17

When F.E. Smith, as Director of the Analysis of Ecosystems pro gram, had to designate a Biome Director for the Grasslands project, he chose the obvious candidate?Van Dyne. Although more

management-oriented than Smith, Van Dyne agreed with Smith about

modeling ecosystems. Though a junior scientist compared to Smith, Van Dyne impressed him as a living database on grassland research and as a fast learner about other things.18 The two men also shared a concern for a strong and sound administrative design of the Biome studies. On a seven-day tour in August 1967 in a small Cessna air

plane, Van Dyne showed Smith all the prairies of North America and

many of their research stations. They settled on a plane near Colorado State University as the major site of the Grassland Biome

study. Van Dyne was formally nominated Biome Director at the

Working Session on Grassland Ecosystems held on October 5-8, 1967. The National committee for the IBP approved the nomination of Van

Dyne on the recomendation of Eugene Odum, an ecosystem ecologist personally acquainted with the Oak Ridge ecology program. But the committee had its reservations about appointing a man almost unk nown outside a small circle of systems ecology enthusiasts.19

George Van Dyne

At the time of his nomination as Biome Director, George Van

Dyne was 35 years old and an Associate Professor at Colorado State

University, with a joint appointment in the Departments of Range Science and of Fish and Wildlife Biology in the College of Forestry and Natural Resources. Hardworking and ambitious, he published fre

quently in the Journal of range management and the Montana wool

grower, journals unlikely to have carried much weight in the pure science cultures of NAS and NSF.20

17. Ibid.; G.M. Van Dyne, Ecosystems, systems ecology, and systems ecologists, ORNL-3957 (Oak Ridge, TN, 1966), testifies to its author's organizational approach to

ecosystem studies.

18. First annual report on the analysis of ecosystems, an integrated research program

of the US-IBP (Ann Arbor, MI, 11 Nov 1967, mimeograph). The National Science

Board proposed that for some time the Grassland Biome study should be the only study to receive support. The USNC/IBP countered this stand successfully; Smith and

Hoffman (ref. 12), V/21.

19. Interview with Odum (ref. 15). 20. There are a few publications in the prestigious journals Ecology (3) and Limnolo

gy and oceanography (1), but these are either co-authored or very short and of a techni

cal nature.



ECOLOGY 131

Van Dyne's interest in range management developed naturally from his boyhood cowboy activities, which included performances as a

rodeo rider. He received his undergraduate degree in agriculture at Colorado A&M College in 1954 and a master's in animal husbandry at South Dakota State University two years later. He then became Assistant Professor at Montana State College, where he worked on

grassland plants and range management to improve beef production. In 1961 he moved to the University of California at Davis as a Ph.D. student in nutrition and an assistant in research nutrition.

While at the University of California he met Jerry Olson of Oak

Ridge National Laboratory.21 Olson worked on techniques for imple menting ecosystem simulations on an analog computer; their discus sions reawakened Van Dyne's interest in approaching range manage

ment problems by means of modeling, which he had shelved for lack of the necessary skills.22 He took the subject up in 1964, the year after he finished his Ph.D., when he moved to Oak Ridge for two years to

join a group of ecologists in the Health Physics Division under the

supervision of Stanley Auerbach. These two years were very impor tant in his development. He, Olson, and Bernard C. Patten developed the first course on mathematical systems ecology ever presented at an

American university, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, near

Oak Ridge.23 The program, offered for the first time during the academic year 1963/4, was sponsored by the Ford Foundation, which secured the course's developers part-time faculty positions.24 Based on

simple conceptual models, like a five-compartment food chain, the course elucidated systems-theoretical approaches like cybernetics. One important section concerned the use of computers, both analog and digital, to simulate a system's behavior and to solve differential

equations. The course articulated many of the basic modeling princi ples that the IBP developed later. When Van Dyne left Oak Ridge to become Associate Professor of Biology at Colorado State University, he had considerably improved his mastery of mathematical and

21. G.M. Van Dyne, "Systems ecology, the state of the art," in S.I. Auerbach and

N.T. Millemann, eds., Environmental sciences laboratory dedication, TN, ORNL-paper No. 5666, (Oak Ridge, 1979), 81-104.

22. G.M. Van Dyne, "Foreword: Perspectives on the ELM model and modeling effort," in G.S. Innis, ed., Grassland simulation model (New York, 1978), v-xx.

23. "Systems ecology" signifies the mathematical representation of whole ecosystems, with emphasis on the interactions between compartments. Kenneth Watt's "systems

ecology" course, at the University of California, while somewhat older, was based on

population dynamics. K.E.F. Watt, "An experimental graduate training program in

biomathematics," Bioscience, 15 (1965), Ill-ISO.

24. B.C. Patten, "Systems ecology: A course sequence in mathematical ecology," Bioscience, 7(5 (1966), 593-598.



132 KWA

computer techniques and had in hand the basis of a model suitable for

attacking the grasslands.

2. DESIGNING THE GRASSLANDS STUDY

The Analysis of Ecosystems Program resulting from the Williams town meeting offered Van Dyne an opportunity at a crucial point of his career. His association with F.E. Smith proved to be of very great importance in winning the confidence of the NSF. Although Congress (through the House Subcommittee on Science, Research and Develop

ment) had made progress toward endorsing the IBP, the battle for the

appropriation of funds was not yet over. At this point, in 1968, the attitude of NSF was extremely important. The National Science Board had not been enthusiastic about the IBP. However, the NSF's Director of the Division of Biological and Medical Sciences, Harve Carlson, was sympathetic to it. After the Williamstown meeting, he supported the idea of large block grants to the various Biome projects (and was

successful in convincing the NSF to provide such grants, in amounts far larger than the usual grants in the biological programs of the NSF); but the Foundation insisted on reviewing the Biome projects itself, rather than transferring a lump sum for the IBP to the National

Academy of Sciences and its National Committee for the IBP.25 Carlson's successor, Eloise Clark, returned to the system of panel approved individual grants. Carlson's block grants were an important but episodic innovation.

Smith was the first scientist to receive a grant from the NSF for the

Analysis of Ecosystems program, the umbrella project for the Biome studies.26 Smith also meant to combine and assess the Biome model

ing results. His grant made possible the Working Session on Grassland

Ecosystems, the results of which favorably impressed the NSF and enhanced Smith's reputation in the U.S. National Committee for the IBP.27 The ensuing report on the scientific goals and administrative

25. Discussion of IBP program and budget during meeting of U.S. National Commit

tee for the International Biological Program, Washington, D.C., 20-21 Jan 1968, II?8

(NAS/IBP, mimeographed minutes). 26. Smith received two two-year grants from the NSF, one from 1 May 1967 to 30

Apr 1969 ($71,400) and one from 1 May 1968 to 30 Apr 1970 ($224,300), part of which came through a subcontract to Robert H. Ellis of the Travelers Research Center

for modeling. Progress report, analysis of ecosystems, submitted by the Analysis of

Ecosystems Executive Board to the NSF, Mar 1969, 14, FS/pa. 27. During the 20-21 Jan 1968, Meeting of the U.S. National Committee for the

International Biological Program in Washington D.C., the following exchange took

place: "Dr. Carlson:'We had Dr. Smith come.. .and present the overall view of how he

looks at this major effort on the Grasslands.' Dr. Blair: 'And this is a satisfactory pre cedent for future operations, and for other integrated programs?' Dr. Carlson: T would



ECOLOGY 133

organization of the Grassland Biome was welcomed as a model for the other Biome projects.28

The section on "Objectives" of the Report of the working session on grassland ecosystems states that "implicit in [the goals of the IBP] is the possibility of increased production through better management. This in turn requires a better understanding of ecosystems." The sec

tion lists twenty-five questions that should be addressed through the

modeling, some of which are of managerial interest, for example, "How does removal or change in abundance of the consumer

influence the production of food?" Other questions, such as, "Is the

complexity [of the food web] related to the stability of the system?" were intended to test ecosystem principles as they were then under stood.29

Later, Smith would continue to insist that ecosystem modeling should serve to test ecosystem principles as well as to apply them.30

Although expressed with cybernetic metaphors, ecosystem principles were still loosely formulated at the time. The modeling at the Grass land Biome, however, focussed increasingly on the production of the

models themselves and thereby explicated ecosystem principles rather than questioned them. Ironically, NSF's institutionalization of the

Analysis of Ecosystems program through block grants to the individual Biome studies forced Smith's Central Project into redundancy. The Biome directors, as Principal Investigators of their own projects, nego tiated directly with the NSF on fiscal and scientific matters. Soon, Van

Dyne and others no longer had any need for Smith's supervision or

his modeling efforts. Smith lost his modeling grant in 1969. He aban doned the Central Project in 1970, causing the National Committee for the IBP considerable discomfort.31 The concept of the drainage

hope that this could be worked out by that method.'" Somewhat later Ted Byerly

(Vice-Chairman of the Committee) remarked: "our acquisition of Fred Smith is one of

the large assets that has emerged in the last year. The enthusiasm, and more than

enthusiasm, that has developed with respect to the Grassland Biome makes it a prime candidate for support." Discussion (ref. 25), II-3-7.

28. Report of the working session on grassland ecosystems; design of research for the

intensive study and plans for the comprehensive study, Fort Collins, Colorado, 5-8 Oct,

1967, FS/pa. 29. Ibid.

30. As a reviewer of the Grassland Biome Continuation Proposal for 1974-1976, Smith wrote (in an undated note, that was apparently written on 7 May 1973, OL/pa): "To me the weakest aspect of the program is a willingness to accept and incorporate a

variety of ecological tenets without vigorously and systematically challenging their vali

dity." He rated the overall program positively, however. See also F.E. Smith, "Com

ments revised?or, what I wish I had said," in G.S. Innis, ed., New directions in the

analysis of ecological systems (La Jolla, CA, 1975), 231-235.

31. F.E. Smith, Termination of the central program, Analysis of ecosystems, mimeo

graphed letter sent to 31 people involved with the IBP, undated, but apparently written

in June 1970, FS/pa; Blair (ref. 12), 150.



134 KWA

basin conceived at the Williamstown meeting linked the development of models of whole ecosystems (watersheds or biomes) with the exten sive collection of data needed to fuel the models. The United States has a wide variety of grasslands: shortgrass, mountain, tallgrass, mixed, as well as other types of prairie, and all these types were to be included in a network of research sites. This comprehensive study was to complement an intensive study carried out at the Pawnee Experi

mental Range32 of the Agricultural Research Service of the USDA, close to Fort Collins in north-central Colorado, where shortgrass prairie is predominant. At the time of the Working Session in October 1967, comprehensive sites had not been selected. The choice was left to Van Dyne. He also temporarily directed the intensive site

study, until Donald Jameson replaced him at the Pawnee site in June 1968.

Soon after the Working Session, Van Dyne submitted a research

proposal to the NSF. The NSF approved a grant for 15 months, the first grant to one of the biome projects. Compared with what Van

Dyne had requested ($1.9 million for 12 months), this first grant of

$851,000 allowed for only a modest beginning. Nevertheless, during this first period, a site laboratory, dormitories accommodating 20 per sons, and other facilities were built on the Pawnee site.33 With the

help of NSF, the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory was erected on the campus of Colorado State University.34 The size of the first grant did not permit the building of a comprehensive network of sites. By July 1968, when the grant period started, Van Dyne had contracted with 25 scientists from five insitutions to conduct measurements at

Pawnee, and with 30 other scientists to survey the literature on the

grasslands.35 A second grant period, running from September 1969

through December 1970, marked the true take-off of the project. On the basis of a 700-page progress report and continuation proposal, the

NSF awarded $1.8 million against a $2.2 million request.36

32. Ref. 28

33. In full: the Central Plains Experimental Range, known in IBP circles as the

Pawnee site. Owned by the USDA, it is adjacent to the Pawnee National Grasslands, 50 km east of Fort Collins, CO, and consists of 6,280 hectares.

34. Gbn, no. 3 (Jul 1969), 2 35. In 1970, a much larger building was constructed on the CSU campus. Named the

"Grasslands Research Ecology Laboratory," it too became known as the NREL. In to

tal, the NSF spent $321,473 "for construction of the headquarter building on the

Colorado State University campus and setting facilities at the Pawnee site." Kenneth

Duke et al., Evaluation of three of the biome studies funded under the Foundation's Inter

national Biological Program (IBP) (Columbus, OH, 12 Nov 1975), 11-138. 36. The original proposal sought $3 million for 12 months but reviews by, among

others, the National IBP Program Coordinating Committee led to a reduction of the



ECOLOGY 135

All the scientists that Van Dyne brought into the Grassland Biome

program became part of the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL), which formally belonged to an interdisciplinary center, the

Environmental Resources Center.37 In this way, scientists with regular faculty appointments in one of the CSU departments saw their avail able research time increased. Many of those brought into the NREL on NSF money did not acquire regular faculty positions and remained

dependent on soft money.

3. WORKING AT THE GRASSLAND BIOME PROJECT (1968-1971)

Van Dyne maintained strict control on the management of the Grassland Biome project. In addition to being Principal Investigator and Biome Director, he remained Director of the Comprehensive Pro

gram (until the fall of 1969), as well as of Systems Analysis, Services, Scientific Coordination and International Cooperation. In 1968 he was

promoted to the rank of Professor.

During the first three years, only Donald Jameson, and somewhat later Norman French, who became Comprehensive Sites Coordinator, approached Van Dyne in seniority and managerial responsibilities, but both recognized his leadership and authority. Van Dyne easily inspired loyalty: a charming and convincing person, he had a conta

gious enthusiasm for the Grassland undertaking. Nonetheless, he made it clear he was in charge. As Principal Investigator of the Grass land Biome project, he was responsible to the NSF for the large block

grants on which the projects operated and decided personally whom to award subcontracts.38

During the years 1968-71, Van Dyne, Jameson, and French ran the NREL, directed the modeling efforts, organized work at the Pawnee site rapidly expanded into a major research enterprise: in addition to Jameson and French, who were supported fully on NSF

money, tenured scientists from various Departments at Colorado State

University and from many other universities came to work on indivi dual projects, usually on the basis of a summer salary, and brought their graduate students. By the end of 1969, some 130 researchers

amount as indicated. The review by the NSF "allowed further upgrading of the proposal by eliminating or reducing the weaker components." Memorandum to members of the

Special Ad Hoc Committee of the National Science Board, undated, but apparently prepared in mid-1969, RM/pa.

37. Earlier, the NREL was part of the College of Forestry and Natural Resources, Gbn, no. 1, Jul, 1968, 1. The Environmental Resources Center came under the Vice President of Research of CSU, NREL-newsletter, no. 1 (Mar 1975), 2.

38. Interview with Donald Jameson, 27 Sep 1985.



136 KWA

were involved in one way or another with the Grassland Project,39 and the managerial team had to make sure that all the work served the

general purposes of the project. Donald Jameson bore the main

responsibility as director of the Pawnee site. Jameson's educational background was vey similar to Van Dyne's.

He had his academic degrees, all in range management, from Colorado State University, Montana State University, and Texas

A&M, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1958. He then worked in the

range management program at the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station of the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona, until he moved to Colorado State University. He became interested in model

ling when he realized that experimental work could not provide solu tions to management problems fast enough because of the slow rate of

reproduction of some grassland species and its dependence on the sea sonal cycle. Modelling seemed to him, as it did to many others, to offer a solution to the difficulties of experimenting in the real world. At Fort Collins, Jameson also joined the modeling team directed by Van Dyne.40 With the second grant in 1969, the modeling team added a systems engineer and a part-time biometrician.

The strong commitment to modeling in the managerial team

appears in the organization of the field work. Relatively few scientists on the staff of the NREL were supported fully on NSF money. Most scientists had performance contracts, a form of participation particu larly appropriate to faculty from the land grant schools. In order to enhance the scientific status of the program, Van Dyne had sought col laboration from the more prestigious University of Colorado. But the

ecologists at Boulder were not interested in the subcontracts that Van

Dyne had to offer; they did not want to have their work prescribed in detail and to be held accountable for it. Smaller schools like the

University of Southern Colorado at Pueblo and the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley participated a little, but the majority of the subcontracting work was performed by scientists and graduate stu dents from Colorado State University and the University of Wyoming. The faculty at these land grant universities were accustomed to

prescriptive project documents.41 They could move right into the

39. Gbn, no. 5 (Dec 1969), 3.

40. L.J. (Sam) Bledsoe, a modeler-mathematician who had moved with Van Dyne from Oak Ridge to Fort Collins, was also a member of this team. Van Dyne called Bled soe the first individual with comprehensive formal mathematics training to enter the

field of systems ecology. Bledsoe was an undergraduate in mathermatics at the Universi

ty of Tennessee, and worked in ecology with the Royal Shanks. Subsequently he worked

at the ORNL, first with Jerry Olson and then later with Van Dyne. Van Dyne (ref. 21), 84.

41. Jameson (ref. 38).



ECOLOGY 137

work organization of the Grassland Biome project without questioning Van Dyne's authority. This also held for the network sites operation prepared by Van Dyne, for which Norman French, from the Univer

sity of California at Los Angeles, was hired as coordinator.42 Van

Dyne told faculty from institutions like South Dakota State Univer

sity, the University of Oklahoma, and New Mexico State University that the general program design was none of their business, and that he alone would decide what they were going to get.

The design of the Grassland study, more than that of the other biome studies, thus built up tension between the interests of the

managerial team and the interests of the individual scientists. Manage ment applied the stick of the performance contract several times, pri marily against those who looked upon the IBP as just another grant giving agency and hedged on their commitment to the overall pro

gram.43 For the great majority of scientists who remained in the pro gram, the tension was resolved in two ways. Generally, scientists could

pursue goals relevant to their individual projects. This allowance

proved costly, but the ample funding of the Biome project enabled the

managerial team to smother in money potential conflicts between the

modeling team, with its primary interest in well-defined data, and the field scientists who had to collect it.44 Tensions between the modelers and the biologists like those reported in the Swedish IBP-project, where field biologists felt degraded to mere data collectors, were

largely avoided in the Grassland project.45 Van Dyne might have felt that he was too lenient in this early period: in 1971 he commented that some of the contracts were not specific enough.46 The second way

42. By the end of 1969, the research stations in the "network program" involved the

Battle Northwest, University of Montana, Montana State University, South Dakota

State University and USDA, North Dakota State University, Fort Hays Kansas State

College, University of California at Berkeley, New Mexico State University and USDA,

University of Oklahoma and Kansas State University, and Texas Tech University, Gbn, no. 5 (Dec 1969), 2. The number of scientists per network site involved in this early

period ranged from one to six; see Gbn, no. 8 (Jul 1971), 3-4; one site received support from the AEC, according to Gbn, no. 9 (Dec 1971), on 2. Norman French earned a

Ph.D. in zoology at the University of Utah in 1954, and worked from 1955 to 1959 as

an ecologist at the Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation of UCLA.

43. Interviews with Melvin Dyer (16 Oct 1985 and 19 Feb 1987), and Jameson (ref.

38). 44. Jameson and Innis, personal communications, 27 Sep 1985.

45. Jan B?rmark and G?ran Wallen, "The development of an interdisciplinary pro

ject," in K.D. Knorr, R. Krohn, and R. Whitley, eds., The social process of scientific in

vestigation (Dordrecht, 1980), 221-235.

46. G.M. Van Dyne, "Organization and management of an integrated ecological research program, with special emphasis on systems analysis, universities and scientific

cooperation," J.N.R. Jeffers, ed., Mathematical models in ecology (Oxford, 1972), 111

172.



138 KWA

of avoiding conflicts came from the models themselves: large and

detailed, they easily accorded visibility to many individual contribu tions.

Many scientists involved in the Grassland project had every reason to be content with it, since many of the individual projects might oth erwise not have been funded by NSF.47 Indeed, critics of the IBP, such as Nelso G. Hairston, then Director of the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan, considered this bypass of the usual

competitve review as one of the most forceful objections of the IBP.48 Similar reservations were heard even within the IBP. Referring to the

"pedestrian work" that had to be done in gathering data, Smith con ceded that "second-rank performers are involved heavily in the IBP."49 But he excused this shortfall as characteristic of rapidly expanding fields.50 Within the Grassland Biome project itself, the work at various network sites had the reputation of nothing more than

"clipping and weighing" of grass for the data bank in Fort Collins.51 There was, however, much first-rate work,52 and in any case the

assembing of all the pieces to one whole was itself an important con tribution. An NSF reviewer observed: "It appears to me that Van

Dyne is doing a wonderful job of stimulating people he is working with but that he has a large contingent of mediocre people in his pro gram. Based on their curriculum vitae alone, definitively fewer than half of the people would be supportable.. .My overall score of this pro posal is far above the mean score (of the individual projects within the

proposal).. .Van Dyne has given us a demonstration that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts."53

The Grassland Biome project provided opportunities for many scientists who would otherwise not have had easy access to NSF fund

ing. This no doubt reinforced the position of the managerial team

among the field workers. The conflicts that developed later evolved

47. Duke (ref. 35); National Research Coucil Committee to Evaluate the IBP, An

evaluation of the International Biological Program (Washington, D.C., Dec 1975). 48. Cited in "NAS reports on International Biological Program," Science, 187 (21

Feb 1975), 633. Hairston, being a member of an advisory committee of the NSF, had voiced doubts about the Biome projects on earlier occasions; Report of the twelfth meet

ing of the advisory committee meeting for biological and medical sciences, February 25 and 26, 1972, mimeographed minutes, NSF.

49. Cited in P.M. Boffey, "'Boondoggle' criticism hits international Bio Program," Science and government report, 2, nr. 18(15 Dec 1972), 1-3.

50. Fred. E. Smith to the author, 16 Feb 1987; Smith (ref. 1), 234. 51. Innis and Jameson, personal communications. 52. For example, the discovery of the ecological importance of the soil decomposer

subsystem, primarily by David Coleman, was frequently cited to me as such. 53. Memorandum to members of the special ad-hoc committee of the National Science

Board. Not dated, but apparently prepared in mid-1969.



ECOLOGY 139

primarily within the managerial team itself, around Van Dyne's previ ously uncontested position of authority.

Working at the Grassland Biome Project (1971-1974)

In 1971 several major changes occurred within the managerial team as it grew in size and changed in personnel. Donald Jameson left the program by the end of the year, although he participated in some

Grassland Biome projects as late as 1973. This was a forewarning of the major crisis that was to hit the Grassland study about two years later. Jameson's rupture with Van Dyne originated in a new opportun ity offered by the NSF: a new program called RANN, the Research

Applied to National Needs Program. Amendment of the NSF's basic

charge in 1968 allowed it to sponsor applied research. After some

years of preparation, the agency launched RANN, under which it could support systems-oriented research aimed at improving the

management of natural resources. This aim closely related to the goals of the IBP, though stated in terms more oriented toward pure science. To both Van Dyne and Jameson, a RANN study to develop a mathematical model with direct relevance to range management appeared as an obvious corollary of the IBP Grassland Biome pro gram. Jameson took upon himself the task of writing the RANN pro posal.54

Van Dyne took it for granted that the RANN study would be tied to the IBP and that, therefore, it would fall under his authority. Jame son refused to accept these assumptions. He had been promoted to full professor with tenure at CSU in 1971, which made him indepen dent of the soft money administered by Van Dyne as Principal Inves

tigator of the Grassland Biome Project. Bitter sessions with CSU officials followed. Jameson found support for his point of view within the higher administrative levels of Colorado State University, and with the approval of the NSF he was appointed Principal Investigator for the RANN study.55

Van Dyne never forgave Jameson for what he saw as the with drawal of a segment of the Biome Program; indeed, he never forgave anybody involved in this decision. Among the Grassland ecologists, the opinion prevailed that Jameson had been disloyal.56 Jameson

might have tried to coordinate efforts with Van Dyne, but experience showed that it was much easier to work for Van Dyne than with him.57 As a result, the RANN program had little contact with the

54. Jameson (ref. 38). 55. D. Jameson to the author, 6 Jun 1986.

56. Melvin Dyer and David Coleman, personal communications. 57. Jameson (ref. 38).



140 KWA

Grassland Biome project. Van Dyne had been given a double warning. The episode made it

clear that the senior scientists of the NREL eventually would ask for a

larger share in the power structure of the Grassland project and that CSU would support them.

Nevertheless, Van Dyne remained firmly in charge of the Grass land Biome and continued to enlarge the project under the corporate structure illustrated in figure 1. But he had to make a concession. Van

Dyne himself preferred the system of contract research, but the NSF insisted that senior scientists, especially modelers, be joined to the

NREL staff.

George Innis, a mathematician and computer expert, hired in

January 1971, relieved Van Dyne of the supervision of the modeling team in his capacity as Director of Systems Analysis. Innis initiated work on a new total ecosystem model called ELM, in partial replace ment of the previous ecosystem model (PWNEE) developed by the former modeling team.58

Jameson's responsibilities at the Pawnee site were divided between Norman French, who now became coordinator of Field Studies at all

sites, and Melvin Dyer, a zoologist from the University of Guelph in Canada. Dyer joined CSU at about the same time that Jameson left the biome program. He was put in charge of a new series of studies called "Rate process studies." Van Dyne remained "Director of

Integration and Synthesis" (of the various subsystems of the general model), working with four "integrators" each responsible for a partic ular subset of the model.59 Finally, James Gibson, a physical chemist, became Director of Services and Administration at the NREL. Of

course, Van Dyne remained Biome Director and Principal Invesigator for the whole of the IBP Grassland Biome study, but his responsibili ties for management diminished greatly.

These changes reflected the growing complexity of the Grassland Biome enterprise. In the section referred to as Field Studies, the origi nal methods for gathering data on rainfall and many other variables were routinized to obtain comparable, uniform, continuous measure ments. Within "Rate process studies," new biological studies (both

58. L.J. Bledsoe coninued working on PWNEE as part of his doctoral dissertation at

CSU. G.S. Innis, "Role of total systems models in the Grassland Biome study," in B.C.

Patten, ed., Systems analysis and simulation in ecology, Vol. Ill (New York, 1975), 13

47.

59. These were David C. Coleman (decomposer integrator), James E. Ellis (consumer

integrator), John K. Marshall (producer integrator), and Freeman Smith (abiotic factors

integrator). Freeman Smith, a former student of Van Dyne, succeeded him briefly as

Director of Integration and Synthesis in 1973.



ECOLOGY 141

field and laboratory) were developed that served not only as data

inputs to the modeling, but also as validators of predictions of the model.60 The appointment of Melvin Dyer, a biologist without special training in modeling, as head of this section maintained its integrity.

Modeling retained its leading position within the Grassland Biome

program under Innis' leadership. Dyer worked closely with him to translate modeling needs into biological studies to help ecologists rephrase their proposed studies to make them more useful to the overall modeling effort. The predominance of the modeling team

appears from the program's Continuation Proposal of 1973, in which about two-thirds of the proposed projects were initiated by the model

ing group.61 George Innis, born in 1937, completed his education at the

University of Texas, where he received his Ph.D. in 1962. In the same

year, he was awarded a National Academy of Science postdoctoral fel

lowship at Harvard Univeristy. For the next eight years, he applied mathematics to engineering problems, first at the Defense Research

Laboratory of the University of Texas, then briefly at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, and finally as Director of Com

puter Services and Associate Professor of Mathematics at Texas Tech

University. Innis' contacts with Van Dyne dated from the early planning days,

but it was not until 1971 that he went to CSU as an associate profes sor in mathematics and joined the Grassland Biome program. From then on, he made his career in ecological modeling, sometimes at CSU. ELM, the new model Innis started working on while at CSU, differed in several ways from PWNEE. First of all, it was much bigger. PWNEE, in its 1971 version, used 40 state variables and several hun dred parameters to describe the physical and biological properties of the ecosystem.62 The 1973 ELM model developed by Innis (figure 2), had 120 state variables and more than 1000 parameters.63 The mathematics also differed. PWNEE was written in differential equa tions; ELM, like the flow models in Jay Forrester's Industrial dynam ics (1961), in difference equations. All of ELM, its notations and indeed its "philosophy," were "closely patterned" after Forrester.

Handling a model using 120 equations is an arduous task. In order to

60. Gbn, no. 9 (Dec 1971), 3.

61. Van Dyne (ref. 22). 62. Innis(ref. 58), 15.

63. Innis, "Objectives and structure for a grassland simulation model," in Innis (ref.

22), 3, and Innis, I. Noy-Meir, M. Godron, and Van Dyne, "Total-system simulation

models," in A.I. Breymeyer and Van Dyne, eds., Grasslands, systems analysis and man

(New York, 1980), 758-797, on 770.



142 KW A

facilitate the work, Innis developed a new computer language derived in FORTRAN. Part of the motivation for developing this language, SIMCOMP, was to make ELM more easily accessible to biologists, an

objective only partially achieved.64 The boxes, or "compartments," in the model represent ecological

categories in ways familiar to systems ecologists since the early publi cations by H.T. Odum and Jerry Olson around I960.65 Functionally similar groups of species occupy a single box, individual species are not represented in the model. An enlarged part of the ELM model

(figure 3), shows what may be "warm season grasses" divided between shoots and roots, as they perform different roles in the ecosystem, but even on the finest level of resolution, individual species of grass would not be entered independently. The content, or weight, of all compart ments is given a quantitative measure, as are the flow rates from one

compartment to the other and the physical variables that influence those rates. The determining influence of these variables on the flow rates is represented in the figure by valves, a symbol introduced by Forrester.

Innis worked with a team of six newly hired postdoctoral fellows on a two-year assignment; after five months of initiation they went to the various network sites and returned for a final seven months to assemble ELM.66 In 1973, ELM made its first runs. It was the most

complex of the few total-system models from all of the biome studies that became fully operational on a computer.67 The fact that so com

plicated a model ran without exploding?without driving any quantity to infinity?represented a significant achievement. Nonetheless, as will

appear, the achievement has to be qualified. Despite the shortness of his stay at the Grassland Biome, Innis'

impact on its modeling effort was profound. Van Dyne probably could not have found an associate more devoted to total ecosystem model

ing than Innis. They respected one another, but could not work

64. Innis justified the shift to difference equations by arguing that differentiating is

not appropriate for long time intervals between biological measurements. Innis (ref. 58), 18-19.

65. H.T. Odum, "Ecological potential and analogue circuits for the ecosystem," American scientist, 48 (1960), 1-8; J.S. Olson, "Energy storage and the balance of pro ducers and decomposers in ecological systems," Ecology, 44 (1963), 322-331.

66. J. Anway, H.W. Hunt, W. Parton, C. Rodsell and R. Sauer joined the staff of the

NREL in 1971, R. Woodmansee in 1972, Innis (ref. 63). Three of them stayed on at the

NREL, among them R. Woodmansee, who later became its Director.

67. Duke (ref. 35), 1-19; R.G. Woodmansee, "Critique and analyses of the grassland

ecosystem model ELM," in Innis (ref. 22), 257-281; G.M. Van Dyne and J.C. Anway, "A research program for and the process of building and testing grassland ecosystem

models," Journal of range management, 29 (1976), 114-122, on 121.



ECOLOGY 143

together. Although Van Dyne spent the academic year 1972/3 on sab batical leave in England, his occasional returns to CSU during that time and his general way of operating were too much for Innis. By the time Van Dyne returned from his sabbatical, Innis had transferred to the Desert Biome project.68

Their separation had more to it than a conflict of personalities. Van Dyne had a conception of a general purpose model as the ulti mate synthesis of all the available knowledge on real grasslands. Despite his strong commitment to modeling, he remained a biologist at heart. He reproached Innis that, "because not much biology has been put into [Innis'] system, not much biology can come out."69 As Van Dyne wrote after the termination of the IBP, his original objec tive had been to answer a "series of broad questions."70 Van Dyne's hope that modeling would give biologists the tool to master ecosys tems, to answer questions that had not yet been asked before building the model, would not be realized through his program. Van Dyne never admitted this unhappy fact. Most modelers and biologists gra

dually became aware of it during the course of the IBP. Innis' mathematical-physical approach to modeling led to posing

specific questions about the effect of variations in some ecosystem variables.71 These practical questions differed from those posed by Smith and Van Dyne in 1967 in calling for less comprehensive answers based on known ecological principles. He was fully aware of the inadequacy or incompleteness of these principles and suggested that new or additional ones be incorporated into new versions of ELM.72 As he understood the matter, no model could reveal new eco

logical principles or test existing ones; Smith and Van Dyne had

hoped to accomplish precisely these things by playing with simulations of the total ecosystem.

The differences between Van Dyne and Innis relate to the crisis that came to a head between Van Dyne and other staff members of the Grassland Biome and the NREL following his return in 1973.

The conceptual basis of ELM

Huge ecosystem models such as ELM do not easily yield their built in assumptions. At first glance they seem to have been created

68. Melvin Dyer and Donald Jameson, private communications.

69. Van Dyne in discussion following: Innis and W.R. Clark, "A self-organizing ap

proach to ecosystem modeling," in Innis, ed. (ref. 30), 179-187.

70. Van Dyne and Anway (ref. 67). 71. Innis, "Objectives" (ref. 63). 72. Innis (ref. 58), 42-45.



144 KWA

inductively by placing the elements of the ecosystem, expressed in mathematical equations, side by side. The structure of the model would then spring from the assemblage of equations and would mimic the properties and behavior of the real ecosystem if and only if all the

necessary information pertaining to the ecosystem had been described

accurately in the equations. In fact, the kind of answers that ELM could give derived largely from a basic assumption made by Innis.

As F.E. Smith recognized, "functional unity may exist like beauty only in the eye of the beholder;" an ecosystem model represents the functions ascribed to the ecosystem, not nature unadorned. Smith

hoped to discuss all the many functions that might be ascribed to an

ecosystem at the same time; as he put it, "a model would be exercised to predict the entire array of component amounts in the system." "In

ecosystem analysis, we do not have a single applied goal in mind, but wish to understand ecosystems."73 Smith's conception of modeling therefore came close to Van Dyne's conception of the general purpose

model. In contrast, Innis narrowed the scope of ecosystem modeling by following the approach of Forrester,74 and by specifying the ques tions that ELM was to answer.

These questions were:75

1. What is the effect on net or gross primary production as the result of the following perturbations: (a) variations in the level and type of her

bivory (b) variations in temperature and precipitation or applied water and (c) the addition of nitrogen or phosphorus? 2. How is the carrying capacity of a grassland affected by these perturba tions? 3. Are the results of an appropriately driven model run consistent with field data taken in the Grassland Biome Program, and if not, why? 4. What are the changes in the composition of the producers as a result of these perturbations?

Only question 3 leaves room for theoretical problems about the funda mental organization of ecosystems. These questions reflect a

managerial point of view, if not in the spirit of Van Dyne, then cer

tainly in the spirit of Forrester.76 The most theoretical of the terms

73. F.E. Smith, "Analysis of ecosystems," in D.E. Reichle, ed., Analysis of temperate

forest ecosystems (Berlin, 1970), 7-18, on 7 and 16.

74. Innis (ref. 58). 75. Innis (ref. 63). "Primary production" is biomass from green plants ("produc

ers"), mainly grass; "carrying capacity" is the number of cows that can feed on a given area of grassland. Two more questions, not always mentioned, referred to observed

differences between grassland sites.

76. ELM produced few specific policy recommendations. The most important seems

to have been: "that range managers might gain more from harvesting herbage with

higher intensity grazing over a shorter period of time than with current practices." Innis

(ref. 58), 37; cf. Innis (ref. 63), 14.



ECOLOGY 145

used in the questions, "perturbations," refers to an important feature of the model.

The model distinguishes between state variables and driving vari ables (figure 2). The former are internal to the system, such as "sexu

ally mature adult insects" or "stable organic phosphorus." The latter, such as rainfall, windspeed, or sunlight, affect the system but are not in turn affected by it. They have further in common that they are

"abiotic," or non-biological factors. Kenneth Watt has pointed out that the ecosystem models of the

biome projects, including ELM, "focus attention on abiotic factors as

being the ultimate drivers behind the systems."77 This conception con

stitutes an important assumption about the nature of the system itself. Innis knew that the demonstration by Robert May and others that nonlinear systems can be inherently unstable might apply to ELM in

principle, but in practice he ruled the application out:78

We have, therefore, taken the approach that any apparent numerical instabilities or instabilities with respect to parameter or initial condition variations constitute inappropriate representations of the biology, not

things of interest to numerical analysts. To date, every apparent numer ical instability that has been uncovered in exercising the ELM model has been traced back to an inappropriate representation of some biologi cal mechanism. Once we had better represented the system's homeos

tasis, the model was able to take care of variations in parameters and initial conditions to within the accuracy of field experiments.

This argument is directed word for word against evolutionary ecol

ogists like Robert May who call attention to the autonomous behavior of ecosystems made possible by inherent instabilities in the system, to account for which no changes in abiotic factors are required. By rejecting these instabilities, Innis could maintain a deterministic posi tion. His methodology of model construction also featured a bias with

regard to stability. Though he acknowledged the non-linear nature of

biological systems and wanted to address it, he had pragmatic reasons to disregard it in the initial phase of modelling: "We decided.. .to

forego the advantages of a fully developed analysis theory for linear

systems and to ignore problems of nonlinearities, insofar as model

77. Kenneth E.F. Watt, "Critique and comparison of biome ecosystem modeling," in

Patten (ref. 58), 139-152.

78. R.M. May, "Will a large complex be stable?," Nature, 238 (1972), 413-414, and

"Biological populations with nonoverlapping generations: Stable points, stable cycles and chaos," Science, 186 (1974), 645-647; R.G. Wiegert, "Simulation models of ecosys

tems," Annual review of ecology and systematics, 6 (1975), 311-320, on 318-320; G.S.

Innis and E.F. Cheslak, "Systems ecology: An introductory sequence," in Innis (ref. 30), 25-34, on 30-31; Innis (ref. 58), on 21.



146 KW A

development was concerned, and contend with them [nonlinearities] after the model was developed."79 As a result, ELM may be trivially stable, even though Innis and the other members of the team usually designated ELM as a "nonlinear model."80

Innis' conception leads to a model consisting of a huge intricate

machinery driven passively by outside forces. If the driving variables are constant, the system remains in one determined state. Of course, over the seasons, the driving forces vary considerably; but each partic ular configuration determines a specific state of the system. Perturba

tions, i.e., important changes in the driving variables, would more

clearly reveal the delay of the system in adjusting to a new steady state, but it would be no less determined. Innis spelled this out once

more: "If all of the details of all the laws which control the system were known, the precise state at each point in time given exact initial conditions and states of the driving variables would be completely determined." The system behaves in this way thanks to its built-in homeostasis. The model features homeostasis just like the biological system it represents, thanks to the "linkages that provide a source of

stability."81 We could call ELM a sophisticated version of a cybernetic system,

a servomechanism in which the driving variables specify the setpoint of the system. The comprehensiveness of the model implies a belief in control over every conceivable constituent part of the ecosystem and casts the ecologist in the role of systems engineer. But by restrict

ing the number of questions, the scope of control is already less com

plete than envisaged originally by Van Dyne. Compared to older

cybernetic conceptions of ecosystems, the ELM model represents a much more specifically articulated stage. Some heuristic connotations of the older conceptions inconsistent with the new formulation were

henceforth excluded. For instance, the IBP modelers did not take up Kenneth Watt's appeal to include the internal dynamics between pro ducers and consumers in their model.82

In some important respects, ELM resembles earlier econometric

models, although, apart from Forrester's, the IBP ecologists seem not to have known them. In 1965, a team of econometricians published a

model of the economy of the United States consisting of some 150 differential equations. A major difference between it and the ecological

79. Innis (ref. 58), 20.

80. Gbn, no. 11 (Feb 1973), 1; D.C. Coleman, M.I. Dyer, J.E. Ellis, N.R. French, J.H.

Gibson, G.S. Innis, J.K. Marshall, F.M. Smith, and G.M. Van Dyne, "Grassland ecosys tem evaluation," Ecological Society of America, Bulletin, 54 (1973), 8-10.

81. Innis (ref. 58), 23, 35.

82. Watt (ref. 77), 146-147.



ECOLOGY 147

models concerns the methodology of statistical estimation by which the individual equations are inferred from economic data. (In con

trast, the ELM workers identified the equations first and then set out to measure the values of their variables directly in the field, descrip tively or experimentally). But, despite the avowed inductive approach of the econometricians, their model has important resemblances to ELM. Not only is this particular econometric model of the economy of the United States almost equal in size to ELM (which can be con sidered as coincidence), it too was supposed to be complete. Still more

important, however, is their common emphasis on system stability. The econometricians aspired to assess the ability of the economy to withstand shocks and to derive policy applications from the model that could help the economy to become better stabilized.83

The crisis of 1974

During Van Dyne's leave of absence, the other members of the directorate prepared the continuation proposal for 1974-76, the first

post-IBP period. Melvin Dyer was to coordinate the writing while James Gibson served as interim Director of the NREL. Van Dyne did not take part in the writing of the continuation proposal, though his brief returns during his sabbatical permitted him to exert some influence. It was only natural that Van Dyne remained principal investigator.84

In keeping with changes occuring in the other Biome studies, espe cially the Eastern Deciduous, the continuation proposal deemphasized the original high expectations invested in an all-encompassing ecosys tem modeling. Modeling was still very important, but now confined to only one compartment, or to specific biological processes within the

ecosystem. Partly the logic of the ELM model itself demanded the shift. Also, the new approach was regarded as a way to "validate"

ELM, to verify its predictions.85 Another major reason for the shift

may have been that the scientists involved in the project anticipated an eventual termination of the funding of the biome project through an indivisible block grant. Their individual projects would be judged on their own merits. Total ecosystem modeling was not given up

entirely in the Grassland Biome, if only because of the vigorous influence Innis exercised even after his departure. Still, the emphasis changed.86

83. J.S. Duesenberry et al., eds., The Brookings quarterly econometric model of the

United States (Chicago, 1965), v, 642-644.

84. Interview with Dyer (ref. 43). 85. Ibid.

86. Letter from O.L. Loucks, head of the IBP Environmental Programs Coordinating



148 KW A

NSF accepted the 1974-76 continuation proposal in June 1973, but indicated that the maximum projected figure would be $4.6 mil lion instead of the $7.6 that had been requested. The fact that the

NREL was allowed to continue the biome project amounted to a

major recognition by the NSF, whose budget no longer contained an earmark for the IBP and which did not wish to extend the system of block grants much longer. In 1972, Harve Carlson had taken early retirement from the NSF, much to the regret of IBP biologists.87 Eloise Clark, Carlson's successor at the Division of Biological and Medical Sciences, disapproved strongly of the block grants, which, moreover were going to a field with which she had little affinity. Clark had been Section Head for Molecular Biology and Program Director for Biophysics in the Division of Biological and Medical Sciences. Her policy was a return to the dominant funding policy of the NSF.88

Only two months before NSF's acceptance of the continuation pro posal, Philip Handler, President of the National Academy of Sciences and former President of the National Science Board, had expressed his grave doubts, if not objections, to it. He said: "The NSF had

pointed out, I understand, that when the formal end of IBP arrives there would be no further block funding." Handler indicated that he would feel uncomfortable if he voted favorably on the continuation in the National Science Board of which he was still a member.89

In the end, Eloise Clark did not immediately change the funding mechanism of the Biome studies.90 But she did make it clear that the 1974-76 block grant would be the last given to a single Principal

Office (which reported to the National Committee), to George Van Dyne, 7 May 1973, with review comments attached, OL/pa.

87. Biologist David Gates expressed his disappointment in a letter to Guy ford R.

Stever, Director of the NSF, in a letter dated 24 Apr 1972, NSF. Stanley Auerbach, Director of the Eastern Deciduous Biome Project, recalled his vivid disappointment in a letter to the author, 29 Sep 1989. Harve Carlson had been appointed Assistant Direc tor for Biological and Medical Sciences in 1961. He was Division Director since 1964.

88. Carlson pointed out to me with great care the extent of the opposition of molecu lar biologists within the NSF against the IBP, and Josephine Doherty, who had worked for Carlson as the first Assistant Program Director of the Analysis of Ecosystems pro gram, confirmed this (interviews with Harve Carlson and Josephine Doherty, 6 Nov

1985). 89. President Handler's Discussion with the Executive Committee, USNC/IBP, 30

April 1973 (Mimeographed minutes, 27 pp., NAS/IBP). Handler's remark reflected a

change of attitude (and power relations) at NSF. Handler made this remark, Harve Carlson was replaced by Eloise Clark, and W.D. McElroy by Guyford Stever. In 1971, W.D. McElroy, then Director of the NSF, had written to Handler: "It is certain that NSF and other funding agencies will wish to continue those selected portions of IBP research which show promise of generating significant results even after the formal end of IBP" letter of 2 August 1971, NSF.

90. James T. Callahan, personal communication, 31 Oct 1989.



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Investigator. In open competition for funds, the Biome projects, which had, as Handler pointed out, "another zero or two after them

compared to the rest of the program," would "become vulnerable because of their size."91 Thus, after December 1976, the high funding level of the NREL could almost certainly not be maintained. The blow

was partly softened by the new status that the NREL had acquired within CSU in 1973. Originally, the NREL was expected to close down with the termination of the IBP, but in July 1973 CSU's College of Natural Sciences took over the Grassland Laboratory.92 This did not bring tenure to the 11 or 12 senior NREL scientists, who remained dependent on soft money, but it opened up the possibility of a continuing life after the IBP.

When NREL went into the College of Natural Sciences, largely through Gibson's efforts, Gibson became its Director.93 Since Van

Dyne remained Principal Investigator of the Grassland Biome, he con tinued to control almost the entire budget of the NREL, but Gibson continued to serve as liaison with CSU after Van Dyne's return. Another development further weakened Van Dyne's position; the

spin-off of independent research projects by scientists also involved with the Grassland Biome. Melvin Dyer applied to the NSF for a research project on the simulation modeling of blackbirds and their

impact on crops. On one of his returns to CSU, Van Dyne made it

very clear that he did not like the initiative.94 A similar situation with

Jameson, two years before, had led to a major conflict, but Van Dyne now reconciled himself to the inevitable. When the NSF approved Dyer's project in February 1974, Van Dyne congratulated him. Chuck

Rodell, a former member of Innis' modeling team, developed an

independent research project on grasshoppers. David Coleman

designed a research project in collaboration with William Hunt, also one of Innis' team of post-docs, on the below-ground ecosystem.95

When Van Dyne returned to campus, he unexpectedly complimented his staff on their work and urged important additions to the proposal that the NSF had just accepted and of which he was P.I. He laid out a new plan, independent of Dyer's, calling for a grand synthesis of the Biome project as a whole. He went to Washington to renegotiate the

91. Handler (ref. 89), 2, 5. Handler was also commenting on the slow rate of publi cation of the Biomes in the open literature: "The notion of $7 million in continuing

funding for two more years as an article of faith until the data are made available in

their entirely [sic] will not wash under these circumstances" (p. 7). 92. Gbn, no. 13 (Jan 1974), 2; NREL newsletter, no. 1 (Mar 1975), 3.

93. Ibid.

94. Dyer (ref. 43). 95. David Coleman, letter to the author, 7 Jul 1987.



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1974-76 continuation grant. NSF said no. He asked for a continua tion of the block grant for 1977-79, which Eloise Clark at NSF refused. In spite of this refusal, he continued to organize meeting after

meeting at Fort Collins, and also at Denver, the gathering place for scientists from the comprehensive network sites, to present his plans and to urge people to bring in the data that the grant synthesis required.96 Van Dyne formed a "management directorate" consisting of himself, Gibson, and Kirk Steinhorst "to facilitate communication with the staff." But, according to Gibson, he and Steinhorst could nei ther "conscientiously carry out nor transmit his decisions to the staff."97

All the scientists at CSU and at other universities, both staff members of the NREL and scientists under contract, felt extremely uncomfortable with the proposed grand synthesis. With time running out, they did not wish to give Van Dyne data that they had not yet published, nor even validated, and in a format not suited to their pro jects but to Van Dyne's. The demand for uniform data was not new. Norman French and Melvin Dyer had worked extremely hard to get all the data into the same format, but they could not endorse Van

Dyne's new requirement that contributors sign a statement that their data were "clean" under threat of withholding payment.98

This uneasy and extremely stressful situation lasted until March 1974. The ax fell at the end of the month, when Van Dyne was asked to step down as Principal Investigator of the Grassland Biome Project. Events followed in such rapid and unexpected succession that they later were dubbed "the coup."

It appears that James Gibson, the Director of the NREL for a year (and formerly Director of Services and Administration), instigated Van Dyne's removal almost completely on his own. On March 1, he told the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences his estimate of Van

Dyne's leadership qualities.99 He also talked with NREL scientists

96. Interviews with Jerry Franklin (24 Oct 1990) and Dyer (ref. 43). 97. J.H. Gibson, Edited version of comments transmitted to W.B. Cook, 1 March,

1974: "Problems associated with direction of Grassland Biome project, memorandum to

George M. Van Dyne," 28 Mar 1974, mimeographed document, 1-7, OL/pa, SA/pa; Van Dyne, An assessment of the Grassland Biome project's status and future, letter to

Deans W.B. Cook and R.E. Dills, 4 Apr 1974, mimeographed document, 1-9, OL/pa,

SA/pa. 98. Dyer (ref. 43). Gibson (ref. 37), a bit more cryptic than Dyer, denounced Van

Dyne's "implied threats of adverse action" with respect to the research budgets of the NREL staff, noting that Van Dyne, as P.I., held the purse strings. Van Dyne (ref. 97) wrote in his own defense that though he had "cautioned" his colleagues that "the amount of time they had allocated for their salaries was consistent with the amount of time that the [Grassland Biome] project would take," he "was not aware of 'threats'."

99. Gibson (ref. 97).



ECOLOGY 151

(but not all of them) one by one, and with NSF's Program Director of

Ecosystems Studies.100 Gibson won full support. On March 27, Gibson asked Van Dyne to resign. Van Dyne, shocked by the request, defended himself against Gibson's charges to the deans of the Col

leges.101 But he had lost all support. Two weeks later James Gibson was formally appointed Principal Investigator of the Grassland Biome

Project. Everywhere Van Dyne's dismissal was seen as inevitable.102 After the coup, Van Dyne was offered a subcontract, together with

Freeman Smith, to study "synthesis."103 He accepted, and thus remained in the Grassland project, on which he worked until the end of his life. As was true in the other Biome projects, many studies had not been published before the formal ending of the IBP; Van Dyne played an important role in their eventual publication. He died on

August 2, 1981 of heart failure, at the age of 48.104 For the NREL, the period of the single block grant ended in 1976.

Since then (to the time of writing in 1991), it has survived on a number of smaller grants, mostly from the NSF, with virtually the same staff level as during the IBP. In 1980, the NSF awarded the Pawnee research station the status of a "Long Term Ecological Research" site under a newly developed program designed to enable

ecological research projects to cope with the vicissitudes of the nor

mally short-term NSF grants.105 However, the NREL's position within Colorado State University remains uncertain, since several scientists on the staff have not been granted tenure, not even those with the rank of Professor. Still, it is one of the three or four largest ecological research laboratories in the United States.

More than any other Biome project, the Grassland Biome has lived

up to the scientific and organizational ideals of the original Analysis of

Ecosystems, the preliminaries which were drafted at the Williamstown

meeting in 1966. It owes this success in no small measure to the ener

getic leadership of George Van Dyne, who until the end stuck con

sistently to the ideal of producing total ecosystem models relevant to

general management. However, his successes derived largely from the

strong central management that also constituted the weakness of the Grassland Biome Project. Van Dyne was able to exert leadership thanks to the relatively low scientific status of the universities

100. Interviews with Callahan, Franklin and Dyer. 101. Van Dyne (ref. 97). 102. Interviews with Orie Loucks (13 Nov 1985) and Franklin.

103. Gbn, no. 14 (June 1974), 1.

104. Ecological Society of America, Bulletin, 63 (1982), 357.

105. James T. Callahan, "Long-term ecological research," Bioscience, 34 (1984), 363-367.



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included in the program. Stanley Auerbach, the experienced manager of the Eastern Deciduous Biome Program, could not prevail similarly with schools like the University of Wisconsin, Duke University, and the University of Georgia with its strong ecology program even had he wished to do so.106 As an experiment in new forms of work organiza tion in ecology, the IBP showed that the more traditional standards of

academia remained dominant at the expense of big-science designs. Van Dyne himself displayed ambivalence about the new work organi zation; sticking to the academic tradition of a sabbatical leave, he

fatally weakened the big science position he had constructed for him

self. During the IBP, systems ecology established itself as a subdiscip line of ecology with its own career paths.107 It displayed other signs of institutional independence as well.108 But the academic community of

ecologists at large continued to provide the main reference point for the systems ecologists or former IBP ecologists. Van Dyne probably counts as an exception, since he continued to see himself as belonging to the community of range management scientists.

The academic orientation of the IBP ecologists is most strongly illustrated by their attempts to obtain scientific recognition of their achievements. The scientific status of the IBP has been a matter of continuous debate, and also the subject of critical evaluations, by the NAS and the NSF.109 Science discussed these evaluations under the

suggestive heading: "IBP: Was it worth the cost and effort?"110 Both evaluations were made shortly after the official termination of the IBP in 1974, and thus before the publication of the bulk of results obtained during the program. Still, the IBP ecologists had exposed themselves to the judgement of the academic community and the ver

dict was not unequivocally positive. In 1975, twelve substantial

papers reporting on the Grassland Biome had been submitted to Eco

logical monographs, the most prestigious ecological journal.111 Not one

106. Auerbach was Principal Inverstigator for the whole of the Eastern Deciduous

Biome, and in principle held exclusive responsibility for the entire block grant. In prac

tice, the block grant was divided among the various sites in the EDFB and the Site

Directors had the informal status of local P.I.'s.

107. Examples are David Coleman, University of Georgia?Colorado State

University?UGa; Melvin Dyer, CSU?Oak Ridge National Laboratory? (Man And the

Biosphere/UGa); D.A. Crossley, ORNL-UGa; B.C. Patten, ORNL-UGa; G.M. Van

Dyne, ORNL-CSU.

108. One example is the NSF's Ecosystem Studies Program, the successor of the

Analysis of Ecosystems Program called into being for the IBP Biome studies. Rotating

Program Directors included Melvin Dyer (1978-1980) and R. Woodmansee (1983). 109. The Battelle report stated: "No major breakthrough in ecological theory or

biome level perspectives has resulted to date." Duke (ref. 35), 1-3.

110. P.M. Boffey, "International Biological Program: Was it worth the cost and

effort?" Science, 193 (1976), 866- 868.

111. Van Dyne and Anway (ref. 67), 118.



ECOLOGY 153

of them was accepted. A few appeared later in shorter versions in

Ecology, while the original full-length papers finally appeared in books edited by IBP ecologists, a form of publishing typical of the IBP.

Many of the IBP ecologists had backgrounds in applied ecology (range management) or not in biology at all. Their hope for recogni tion by the academic community necessarily took time to be requited. The editors and referees of Ecological monographs apparently wished to judge the papers one by one, rather than as a collective publication. Later on, marks of recognition may be discerned, such as the admis sion of former IBP ecologists to the review panels of the NSF and to the editorial boards of important journals like Ecology. And, most

importantly, NSF budgets remained high for ecosystems studies, largely because of the IBP.

This is not to say that ecology, as developed during the IBP, won

recognition. The focal point and pride of the Grassland Biome Pro

ject, namely the large and detailed simulation models of total ecosys tems, gradually lost their initial relevance for the scientific understand

ing of ecosystems, as well as for potential management applications. After the termination of the IBP they lost credibility altogether. Among the reasons for the loss of managerial relevance was that the NSF referees who reviewed the IBP projects generally did not com ment on its management goals. As a result, whenever the IBP adjusted to the demands of the NSF, the aims of management relevance tended to diminish.

The RANN program of Don Jameson at CSU, where management relevance remained the central focus, abandoned large and complex total ecosystem models almost from the start.112 The RANN models

stayed small and simplistic. Moreover, they did not rest on the

assumption prevalent in the IBP Grassland models that management problems are defined by the inherent ecological structure of the

ecosystem, but treated these problems rather as economic, political, or social. Consequently, within the RANN at CSU, economic and social

models dominated. With regard to the scientific achievements of total ecosystem

models in general and to those of ELM in particular, doubts were raised early even within the IBP. In the committee that prepared the sixth and final report of the U.S. IBP, one member remarked in 1973: "I did not get a strong feeling that this increased modeling ability has led us to a number of important scientific insights about how ecosys tems operate or the consequences of manipulating the systems."113

112. Jameson (ref. 38). 113. Draft minutes of the Ad Hoc Editing Committee USNC-IBP report nr. 6, 18

Sep 1973, NAS/IBP.



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The report itself, edited under the direction of Orie Loucks, judged the ELM as too simplified biologically, despite the enormous number of variables used to define the grassland ecosystem.114 The NAS Com mittee to Evaluate the IBP (of which Fred Smith was a member) did not mention the ELM model but observed that "[the IBP's] most obvious failure to live up to its own rhetoric was that it could not pro duce a satisfactory model for an entire ecosystem."115

Eugene Odum, who originated many of the ecosystem principles on which the IBP ecologists had built, noted that "the somewhat disap pointing performance of the U.S. effort in the International Biological Program (IBP) can, in hindsight, be attributed to the fact that unifying theories or concepts were not set up for testing at the onset." His

strongest criticism was directed at the grassland studies: "A prodigious effort by a handful of systems ecologists did manage to link some of the fragmented data into something approaching an ecosystem-level

model, but even the most sophisticated models cannot compensate for

inadequate planning, uncoordinated data gathering, or, most of all, the lack of a central theme."116

Modelers previously active in IBP projects have raised various

objections to some of the basic premises of ELM. Some concede that

compartmental models like ELM are by their very nature unable to account for the critical differences between species within a given compartment, that ELM treated the prairies as a singly homogeneous area and failed to account for spatial differentiation, and that ELM has no concept of discontinuities and multiple stability zones within the ecosystem.

ELM modelers have responded that, regardless of its ontological status, ELM has been an extremely useful heuristic device for those who worked with it.111 With this last specification they in fact con ceded a very strong criticism. Because of its size and complexity, ELM defies verification by anyone not thoroughly familiar with it. Even an experienced modeler would need to undergo an apprentice ship of a year or more. The single most important achievement of the

Grassland Biome, the ELM model, is like the giant Irish elk, a beast viable in and of itself but too big and clumsy to survive in the long

114. US participation in the International Biological Program, Report No. 6 of the U.S. National Committee for the IBP, National Research Council (Washington, D.C., 1974), 43.

115. National Research Council (ref. 47), 53. 116. Eugene P. Odum, 'The emergence of ecology as a new integrative discipline,"

Science, 795 (1977), 1289-1293.

117. Woodmansee (ref. 67); R. Woodmansee and W.K. Lauenroth, "Modeling reali

ty: Fact, fancy, and fiction," in W.K. Lauenroth et al., eds., Analysis of ecological sys tems (Amsterdam, 1979), 39-42.



ECOLOGY 155

run. The NREL still models, but not at the total ecosystem level. Just as the RANN models, the post-IBP models aim at much more limited forms of intervention in ecosystems than ELM.

The scaling down of the original high expectations in ecosystem modeling started in 1973. It indicated the erosion of the most impor tant source of legitimation for the Biome projects. The grandiose ideal of achieving total control over ecosystems, which around 1966

appealed so much to systems ecologists as well as Congressmen, was dismissed as a "hyperbole," ten years later in a report in Science.,118 The dismissal might be linked to a more general trend. Also around

1973, econometricians started abandoning large comprehensive models. They lost faith in the ability of the models to represent ade

quately complete economic structures.119 The disappearing relevance of total ecosystem models may thus be

interpreted as a manifestation of a disenchantment over the ideal of total control over nature. It was linked intimately to another sort of disenchantment over the possibility of total control: control of a big, centrally managed project at a university.120 The Grassland Biome

project stood outside the biology programs of the NSF because of the size of its grant; it was at odds with CSU (and in general with the pre vailing culture of American universities) because of the size and hierarchical organization of its team; and it fell out with a major eco

logical journal over the size of its intended contribution. The indivi dualistic work organization of the American university reinforced the traditional structure of academic ecology as a scientific field by encouraging ecologists to publish individually, to apply for individual

grants, to pursue individual reputations. It would have been difficult for a total ecosystem model to succeed under these circumstances. "Little science" had triumphed over "big science."

118. Boffey (ref. 110). 119. Roy Epstein, A history of econometrics (Amsterdam, 1987), 131.

120. If an agency other than the National Science Foundation had been charged with

the administration of the IBP, systems ecology might have survived as a big science.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory may be the only place where big ecology exists today.

Significantly, a large ecological project at the University of Georgia, funded by the

AEC/DOE, is organized in a manner typical of the universities.



Modeling the Grasslands

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