Woodland Conservation and Management.
Woodland Conservation and Management.
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林地保护和管理。
DOI：
10.2307/2259752
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发表时间：
1982
影响因子：
5.5
通讯作者：
G. Peterken
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
O. Rackham;G. Peterken
约翰哈珀教授在他最近出版的《植物种群生物学》（1977）一书中作了评论，并提出了一个问题，有效地阐明了本书的主题。注意到“植被顶极理论发展的后果之一是引导观察者的思想向前发展”，i。e.他说，“植被被解释为通往某个目标的一个阶段”，他评论说，"更经常地回顾过去，在过去寻找对现在的解释，根据历史而不是目标来解释系统，这可能更健康，科学上更合理“。他接着将植物演替的“灾害理论”（认为群落是对过去灾害影响的反应）与“顶极理论”（认为群落是接近顶极状态的阶段）进行了对比，然后问道：“我们是通过了解一个种群的历史还是命运来最全面地解释它的特征？如果这个问题被问到R。S. Adamson，E. J. Salisbury，A. G.坦斯利或A. S.瓦特，他们是英国森林生态学头四十年的巨人之一，他们的答案肯定是理解在于对命运的了解。虽然他们并没有意识到英国林地的历史事实，但他们全神贯注于自然继承和高潮的观念，并倾向于用这些术语来解释他们的观察结果。
Professor John Harper, in his recent Population Biology of Plants (1977), made a comment and asked a question which effectively states the theme of this book. Noting that 'one of the consequences of the development of the theory of vegetational climax has been to guide the observer's mind forwards', i. e. that 'vegetation is interpreted as a stage on the way to something', he commented that 'it might be more healthy and scientifically more sound to look more often backwards and search for the explanation of the present in the past, to explain systems in relation to their history rather than their goal'. He went on to contrast the 'disaster theory' of plant succession, which holds that communities are a response to the effects of past disasters, with the 'climax theory', that they are stages in the approach to a climax state, and then asked 'do we account most completely for the characteristics of a population by a knowledge of its history or of its destiny?' Had this question been put to R. S. Adamson, E. J. Salisbury, A. G. Tansley or A. S. Watt, who are amongst the giants of the first forty years of woodland ecology in Britain, their answer would surely have been that understanding lies in a knowledge of destiny. Whilst not unaware of the historical facts of British woodlands, they were preoccupied with ideas of natural succession and climax, and tended to interpret their observations in these terms.