Sison, M. (2008). On Clements' The Climax Concept

The Climax Concept by Frederic Clements (Clements 2004) speaks about the climax of successions. Successions are the gradual and orderly process of ecosystem development brought about by changes in community composition. A climax community is a stable group of plants and animals at the end of this successional process. Clements says that there is only one climax for a climatic region. That is, the vegetation profile is due to the climate; it is a response to it, and an indicator of it.

The climax is a stable and self-perpetuating end stage. That is to say that the plants and animals in a climax interact among themselves and with their environment in such a way that the populations of the characteristic organisms are maintained, much as the quantities of gases or liquids are maintained at steady state under conditions of equilibrium.

The factors that give rise to the specific mix of organisms, aside from the organisms themselves, are the climatic conditions of moisture and temperature, and the soil. Thus, under conditions of high moisture, high temperature, and thin soil a region may be dominated by trees characteristic of a rainforest, whereas the same climate but with nutrient-rich soil might be dominated by plants characteristic of swamps.

Climax communities remain stable in the absence of interference. Thus, a disaster such as a volcanic eruption may turn a rainforest into a desolate wasteland; in time, however, a rainforest will be established in the same area.

Over very long periods of time and even in the absence of disasters, however, climaxes are not stable. Ice ages that occur in cycles of hundreds of thousands of years, for example, cause major extinction events that transform the biotic landscape; they are also involved in the emergence of new species. It is thought, for example, that the ancestors of humans emerged from rainforests in Africa that experienced a drastic reduction in precipitation following a long-term geological change and which resulted in the transformation of rainforests into grasslands. Nonetheless, given that moisture, temperature, and soil do not change appreciably, the climax community will remain what it is.

Thus, climaxes are stable; a change in the climax, observed in the short term by changes in the floral and faunal profile, generally signals a change in climate. This is particularly significant today where we are concerned about assessing the effects of human-induced climatic changes.

(Mariel Sison is a student of the University of Asia and the Pacific. m.sison@yahoo.com)

References
Clements, F. (2004). The climax concept. In Keeping Things Whole: Readings in Environmental Science (C. Tickell, J. Coulson, D. Whitfield, A. Preston, Eds.), The Great Books Foundation, USA., pp. 81-85.

Samsin, J.R. (2008). Essence lost in history

"Nature is silent, but clear, and requires simply a reliable reading." Miller quotes this in his article Dimensions of Deformity (Miller 2004). Miller begins this article by giving his readers the historical background on man's perception of frogs; from how the Mesopotamians saw frogs' deformities as an omen to how a modern man sees them as just frogs. Now, what is the significance of this evolution of man's view of nature?

Miller suggests that nature must be seen as somewhat more like us. Like man nature, including frogs, whether deformed or not, share an essence with us. By having a closer and deeper relation between humans and nature, it will become easier to see the world as a whole.

This way of looking at nature, however, has not always been a habit of man.

The ancient Mesopotamians viewed deformed frogs as an omen, a sign they took seriously as a message from the gods. This way of looking at nature exists today in the form of superstition. Later, from the time of Aristotle and the Greeks to the men of science of the Middle Ages, deformities would have been given a natural explanation, but the ethical dimension was not ignored. As Miller says,

"A deformed frog could thus be an indicator of prevailing cosmic dispositions, conditions also linked to the material and spiritual health of humankind." (Miller 2004).

A change in man's perceptions occurred beginning in the 17th century. At this time, a way of thinking was being formulated by Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. They proposed that what is significant in nature consists, in essence, of merely what is measurable. From this view, man began to see nature as just nature. Nature was something totally different from man. That is, man detached nature's essence from his own. Again,

"It is a method that took pains to separate the material world 'out there' from the human mind 'in here', a perspective that dissolves the solidarity of humanity and nature and stands in such contrast to the ancient and medieval sense that knowledge involves nature re-forming herself in the mind." (Miller 2004)

Man, however, can never be equal to nature. This is because we are far more advanced than all other things in the world. Man is gifted with intellect and will, whereas nature and everything else in it has very limited intellect, if at all. Nonetheless, at least a part of man is in nature; man can only be impoverished if he ignores this fact.

Miller says that "the great virtue of ecological science lies in its efforts to soften the fragmentizing tendencies of modern science and to see the world whole." This is because ecology traditionally takes a systems view rather than a reductionist view of nature. By expanding the systems view into the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of human existence, ecology confronts the question of the equivalence of man's nature with that of his world.

Reference:
Miller, G. 2004. Dimensions of Deformity. In Keeping Things Whole, The Great Books Foundation.

(Jean Rhea S. Samsin is a student of the University of Asia and the Pacific, 14jean85.multiply.com)