Limnol. Oceanogr., 44(6), 1999, 1595–1596

What has the study of ecosystems contributed, where is the field going (and why), and what factors challenge its progress? These questions were the focus of the Cary Conference, which was held at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, in 1997. One product of that conference is this book, which attempts to provide some of the answers to these questions. The book's editors , Mike Pace and Peter Groffman, propose that their readership should include not only practitioners of ecosystem science but also other ecologists, students of ecology, and environmental scientists. The present reviewers fall more or less into the middle two categories. In addition to the goals of taking stock and of exploring the motivations that underlie ecosystem investigations, Pace and Groff-man point out that there is misunderstanding in the ecological community about what ecosystem science actually is. They are right. An early and favorite definition of ecology, which was proposed by Eugene Odum, holds that it is the study of the structure and function of nature. The words structure and function were borrowed from early definitions of physiology and anatomy, which were seen as studies of the structure and function of organ systems. ''Function,'' however, has two distinct meanings: (1) how something works and (2) what purpose something serves. Both definitions have relevance for the components of individual organisms, but for ecosystems, the second holds a peril not entirely avoided by ecosystem scientists during the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. At that time, the loudest voices in ecosystem science suggested, or seemed to suggest, that ecosystems might evolve as distinct units, that some feature (such as energy transfer) should be maximized among all components, and that the ''function'' of these components was to play a role in this maximization process. This perspective led many ecologists with strong grounding in evolutionary biology to distance themselves from the ecosystem branch of their science. Other factors that, rightly or wrongly, also played a role in this disenchantment were the seeming intractability of the very large computer-simulation models favored during this formative period and the perception that ecosystem science was too closely allied with investigations of applied problems. As a result, for more than two decades some ecologists simply stopped paying attention to advances in ecosystem science. This book makes it clear that by doing so, they missed a lot. The book is divided into three parts, the first …