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Timothy F. H. Allen (born July 6, 1942) is a British botanist and former professor of Botany and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. [1] : 3 Allen is a leader in the fields of hierarchy theory, systems theory, and complexity.
Timothy Allen was born in 1942 in South Croydon, Surrey, U.K, and since the 1970s has been a permanent U.S. resident. He received his B.Sc. in 1964 and his Ph.D. in 1968, both at the University College North Wales of the University of Wales, Bangor, in North Wales. [2]
Starting in 1964, Allen worked for four years as a demonstrator at the School of Plant Biology of the University College North Wales. This was followed by two years as a lecturer in the Department of Biological Science at the University of Ife in Nigeria. In 1970 he went to the United States and became an assistant professor at the Department of Botany of University of Wisconsin–Madison, being named professor in 1981. In 1980 he joined the faculty of the Department of Integrated Liberal Studies, and as member of the faculty of the Institute for Environmental Studies, Conservation and Land Management Programs. In 1988–89 he was a visiting professor at the Department of Anthropology and Cybernetic Systems at the San Jose State University. [2]
In 2008–2009, Allen was president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. [3] He is also a member of the scientific advisory board of the Integral Science Institute. [4]
Timothy Allen's research interests are in the fields: theory of complex systems and ecology, in particular hierarchy theory and problems of scale; epistemology for biological systems; resource use and biosocial dynamics; narrative in science. [5]
Ecology is the study of the relationships among living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history. Ecology is a branch of biology, and it is not synonymous with environmentalism.
Human ecology is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments. The philosophy and study of human ecology has a diffuse history with advancements in ecology, geography, sociology, psychology, anthropology, zoology, epidemiology, public health, and home economics, among others.
Landscape ecology is the science of studying and improving relationships between ecological processes in the environment and particular ecosystems. This is done within a variety of landscape scales, development spatial patterns, and organizational levels of research and policy. Concisely, landscape ecology can be described as the science of "landscape diversity" as the synergetic result of biodiversity and geodiversity.
Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies is a paper on energy economics by Joseph Tainter from 1996.
Crawford Stanley "Buzz" Holling, was a Canadian ecologist, and Emeritus Eminent Scholar and Professor in Ecological Sciences at the University of Florida. Holling was one of the conceptual founders of ecological economics.
Restoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human interruption and action. Ecological restoration can reverse biodiversity loss, combat climate change and support local and global economies.
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Health ecology is an emerging field that studies the impact of ecosystems on human health. It examines alterations in the biological, physical, social, and economic environments to understand how these changes affect mental and physical human health. Health ecology focuses on a transdisciplinary approach to understanding all the factors which influence an individual's physiological, social, and emotional well-being.
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Patch dynamics is an ecological perspective that the structure, function, and dynamics of ecological systems can be understood through studying their interactive patches. Patch dynamics, as a term, may also refer to the spatiotemporal changes within and among patches that make up a landscape. Patch dynamics is ubiquitous in terrestrial and aquatic systems across organizational levels and spatial scales. From a patch dynamics perspective, populations, communities, ecosystems, and landscapes may all be studied effectively as mosaics of patches that differ in size, shape, composition, history, and boundary characteristics.
James J. Kay was an ecological scientist and policy-maker. He was a respected physicist best known for his theoretical work on complexity and thermodynamics.
Agroecosystem analysis is a thorough analysis of an agricultural environment which considers aspects from ecology, sociology, economics, and politics with equal weight. There are many aspects to consider; however, it is literally impossible to account for all of them. This is one of the issues when trying to conduct an analysis of an agricultural environment.
Carl Walters is an American-born Canadian biologist known for his work involving fisheries stock assessments, the adaptive management concept, and ecosystem modeling. Walters has been a professor of Zoology and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia since 1969. He is one of the main developers of the ecological modelling software Ecopath. His most recent work focuses on how to adjust human behaviors in environments that are full of uncertainty. He is a recent recipient of the Volvo Environment Prize (2006). In 2019, Dr. Walters became a Member of the Order of British Columbia.
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Monica G. Turner is an American ecologist known for her work at Yellowstone National Park since the large fires of 1988. She is currently the Eugene P. Odum Professor of Ecology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
A social-ecological system consists of 'a bio-geo-physical' unit and its associated social actors and institutions. Social-ecological systems are complex and adaptive and delimited by spatial or functional boundaries surrounding particular ecosystems and their context problems.
Hierarchy theory is a means of studying ecological systems in which the relationship between all of the components is of great complexity. Hierarchy theory focuses on levels of organization and issues of scale, with a specific focus on the role of the observer in the definition of the system. Complexity in this context does not refer to an intrinsic property of the system but to the possibility of representing the systems in a plurality of non-equivalent ways depending on the pre-analytical choices of the observer. Instead of analyzing the whole structure, hierarchy theory refers to the analysis of hierarchical levels, and the interactions between them.
In the study of complex systems and hierarchy theory, the concept of scale refers to the combination of (1) the level of analysis ; and (2) the level of observation. The scale of analysis encompasses both the analytical choice of how to observe a given system or object of study, and the role of the observer in determining the identity of the system. This analytical tool is central to multi-scale analysis.
Sarah E. Gergel is an American ecologist and professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada. She is a landscape ecologist, known for her research linking landscapes and rivers, and her role in enhancing training in the practice of landscape ecology.
Peter Greig-Smith (1922–2003) was a British plant ecologist, founder of the discipline of quantitative ecology in the United Kingdom. He had a deep influence across the world on vegetation studies and plant ecology, mostly from his book Quantitative Plant Ecology, first published in 1957 and a must-read for multiple generations of young ecologists.
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