Andy -- Interesting point. My students in wildlife management are not pleased with the way I teach the course because they think I spend too much time reviewing or reteaching ecology. However, I assume that ecology is the backbone of wildlife management and other environmental sciences. Some of my colleagues do not seem to understand the connection and wonder why wildlife management and other such courses are taught in a biology department. Making a disconnect from the pure science (ecology) and the applied science (environmental science) or combining them into one is clearly wrong. Both are needed by many of our students. Most of the students will apply what they have learned. To be a pure ecologist will not be as easy being an applied ecologist because of the nature of the job market. But to forget or not learn the basis for what one is doing not correct either. We need the lines of communications between the two to solve the problems that humans continue to have. mas tarde, EJF
Andrew Park <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: "Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news" <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU> 11/23/2007 06:29 PM Please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU cc Subject Re: Another picture The statement that "most silviculture is little more than tree farming" is wildly inaccurate in most places except the US southeast, Chile, New Zealand, some parts of Europe and China, and latterly, pulp plantations in southern Brazil. In most of north America, forests are managed as semi-natural habitats with minimal intervention after logging, or not managed at all. Even planted forests fairly rapidly develop species compositions and stand structures that resemble naturally regenerated forests of similar age. There is also a very large literature on the subject of using silviculture to create, maintain, or emulate habitat structures. As for "tree farms", I suspect (though I can't prove) that most intensively managed plantations are way more diverse than an intensively managed cornfield. But back to the central subject. I get the feeling form the way this thread has gone that people see Ecology as a "pure" science, while "environmental science" is always applied. If that is true (and I am a bit skeptical about the rigidity of the division), should we be teaching them as wholly separate subjects in wholly separate courses? Andy
