THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENCE OF AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS

Ruth Patrick's scientific career has been devoted to the study of fres hwater organisms in water. It started with studies of diatoms. She fou nd one could interpret the condition of water by studying diatoms. Thi s study of the ecology of diatoms expanded into ecological studies of communities of organisms that live in streams. By shifts in the struct ure of communities she was able to show the effects of various types o f pollution on the aquatic ecosystem. This was the first time an organ ized team of biologists had been used to study the effects of pollutio n in streams. Through this research she showed that freshwater ecosyst ems were characterized by large numbers of species with very different environmental requirements operating in each stage of nutrient and en ergy transfer in the food web. These species belonged to many differen t phylogenetic groups. This redundancy gives stability to the system.