Dr. Ross M. Horrall, Limnology Laboratory, Department of Zooology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 53706

Dr. Daniel H. Janzen Department of Entomology, Lawrence, Kans. 66044.

Dr. Paul Licht, Department of Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 94720.

Mr. Chandler S. Robbins, Chief, Section of Migratory Non-Game Bird Studies, Migratory Bird Populations Station, Laurel, Md.

20810.

Dr. Owen J. Sexton, Department of Zoology, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. 63130.

Dr. Milton W. Weller, Department of Zoology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50010.

F. MANPOWER AND FACILITIES IN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRAINING

Review of publications of the ICSU Special Committee for the IBP, the "IBP News" series, indicates that no international training center has been formally identified or established. On the other hand, IBP organizations, internationally and nationally, not only within the United States, but within the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and others pay special attention to the critical need for modern training in ecology, mathematics, biophysics, systems analysis including computer use and availability, and other related and supporting disciplines. During many of the IBP conferences and workshops in the United States, participants have been urged to persuade their colleges and universities to update their curriculums to include new courses and new subdepartments both in their undergraduate and graduate schools.

The U.S. Committee has taken recent positive steps to support national training programs with the establishment of an ad hoc committee on training headed by Dr. David Pimentel. Members of the committee are:

AD HOC COMMITTEE ON TRAINING

Pimentel, Dr. David, chairman, head, Department of Entomology & Limnology, New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 14850.

Alexander, Dr. Martin, professor, soil microbiology, Department of Agronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 14850.

Baker, Dr. Paul T., chairman, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, 240 Sparks Building, University Park, Pa. 19104.

Ball, Dr. Robert C., Institute of Water Research, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich. 48823.

Buechner, Dr. Helmut K., Assistant Director for Ecology, room 418, Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 20560, STOP 217.

Cowan, Dr. Richard S., Director, Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560, STOP 217. Haxo, Dr. F. T., professor of botany, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, Post Office Box 109, La Jolla, Calif. 92038.

Johnson, Dr. Philip L., associate professor, School of Forestry, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30607.

Sargent, Dr. Frederick, II, dean, College of Environmental Science, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Post Office Box 834, Green Bay, Wis. 54305.

Schein, Dr. Richard D., 211 Whitemore Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. 16802.

It is most important that the IBP accomplish the training of the additional scientists required to conduct the special work of the program and also to accomplish its objective of producing a substantial increase in the number of environmental biologists for the Nation's expanding manpower needs in this area. An inspection of the statistics and tables and conclusions in appendix E will shed some light on this subject. In summary these state that:

(a) The number of employed scientists in the United States is 361,000 of which 53,000 are biologists (1963 data).

(b) Of the biologists, 1,354 (or about 2.5 percent) are identified as ecologists in the National Register.

(c) Graduate enrollment in all sciences in 1963-64 was 36,941 of which 21,223 was physical sciences, 6,798 basic medical sciences, 8,920 biosciences, and 111 in ecology.

(d) New earned doctor's degrees conferred in 1963-64 in all sciences numbered 4,080, of which 2,455 were in physical sciences, 743 in basic medical sciences, 882 in biosciences, and 112 in ecology.

(e) Estimated doctorate production in all fields of science and engineering 1967-68 is 15,000 of which 3,100 are in the life sciences (including the health fields, agriculture, forestry, and biological sciences).

(f) 710 of the 1,354 ecologists in the National Register have Ph. D.'s, and 378 list research and development as their primary activity.

(g) The average annual production of Ph. D.'s with specialties in ecology by the 20 major training institutions for this field

is 56. While we must keep in mind that the IBP is a multidisciplinary endeavor, the fact remains that the basic approach of the program rests largely on the fundamental tenets of modern ecological science. And although most students recognize the needs of additional manpower in this area of science it is questionable that for the immediate future the IBP can rely heavily on large predoctoral and postdoctoral programs to supply those needs. The training estimates for the United States alone (p. 407) exceed by a factor of two those made 2 years ago for the entire international program. At that time a Subcommittee on Training and Public Relations considered that a global figure in the order of 300 to 500 fellowships would not be beyond the training capacity of existing institutions (see reference 6, pt. II). This may be overconservative, but it emphasizes the point that large numbers of properly trained scientists in a field of shifted emphasis are not likely to come from our institutions in the near future, and not at anytime without changes in those institutions and in student motivation. Needless to say, the IBP can do much to stimulate such changes.

The IBP should promote and carry out a realistic program of training personnel for its activities, but it should not become preoccupied with correcting the present imbalance in scientific manpower in

environmental biology. This is a primary order of business which requires special attention in its own right.

As an IBP training program within the limits of institutional capability evolves, it is recommended that the IBP authorities seek the following solutions to the immediate manpower shortage.

1. The professional reorientation and relocation of personnel already trained in ecology and related sciences.

2. The recruitment and retraining of experienced biologists now in other work.

3. The use of advanced students in biology who could be trained "on the job" and receive academic credit for such training.

4. The possibility of reorientation of one or more Federal laboratories to the aims and objectives of the IBP-laboratories which have completed their original mission and whose facilities and skills are closely allied to those required by the new program.

*

The above outline of the overall organization for the IBP indicates that much progress has been made toward the development of a planning and operational structure for the program. Hundreds of American biologists are now active on international committees, working groups, and specific research projects.

The U.S. contribution to the IBP under this organization has evolved steadily, but still remains in a formative stage. Within the limits of a shorter phase I planning period than it desired, the U.S. National Committee for the IBP has, in addition, come upon some unexpected inertias. While it is true that the gathering IBP momentum in the United States indicates that some of these have been surmounted, there is a growing concern about those which remain.

The hearings record suggests that the National Committee should assume and retain an active and authoritative role in program coordination. Some of the witnesses suggested the need for stronger direction by all elements of the central IBP organization now that it is fully formed.

The National Committee should examine and review those refinements, procedures, understandings and working relationships with the Federal agencies and other Government agencies which are needed in order for it to exercise its initiative and responsibility for the overall program.

ᏢᎪᎡᎢ Ꮩ

THE IBP INTEGRATED RESEARCH PROGRAMS

The international biological program is a global plan of environmental research (basic and applied) designed specifically to make a broad and telling contribution to human welfare. Convinced that we are living and operating in a major state of ignorance about the crucial interrelationships between people and their environment, the IBP has evolved prototype concepts and guidelines of radical scientific sweep. In seeking answers of paramount importance to man's survival, the program will indirectly develop the fledgling discipline of ecosystematics-the principles and processes of large environments in their totality (man, vegetation, climate, soils, and animals). Also, many established disciplines, whose involvement is implied in this part of the report, will be technologically enhanced by accommodating and applying their special skills to the goals and objectives of the IBP. The integrated research programs are concerned with certain aspects of many of the major problems confronting the United States today: environmental pollution; diminishing food supplies; racial strife and the ghettos; human, animal, and plant disease; misuse of natural treasures; lack of understanding of our resources; and man's ability to adapt to a changing world.

In most instances, the proposed inputs from IBP to these major American problems will certainly not be large enough to solve them, but the understanding gleaned from these efforts will provide the tools with which to operate. For example, how can environmental pollution be appraised and controlled without knowledge of how the total environment operates; how many trees can be cut down from tropical forests before this major source of the world's oxygen is depleted?

The United States and most other advanced nations in the world now find themselves in a unique and dangerous situation-alteration of portions of the environment is needed for economic purposes, yet the detailed knowledge with which to predict the effects of these alterations of the environment is not yet available.

This lack of understanding became terribly evident as the consequences of building connecting canals between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean began to appear. The Great Lakes had always been linked together by a system of natural rivers and straits. To this system, man added navigable canals that made it possible for large oceangoing ships to travel from the Atlantic to the western end of Lake Superior. But oceangoing vessels were not the only travelers to use the canals. Lampreys made their way from the sea up the canals and were followed a few years later by alewives. The sea lampreys killed off nearly all the lake trout and burbot as well as most of the smaller fish and left a vacuum in the fish population that the alewives filled. Because the lampreys had destroyed most of the larger preda

tors, the alewives began to proliferate, and as a result were washed up on the southern shore of Lake Michigan by the thousands last year. Had a basis for predicting the effect of the canals on the ecology of the Great Lakes been available at the time of construction, measures could have been taken that would have either avoided or modified all of this very expensive destruction.

This is only one example of the problem: more can be found in past history-the dust bowl of the 1930's-and an increasing number of opportunities for ecological blunders will present themselves in the future our present need for a new sea-level canal is just one example. Engineers are presently discussing what can be done to irrigate deserts by diverting rivers and lakes and how to use advanced equipment to control or modify the weather. What effects these and other changes brought about by advancing technology will have on the environment are unknown and cannot be known because the basic knowledge of how large environmental systems (ecosystems)' operates is still not available. Growing numbers of scientists and laymen have become more and more concerned with what man is doing to his environment and what this changing environment may be doing to man and other living things.

The major IBP projects as developed to date are summarized below. The first four are described in some detail because of their readiness for the IBP phase II operations. They are believed to be good examples of the diversity, scope, and practical goals of the program as a whole.

A. ANALYSIS OF ECOSYSTEMS

This research program in ecosystem operations is aimed at the ultimate understanding of the environment and how manmade changes will affect it. In other words, it will determine the capacity of an ecosystem to change and the degree to which productivity levels are affected by a variety of natural and artificial disturbances. In a sense, this is the central core of the U.S. IBP effort. It is representative of what the whole IBP effort is trying to achieve and stands as an example of the elaborate planning required in a modern systems-model approach to complex functions. No one as yet has attempted to look at a large area like the grasslands or a city as a whole interacting system, not just a series of separate operations and

events.

The use of a new approach in these studies is vital. In recent years, there has been a gradual shift from description and inventory studies of ecosystems to the study of system functions such as energy flow, nutrient cycles, and productivity. Thus different techniques, concepts, and approaches are required to analyze, over and above those used to measure and record. Studies of these extremely complex systems will be performed by multidisciplinary team of scientists coupling the techniques of systems analysis and remote sensing from airplanes and satellites with those of field and laboratory experimentation.

To get the broadest view of how a large environmental system operates, the IBP researchers plan to make a comparative study of six

"Ecosystem" as employed by the IBP appears to embrace the totality of factors which influence the func tion of large but generally discrete environmental systems. The definition includes the evolutionary origin of the system and the significance of man, fire, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, range and wildlife management, urban factors, water and air pollution, pesticides, etc.

* Congressmen, scientists, and other readers interested in complete technical descriptions of the integrated research programs may obtain copies of official documents from the U.S. National Committee for the International Biological Program, National Academy of Sciences, 2100 Constitution Ave.