biomes that have developed in very different situations: tundra, grassland, desert, coniferous forest, deciduous forest and tropical forest. The first biome study to begin is that of the grasslands, which consists of intensive study of a 15,000-acre site in northeastern Colorado called Pawnee; two similar sites in Canada and Mexico; and comprehensive studies of a network of differing grassland types in the Midwestern and Northwestern States. (See fig. 3.) This large environmental system study alone involves more than 80 senior scientists from 20 universities and government laboratories in the Western United States. Other biomes are in the process of final site selection and are expected to be in the proposal stage by summer of 1968. The central organization for the total IBP ecosystem program is shown in figure 4. Figure 3. A schematic map of the major biomes of North America. (Prepared The scientific and practical goals of the IBP ecosystem program are summarized by its director, Dr. Frederick Smith, as follows: The scientific goal of this program is to understand how ecological systems operate. We have many descriptions of their appearance, and several good studies of rates of flow of matter and energy within them, but no analyses of the causal factors that operate together to produce ecological systems. Such knowledge is essential to the optimal management of renewable resources and the maintenance of environmental quality. Whether the approach to management is simple or complex, all management programs affect whole systems, and the long-term responses are system responses. Viewed over centuries, ecological systems are the primary determinants of such global attributes as the distribution of soils, the availability of nutrients, the composition of the atmosphere, and the temperature regimes of the earth. Eventually, the management of the biosphere as a whole will be imperative; this program will help to prepare us for that day. Of immediate urgency is the need to solve problems of ecosystem function before massive programs to improve environmental quality are funded; such programs will require knowledge that does not exist, knowledge that this program is designed to produce. B. ECOLOGY OF MIGRANT POPULATIONS The IBP integrated research program entitled "Ecology of Migrant Populations" is divided into two parts: first, a comprehensive socioeconomic and medical characterization of Negro residents of Holmes County, Miss.; and second, studies of their movement to Chicago. In Holmes County, researchers will seek to gage the effects of the Headstart program on the health and learning ability of the children enrolled, as well as measure the impact of an informational and health program for pregnant women on incidences of fetal and neonatal deaths. At the same time, Chicago-bound migrants and former Holmes County residents now in Chicago will be interviewed to determine characteristics which can predict successful adaptation to an urban environment. Holmes County, Miss., is the poorest county in the United States with a mean annual income among the Negro community of $900 per family and an annual income for white families of $3,900. It has a population of 28,600 which is 72 percent Negro and largely rural. In spite of the considerable poverty in Holmes County, the entire Negro community has achieved a remarkable degree of organization, cohesion, and social action. For example, more than 97 percent of all Negro children eligible for Headstart programs have been actually enrolled. Thus, a principal focus of community action is the Milton Lee Olive II Headstart program. Approximately two-thirds of the migrants go to Chicago, where they settle in the west and south side ghettos. Holmes County migrants in Chicago maintain close social contact with each other and their relatives who remain south. The research plan envisages a household (demographic) census of all Negro dwellings in the county. The questionnaires will be used to collect data on family size and structure, education, occupation, income, house type, dwelling area, and religious participation. The households will be asked to participate in a health survey which will be carried out by trained Holmes County residents. The demographic and health surveys will provide the necessary data upon which the studies of the development of children enrolled in Headstart, of fetal and neonatal deaths and of migration will be based. The migration studies in Chicago will be used to determine what attributes will predict either successful or nonsuccessful adaptation among young adults age 15-35. To obtain data on the inmigrants, a team of interviewers based in Chicago will be used. The interviewers' training will be the joint responsibility of the University of Illinois faculty and the staff of the "youth action" program of the Chicago Y.M.Č.A. The degree and amount of education, the acquisition of employment, maintenance of family relations, development of new relationships and social behavior, especially deviant behavior such as narcotics addiction, prostitution, chronic alcoholism, and criminal convictions will all be evaluated for their effect on successful or nonsuccessful adaptation. In later stages of development in this program, other populations might also be investigated including Negroes migrating from Evans County, Ga., to New Rochelle, N.Y. and residents of four races in the subarctic city of Fairbanks, Alaska. In effect, then, the ecology of migrant populations has three major aims: (1) To help in the development of an adequate biosocial characterization of the Nation by providing intensive research on "nonwhite," "poor" and "rural" populations (since the great bulk of existing data pertains only to the "white," "middle class," and "urban" portions of the populations). Apart from its scientific value, such a characterization would have practical value in defining national medical, economic, and educational needs including those for environmental quality. (2) To help develop valid assessments of the interactions of genetic and environmental components in human adaptation through studies based on rigorously defined biological populations. Such studies, which have so far been uncommon in the United States, could provide not only new measures, but help also to interpret much existing information. (3) To provide a better understanding of adaptation to an urban and industrialized habitat through studies of related populations in rural and urban settings, and especially of urban migrants. C. STUDY OF ESKIMO POPULATIONS Another study of man adapting to a stressing environment is found in the integrated research program on Eskimos. This is a four-nation study involving the United States, Canada, Denmark, and France. The adaptation of man to a hostile environment such as that of the Eskimo is a magnification of the adaptive processes that all men undergo, even in temperate environments. By studying populations under stress, the IBP scientists hope to further their understanding of human adaptability in general. The major objective of the U.S. investigation is to determine the ways in which an Eskimo community on the Arctic coast of Alaska has successfully perpetuated itself under severe climatic conditions with relatively meager resources. The IBP researchers hope to collect precise information about the biological and social interactions within a community of 300 Eskimos at Wainwright, Alaska. The Canadians will perform similar studies at Igloolik in their Northwest Territories, and the Danes and French will study the Eskimos of Upernavik, Greenland. Through these studies, the scientists hope to gain insight into the general patterns of human adaptability and evolution since Eskimos illustrate in the size of their communities, level of their economy, and major occupation as hunters-the way in which man, the species, spent 99 percent of his evolutionary history. Much of the genetic endowment of modern man has been shaped by the mechanisms of natural selection and other evolutionary processes that still seem to affect the Eskimo culture. In the United States, this multidisciplinary study will involve scientists from the Universities of Wisconsin, Chicago, Indiana, Oregon, California at Los Angeles, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. Data gathered by U.S. researchers will be coordinated with those collected in the Canadian and Danish-French studies to give an overall picture of Eskimo adaptation. In addition, all health-related information gathered in the American survey will be made available to Government agencies in Alaska so that it may be used to better understand and treat Eskimo health problems. D. PROGRAM OF RESEARCH ON CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT EVOLUTION IN THE AMERICAS 3 This is a unique undertaking in that it is planned as a truly cooperative program of research involving South American and other Latin American as well as U.S. scientists. These cooperating researchers will be working in coordination on problems of great biological interest. This is a striking departure from previous practices of working independently and particularly of U.S. workers going to South America and working alone. Not only has this been an inefficient method, but it has also created much ill feeling because the Latin American biologists felt that their respective countries were being exploited by the North Americans. This program bears directly on the main focus of the U.S. IBP effort, which is directed at an understanding of ecosystems and man and his relations with the ecosystems of which he is a part. The anticipated results of this program are great and many faceted. Some of the most important ones are: 1. This cooperative international effort will enable us to complete our knowledge of the total biological resources of the Western Hemisphere. Species are disappearing at an increasing rate as man increases his pressures on the ecosystems of the Americas. Piecemeal efforts in the past on a local or national scale to inventory biological resources have been inadequate. 2. The study of convergent systems under similar environments and of divergence in plants and animals that range through many 3 Prepared especially for this report by Dr. W. Frank Blair, director of this program. Dr. Blair is the newly appointed chairman of the U.S. National Committee for the IBP. |