ABSTRACT
"One of the major criticisms of mathematical-theoretical approaches to ecology," writes Robert McIntosh, "is that they commonly rest on simplifying assumptions, often unstated, that make them tractable mathematically. Ecologists' increasing reliance "on the physical sciences and engineering for theory, mathematical approaches, concepts, models and metaphors," writes the biologist Daniel B. Botkin. The evolution of the earth is characterized not by stability but by constant environmental disturbances and extreme fluctuations in animal and plant populations. Ice ages, driven by little-understood climatic and solar cycles some 100,000 years in duration, constantly disrupted plant and animal communities. Sea levels were four hundred feet lower than they are today. South of the ice was an eerie land of tundra and desert, raked by fierce, cold winds and sandstorms. Then temperatures warmed dramatically, triggering cataclysmic events. Fed by melting glaciers, huge reservoirs called proglacial lakes, some larger than our Great Lakes, abruptly appeared.
