ABSTRACT
After decades of explorations of Karl Marx's contributions to ecological discussions and publication of his scientific-technical notebooks, it is no longer a question of whether Marx addressed nature, and did so throughout his life, but whether he can be said to have developed an understanding of the nature-society dialectic that constitutes a crucial starting point for understanding the ecological crisis of capitalist society. Arthur Tansley was the foremost plant ecologist in Britain of his generation, one of the greatest ecologists of all time, and the originator of the concept of ecosystem. He was to become the first president of the British Ecological Society. In the 1920s and 1930s a major split occurred in ecology. In the US Frederic Clements and others developed the important concept of ecological succession. This ecological approach inspired other innovations in ecological theory in Edinburgh and South Africa.
