Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Clinton Hart Merriam had never seen San Francisco Mountain until he arrived at Flagstaff, Arizona Territory, "a station on the Atlantic and Pacific Railway," on July 26, 1889. 1 But the more than 12,000-foot-high mountain was the object of his trip.Three days later he and his wife, Elizabeth, along with another scientist, later a third and fourth, as well as a cook, encamped at Little Spring at the base of the mountain's north face.As chief of the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy (later the Bureau of Biological Survey) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this was the first of many biological surveys Merriam would organize during his 25-year tenure as chief of the Division.For the next two months he would complete a biological survey of the region around the mountain and the desert of the Little Colorado River.The enduring result of the expedition would be a description of "the geographical distribution of species characteristics of the several zones of the San Francisco Mountain region," 2 better known to ecology as "life zones": a universal system that classifies plant and animal life as natural units or communities defined by temperature, precipitation, and daylight associated with altitudinal gradients and that is applicable anywhere on earth.Merriam's concept of life zones not only was (1) a new scientific way of understanding nature because it moved research from concentration on individual plants and animals to studying them as integral to natural units or communities, but also was (2) the first standardized ecology research methodology that allowed comparisons across regions.For ROY MAY is a theologian, philosopher, and historian who specializes in environmental thought and history.He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Source: Journal of the Southwest
Author: Roy H. May
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4410866319