Ecology Reconfigured: Organizational Innovation, Group Dynamics and Scientific Change

Abstract

The ecosystem concept and related changes in ecological theory, combined with the emergence of large-scale, long-term data collection, catalyzed policy actions within the U.S. National Science Foundation and among ecological professional societies that, in turn, created the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), a place that further reconfigured the conduct and content of ecological science. NCEAS did so by pioneering a process called scientific synthesis, which combines data across sites and over time to answer broader and more fundamental scientific questions and to address environmental challenges. Small-group dynamics of trust, intimacy, emotional energy and intensive interaction (both constructive and critical) contributed to the local reconfiguration of the process and substance of ecological science, and then this local transformation, in turn, brought about broader changes within the field as a whole.