This Week's Citation Classic JUNE 1988

Current Contents   (Social and Behavioral Sciences) (1988), volume  20 (number 25): page 20, in Current Contents (Arts & Humanities)  (1988), volume 10 (number 25): page 20, and Current Contents  (Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences) (1988), volume 19  (number 25): page 20.)   

Pianka, E. R. 1974. Evolutionary Ecology. First Edition. Harper and Row, New York. [University of Texas, Austin, TX] 356 pp.
 

Until relatively recently, biologists merely accepted as essentially  immutable a broad range of biological phenomena, such as the fact that  sex ratios are usually near equality (50:50), without considering why  such facts might be so or how they could have evolved. Rigorous  application of the theory of natural selection in population biology has  greatly increased our understanding of numerous phenomena, including  the evolution of genetic dominance, foraging tactics, reproductive  tactics, senescence, sex ratios, social behavior, mate choice and mating  systems, predator escape tactics, parasite virulence, niche breadth,  resource partitioning, and so forth [The SCI and SSCI indicate that this  book has been cited in over 290 publications.]   
 

Eric R. Pianka
Department of Zoology
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
April 30, 1988
 

When I began teaching ecology in 1968-1969, the only two  textbooks available totally lacked an evolutionary perspective. In 1970 I  tired of apologizing to my students for these books' inadequacies and  decided to write a more modern one based on my own lectures. I assembled  an outline and sent it off to several publishers to inquire whether  anyone would be interested. All but one simply rejected the outline out  of hand, indicating that I was an unknown and that the manuscript would  have to be written and reviewed before they would consider committing  themselves to its publication. However, an editor at Harper & Row,  Amy Kramer, showed my outline to the late Robert MacArthur, who assured  her that I would write a good book. She signed me on and proved to be an  exceedingly supportive editor, carefully gathering and holding out  little bits of praise as carrots to keep me going when I grew weary of  writing. Had I known then that many other ecology texts were also being  written, I would never have continued. Imagine my chagrin when, in  1972-1973, six other ecology textbooks appeared,1-6 just as I  was finally about to finish my own! My book was clearly too late, and a  total anticlimax. Indeed, I almost stopped writing it just as it neared  completion and probably would have if not for Kramer's clever support  and the Concorde fallacy (you've got too much invested in it to quit  now).
 

As luck would have it, however, this surfeit of texts resembled the  recent Democratic primaries, and my book somehow emerged from the fray a  "classic." J.M. Emlen3 was more idiosyncratic, P.A. Colinvaux1,  was cuter, while the others were more "comprehensive." But Evolutionary  Ecology, conceptual, clear, and concise, found its niche. I auribute  the book's success to the eclectic quality of its contents, patterned  after the thinking of Darwin, Fisher, Hamilton, Orians, MacArthur,  Paine, Schoener, Trivers, and Wilson. I consider myself most fortunate  to have been the spokesman for such clear thinkers. Evolutionary Ecology  represents an image of part of our minds, one that reflects reality ³-  principles developed here operate independently of Homo sapiens and life as we know it on planet Earth but apply to living systems anywhere in the cosmos.
 

Evolutionary Ecology is now in its fourth edition and has been  translated into Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Polish. The latter  translation is ironically gratifying, since "Pianka" is an old Polish  name (meaning "foam on the crest of a wave" or "froth on the head of a  beer"). Sadly, no Piankas still live in that beleaguered country (my  ancestors renounced their roots and fled anti-Semitism, becoming German  gentiles).  Two edited British symposia7,8 have also used the same title, as well as a new journal! The discipline has blossomed beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
 

1. Colinvaux P A. Introduction to ecology New York: Wiley. 1973. 621 p. (Cited 60 times.)
 

2. Collier B, Cox G W, Johnson A W & Miller P C. Dynamic ecology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973. 563 p. (Cited 25 times.)
 

3. Emlen J M. Ecology: an evolutionary approach. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1973. 493 p. (Cited 255 times.)
 

4. Krebs C J. Ecology: the experimental analysis of distribution and abundance. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. 694 p. (Cited 175 times.)
 

5. McNaughton S J & Wolf L L. General ecology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973 710 p. (Cited 40 times.)
 

6. Ricklefs R E. Ecology. Newton, MA: Chiron, 1973, 861 p. (Cited 140 times.)
 

7. Stonehouse B & Perrins C M, eds. Evoluaonary ecology. London: Macmillan, 1977 310 p.
 

8. Shorrocks B, ed. Evolutionary ecology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1984. 418 p.