The discipline of plant ecology was pioneered in the late 19th century by botanists such as Eugenius Warming, who produced the hypothesis that plants form communities, and his mentor and successor Christen C. Raunkiær whose system for describing plant life forms is still in use today. The concept that the composition of plant communities such as temperate broadleaf forest changes by a process of ecological succession was developed by Henry Chandler Cowles, Arthur Tansley and Frederic Clements. Clements is credited with the idea of climax vegetation as the most complex vegetation that an environment can support and Tansley introduced the concept of ecosystems to biology. Building on the extensive earlier work of Alphonse de Candolle, Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943) produced accounts of the biogeography, centres of origin, and evolutionary history of economic plants. COUNT 5
QSN1 What did Warming believe that plants can do? ANS1 form communities QSN2 What is the term for the most complex plant life in a specific environment? ANS2 climax vegetation QSN3 Who created the concept of ecosystems? ANS3 Arthur Tansley QSN4 Whose earlier work did Nicholas Vavilov build upon? ANS4 Alphonse de Candolle QSN5 What history did Vavilov write about? ANS5 history of economic plants