December 2002: Vol. 82, No. 1December 2002: Vol. 82, No. 1Eugene Odum (1913-2002)
A fond farewell to the Father of Modern Ecology
by Betty Jean Craige
ene Odum was a naturalist of the kind that is increasingly rare today. As a young boy, he prowled the woods outside his family home in Chapel Hill, getting up early to look for woodchucks, hooded warblers, and waterthrushes. In high school, he started a bird magazine called The Broarbridge Bird News, for which he designed the cover, did the lettering, and wrote and typed all the articles. In his freshman year at the University of North Carolina, he and his friend Coit Coker turned the magazine into a regular column in the Chapel Hill Weekly.
 Odum arrived at the University in 1940, began to make his mark in 1955, and by 1969-70 both Time and Newsweek had identified him as one of the country's leading ecologists. |
Gene went on to obtain his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of North Carolina in zoology and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in zoology with a major in ecology. In graduate school, he shifted his interest from bird taxonomy to bird physiology and then to biomes and then to ecosystems. By the time he arrived at the University of Georgia in 1940, he was devoting his attention to the way ecosystems functioned, and in the course of the next six decades he molded succeeding generations of students through his teaching, his textbooks, his field trips, and his scientific papers. In 1969 and 1970, both Time and Newsweek identified him as one of the country's leading ecologists.
The name of Eugene Odum will always be associated with his late brother, H.T., with whom he collaborated regularly. Their partnership began in the summer of 1954, which they spent together on a coral reef in the Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific. They had obtained a grant from the Atomic Energy Commission to test a controversial idea: that the live coral polyps and the green algae growing on them formed a symbiotic relationship.
The brothers were thrilled to learn that symbiosis actually maintained the relationship between the coral and the algae in equilibrium. The paper they published in 1955 won the Mercer Award and significantly influenced the development of ecosystem ecology, and their discovery powerfully affected their environmental message about how to prosper in a world of limited resources.
Gene would not want me to miss this opportunity to impart an environmental lesson, so I will quote a remark he made often about his Eniwetok experience: "When resources are scarce, it pays to cooperate for mutual benefit. We have to work together in order to survive."
Gene believed—in his words—"although survival of the fittest does involve a lot of confrontation, competition, predation, and other kinds of violent behavior, there is also a lot of peaceful cooperation, not only between individuals, but between species as well for mutual benefit."
I will remember Gene as many things: a lover of birds and other wildlife, a gifted scientist, a dedicated environmentalist, and the most future-oriented thinker I have ever encountered. Even in his old age, knowing he would not be here to see the results of his efforts, Gene continued to address the environmental issues that our society will face in the future. With his gift for explaining difficult concepts to the non-scientific community, he promoted the application of ecological principles to "human predicaments" in essays and speeches and in conversations with anyone who would listen—until the day he died.
What Gene Odum gave us was a holistic way of thinking about the world. He believes that the interrelationships he discerned in ecosystems showed the long-term benefits of cooperation in systems of any kind, whether natural or social. With characteristic optimism, he believed that humans will eventually learn to live in greater harmony with one another and with our natural environment.
Gene Odum was incredibly wise.
I also hope he was right.