'Crawford Stanley (Buzz) Holling' (
6 December 1930,
Theresa, New York) is an Canadian
ecologist, and Emeritus Eminent Scholar and Professor in Ecological Sciences at the
University of Florida. Holling is one of the conceptual founders of
ecological economics.
Biography
Crawford Stanley Holling was born in
1930 in the United States to Canadian parents. He grew up in
Northern Ontario, which was where he first became interested in nature. As a teenager he was a member of the
Royal Ontario Museum's Toronto Junior Field Naturalists.
Holling received his B.A. and M.Sc. at the
University of Toronto in
1952 and his Ph.D. at the
University of British Columbia in
1957. He worked for several years in the Canadian Department of Forestry in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
After working for Forestry Canada, Buzz Holling was, at various times, Professor and Director of the Institute of Animal Resource Ecology, University of British Columbia, Director of the
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in
Vienna, and Eminent Scholar, Arthur R. Marshall Jr. Chair in Ecological Sciences in the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida.
He retired from the University of Florida in
1999, but remains on the faculty as an Emeritus Eminent Scholar.
He has been awarded two major awards from the
Ecological Society of America, the Mercer Award given to a young scientist in recognition of an outstanding paper in ecology in
1966, and the Eminent Ecologist Award for "outstanding contributions to the science of Ecology" in
1999. He also received the Kenneth Boulding Memorial Prize, in
2000, and an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Guelph in
1998. He is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada, a foreign Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and has been awarded the
Austrian Cross of Honour for Arts and Science.
He was founding editor-in-chief of the open access on-line journal Conservation Ecology, now renamed
Ecology and Society. He was also the founder of the Resilience Alliance, an international science network.
Work
Throughout his research, C. S. Holling has blended
systems theory and
ecology with simulation modeling and policy analysis to develop integrative theories of change that have practical utility. He has introduced important ideas in the application of ecology and evolution, including resilience, adaptive management, the adaptive cycle, and panarchy.
His early work included major contributions to population and behavioural ecology. Later, he was among the first ecologists to recognize the importance of nonlinear dynamics. This early work on predation led to a series of papers, including his
1959 Citation Classic paper in the Canadian Entomologist, in which he developed the notion of functional response, an idea that continues to be a linchpin of modern population ecology.
His
1973 paper on the
resilience of ecological systems had a substantial impact within ecology and other natural and social sciences. He has also contributed important ideas to ecological management, including
Adaptive management and the Adaptive Cycle. More recently his work on the cross-scale structure and dynamics of ecosystems has been highly influential. This work resulted in the
2002 book ''Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems''.
His work is frequently cited in the fields of ecology,
environmental management,
ecological economics and the human dimensions of global change.
Literature
Holling wrote several books and articles:
★ 1978, C.S. Holling (editor), ''Adaptive environmental assessment and management''. London, John Wiley & Sons.
★ 1995, L. Gunderson, C.S. Holling, & S. Light (editors), ''Barriers and bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and institutions''. New York, Columbia University Press.
★ 2002, L. Gunderson & C.S. Holling (editors), ''Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems''. Washington, DC, Island Press.
C.S. Holling's most cited articles include:
★ 1959, C.S. Holling, "The components of predation as revealed by a study of small mammal predation of the European Pine Sawfly", in: ''Canadian Entomologist''. '91':293-320.
★ 1973, C.S. Holling, "Resilience and stability of ecological systems", in: ''Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics''. '4':1-23.
★ 1978, D. Ludwig, D.D. Jones & C.S. Holling, "Qualitative analysis of insect outbreak systems", in: ''Journal of animal ecology''. '47' (1): 315-332.
★ 1990, C.J. Walters & C.S. Holling, "Large-scale management experiments and learning by doing", in: ''Ecology''. '71' (6): 2060-2068
★ 1992, C.S. Holling, "Cross-scale Morphology, geometry, and dynamics of ecosystems", in: ''Ecological Monographs''. '62' (4): 447-502
★ 1996, C.S. Holling & G.K. Meffe, "Command and control and the pathology of natural resource management", in: ''Conservation Biology'' '10' (2): 328-337.
External links
★
Holling, Crawford Stanley in the Canadian encyclopedia.
★
IIASA
★
Exological Society
★
Adaptive Cycle.
★
International Society for Ecological Economics
★
Resilience Alliance,