Symposium # 14: Ecology and Agriculture.

Organized by: D. Andow, S. Gliessman, N. Jordan, M. Liebman, D. Neher and A. Power.
Sponsored by: Prospective Agroecology Section.
Tuesday, August 8, 2000
8:30 AM to 11:45 AM
Ballroom II - Cliff Lodge

Agriculture provides the central food resources for humans and is necessary for our continued existence. Yet ecology and agriculture are often perceived in opposition. For many ecologists, ecology champions the preservation of native ecosystems and ecological functions, while agriculture replaces them with monocultures and intensive external inputs. Consequently, most ecologists avoid investigation of significant issues in agriculture leaving the discussion of how to attain agricultural sustainability largely in the hands of agricultural scientists. The ESA has addressed agriculture in symposia and contributed paper sessions scattered during the past 15 years. The early events showed that agroecology could address some significant agricultural issues, but the primary result was to validate using agricultural materials to investigate significant ecological problems.

The goal of the symposium "Ecology and Agriculture" is to probe the relation between ecology and agriculture in order to create a broader discussion within the ESA about the role of ecological investigation in agroecosystems. Specifically, we have asked the speakers to address this issue directly using their own interests to highlight significant questions for future ecological investigation. For example, we anticipate that some of the speakers will address how ecologists can make important contributions toward resolving pressing environmental, crop production, and crop protection problems associated with conventional production practices. Our specific objectives are to have speakers evaluate how agricultural issues can be addressed from various ecological perspectives, including ecosystem functioning, microbial and soil dynamics, insect-plant interaction and evolution, plant communities and biodiversity, theoretical ecology, and population biology.