© 2003 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
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The Promise of Integrative Biology: Resurrection of the Naturalist1
1 Long Marine Laboratory, Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064
Integrative biology has been practiced for a very long time; it is in our roots. Before agriculture, our ancestors depended on a fully integrated knowledge of their world to successfully hunt and gather. The development of agriculture was a natural consequence of such knowledge. Democritus and Aristotle championed observation and synthesis to provide an integrated world view that subsequently was subverted and mystified for nearly 2000 years. The giants who lead us through and out of the European renaissance—da Vinci, Gesner, Harvey, Ray, Malpighi, Leeuwenhoek, Hooke, Buffon, Linnaeus, Trembly, Lamarck, Cuvier, von Baer, and of course, Wallace and Darwin and their supporters, Huxley and Haeckel—all were integrative biologists, or in the terminology of the time, naturalists. By the end of the 19th century, integrative biology, and indeed science and rational thinking, carried great promise for the 20th century.
Many of us who grew up in biology in the mid 20th century also were trained to practice integrative biology, although we rarely, if ever, identified it as such. Our interest grew out of childhood curiosity and fascination with organisms, as seen all around us, in parks, forests, deserts, and seashores, and as displayed in zoos and museums. Our training, usually in biology departments, or if broken apart, in botany and zoology departments, included all aspects of biology, from cells to populations, across taxa, and including multiple disciplines, from physiology and cell biology to ecology and evolution. Many of us developed careers teaching and doing research in biology that grew out of that broad training, and we worked comfortably with a variety of organisms using multiple approaches.
And as demonstrated so well by the papers from this symposium, such an approach can result in elegant, comprehensive biology of wide application. Sex is among the most perplexing and puzzling topics in biology, and if it is ever to be understood, it will only be through integrative approaches such as those presented by Hoshi et al. (2003)
. The evolution of multicellularity and complex life cycles is, well, complex, and demands careful dissection in an integrative manner to understand, as demonstrated so well by Kirk (2003). Biogeography is another huge topic that has fascinated biologists for centuries, and it is now yielding to the integrative techniques of phylogenetics, using both morphological and molecular data, as presented by Donoghue and Moore (2003). It is difficult to think of a more integrative area, or one more contemporary today, than symbiosis, and the studies presented by McFall-Ngai and Kimbell (2003) of the fascinating symbiosis between bacteria and squids illustrate again the power of an integrative approach. Of course, we hardly live in isolation, and our biology is reaching more and more into every aspect of society, as illustrated particularly well by Mounolou et al.'s (2003) example of managing rabbit populations in Europe.
While many of us have worked on many aspects of many species, perhaps to the extent of appearing to be dilettantes, the impressive unifying feature in these symposium papers is their unrelenting focus on a fundamental problem, bringing to bear every technique and approach appropriate, with evolution being the overarching guide. Integrative biology is neither fragmented nor scattered, but when done with discipline and focus, as in earlier centuries, is a most powerful approach for revealing fundamental insights into living systems.
Integrative biology is also nearly overwhelming, particularly as knowledge at all levels grows. By the beginning of the 20th century it had become clear that few people could master all the developing disciplines in biology, much less the diversity of organisms themselves. Instead, it was more productive to specialize in narrower and narrower areas or taxa. Reductionism yielded results, and specialization flourished. Departments split up, and specialty journals and societies multiplied. Biologists found it more and more difficult to talk with each other. At the same time, specialization produced profound results expanding our knowledge as never before. Clearly, a narrow focus on selected fundamental aspects of larger issues is the way to tease secrets out of nature.
Nevertheless, after a century of more and more specialization, resulting in the accumulation of more and more specific information, it is now time to resurrect integrative biology. Indeed, as Wake (2003) points out, that is happening today with the formation of departments and programs in integrative biology around the world. Our own society and journal have changed in recognition of these trends. However, resurrecting integrative biology will not be easy. It cannot be done by simply changing names. With the tremendous growth in knowledge and techniques, we can't simply go back to pre-20th century biology either. A new framework needs to be built. The foundation of that framework, in my opinion, should be in the training of biologists to again be naturalists who think in synthetic ways, incorporating an appreciation of widely different disciplines, approaches, techniques, and taxa, in the context of well-defined fundamental questions. Doing that successfully will be the challenge of the 21st century.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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I thank the speakers for their participation in this symposium and for the timely production of their manuscripts. The encouragement and assistance by Brett Burk, Marvalee Wake, and Bill Zamer is greatly appreciated. This symposium was supported by the International Union of Biological Sciences and the National Science Foundation.
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FOOTNOTES |
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1 From the Symposium The Promise of Integrative Biology presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2–6 January 2002, at Anaheim, California.
2 E-mail: pearse{at}biology.ucsc.edu
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References |
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TOP
 References |
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Donoghue, M. J., and B. R. Moore. 2003. Toward an integrative historical biogeography. Integr. Comp. Biol, 43:261-270.
Hoshi, M., K. Kobayashi, S. Arioka, S. Hase, and M. Matsumoto. 2003. Switch from asexual to sexual reproduction in the planarian Dugesia ryukyuensis. Integr. Comp. Biol, 43:242-246.
Kimbell, J. R., and M. J. McFall-Ngai. 2003. The squid-vibrio symbioses: From demes to genes. Integr. Comp. Biol, 43:254-260.
Kirk, D. L. 2003. Seeking the ultimate and proximate causes of Volvox multicellularity and cellular differentiation. Integr. Comp. Biol, 43:247-253.
Mounolou, J.-C., G. Queney, G. Bolet, N. Dennebouy, and M. Monnerot. 2002. Integrative biology and genetic resources management. Integr. Comp. Biol, 43:271-275.
Wake, M. H. 2003. What is "Integrative Biology"? Integr. Comp. Biol, 43:239-241.
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