Human Dimensions: Natural History as the Innate Foundation of Ecology

Natural history is the parent science of ecology, the residence of innate curiosity and connection to the natural world in our species. Questions of natural history, of pattern and process, have been asked by every culture and society across the world, and the findings have been conveyed through media from engraved stone to digital journals. Natural history is the first love of elementary school students, the motivation of professionals, and the earned reward of retirees. Natural history includes both the child catching fireflies in a butterfly net and the biodiversity‐tracking application on your smartphone. Natural history serves as a critical foundation of ecological science (Tewksbury et al. 2014, Barrows et al. 2016), and it provides personal relevance and an emotional connection to nature for many ecologists. Because the practice of natural history is as old and accessible as the human senses, it is something all humans have in common; natural history is the oldest continuous human tradition (Fleischner 2011). Therefore, natural history can further unite us while also “extending the tent” of the Ecological Society of America (ESA; Pouyat et al. 2018). Here, our goals are to reintroduce our discipline, describe the history of our section, and invite collaboration as we further modernize natural history and ecology through unity and inclusion. What is natural history? The term was first used in the first century AD, when Pliny the Elder entitled his encyclopedic masterwork Historia Naturalis, “the story of nature.” From this origin onward, natural history had both breadth and depth, and was unfettered by disciplinary boundaries. Today, there is a wide range of definitions, some more strictly biological, for example, “the close observation of organisms; their origins, their evolution, their behavior, and their relationships with other species” (Wilcove and Eisner 2000), and some more expansive, for example, “a practice of intentional, focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more‐than‐human world, guided by honesty and accuracy” (Fleischner 2005). What these definitions have in common is a focus on organisms and landscape processes in the context of their occurrence, including urban settings, and a reliance on direct observation as the most trustworthy tool for learning about the “more‐than‐human” world. Direct observation leads to careful description, which then allows scientific comparison between species, habitats, and geographies (Fleischner 2005). The skills, tools, and infrastructure of natural history reach beyond the boundaries of ecology