Ecological Society of America
ecological learned society
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a professional organization of ecological scientists. Based in the United States and founded in 1915, ESA publications include peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets, and teaching resources. It holds an annual meeting at different locations in the USA and Canada. In addition to its publications and annual meeting, ESA is engaged in public policy, science, education, and diversity issues.
ESA's 9,000 members are researchers, educators, natural resource managers, and students in over 90 countries. Members work on a wide range of topics, from agroecology to marine diversity, and explore the relationships between organisms and their past, present, and future environments. As of June 2023 the society has 32 topical sections, six regional chapters, and ten committees.
History
The first discussions on the formation of the society took place in 1914 in the lobby of the Hotel Walton in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at a meeting of animal and plant ecologists organized by Henry Chandler Cowles. On December 28, 1915, in Columbus, Ohio, at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a group of about 50 people voted to form the Ecological Society of America, adopted a constitution, and set the next meeting. Dr.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ecological Society of America” is ecological learned society. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ecological, Society and America, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “ecological learned society” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1282045. VIAF identifies the subject as 148422140. The Library of Congress control number is n79095265. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1915, 2023 and 1914.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ecological Society of America”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ecological Society of America primary sources, Ecological Society of America archive and Ecological research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ecological Society of America”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ecological Society of America” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.