Science and Technology Studies, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia 22230.
Integr Comp Biol. 2002 Aug;42(4):776-9. doi: 10.1093/icb/42.4.776.
Intertidal zonation, observed from earliest studies of the marine littoral zone, was first studied in the U.S. by ecologists with a botanical orientation. Using the physiological methods favored by Cowles, Clements, and Shelford, these early studies sought causal and deterministic explanations. By the 1930s, the limitations of these studies became apparent and ecologists returned to more descriptive approaches. With the creation of year round research laboratories on the west coast, ecologists soon shed the botanical orientation and began to adopt more stochastic and non-deterministic approaches to intertidal ecology, approaches that still characterize the research tradition.
潮间带分带现象最早是由具有植物学倾向的生态学家在美国对海洋滨岸带进行研究时发现的。这些早期的研究采用了考尔斯、克莱门茨和谢尔福德所推崇的生理学方法，试图寻找因果关系和决定性解释。到 20 世纪 30 年代，这些研究的局限性变得明显起来，生态学家转而采用更具描述性的方法。随着西海岸全年研究实验室的建立，生态学家很快摆脱了植物学倾向，开始采用更随机和非确定性的方法来研究潮间带生态学，这种方法至今仍构成了该研究传统的特征。
