Editing Ecosystem (section)

=== Origin and development of the term ===
The term "ecosystem" was first used in 1935 in a publication by British ecologist [[Arthur Tansley]]. The term was coined by [[Arthur Roy Clapham]], who came up with the word at Tansley's request.<ref name="Willis-1997">{{cite journal|last=Willis|first=A.J.|year=1997|title=The Ecosystem: An Evolving Concept Viewed Historically|journal=Functional Ecology|volume=11|issue=2|pages=268–271|doi=10.1111/j.1365-2435.1997.00081.x|doi-access=free}}</ref> Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment.<ref name="Chapin-2011a" />{{rp|9}} He later refined the term, describing it as "The whole system, ... including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment".<ref name="Tansley-1935" /> Tansley regarded ecosystems not simply as natural units, but as "mental isolates".<ref name="Tansley-1935" /> Tansley later defined the spatial extent of ecosystems using the term "[[ecotope]]".<ref name="Tansley-1939">{{cite book|last=Tansley|first=A.G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1io8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PP1|title=The British Islands and Their Vegetation|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1939|author-link=Arthur Tansley}}</ref>

[[G. Evelyn Hutchinson]], a [[limnologist]] who was a contemporary of Tansley's, combined [[Charles Sutherland Elton|Charles Elton]]'s ideas about [[Trophic level|trophic]] ecology with those of Russian geochemist [[Vladimir Vernadsky]]. As a result, he suggested that mineral nutrient availability in a lake limited [[Algal bloom|algal production]]. This would, in turn, limit the abundance of animals that feed on algae. [[Raymond Lindeman]] took these ideas further to suggest that the flow of energy through a lake was the primary driver of the ecosystem. Hutchinson's students, brothers [[Howard T. Odum]] and [[Eugene P. Odum]], further developed a "systems approach" to the study of ecosystems. This allowed them to study the flow of energy and material through ecological systems.<ref name="Chapin-2011a" />{{rp|9}}