Non-zombie ideas in ecology: Gause’s The Struggle for Existence

I’ve been pretty rough on the ‘zombie’ ideas of famous ecologists lately. So I decided to balance things a bit by highlighting a famous ecologist with some very modern, and very non-zombie, ideas: G. F. Gause. He’s famous for the competitive exclusion principle, of course, but most people probably don’t realize just don’t realize what a sophisticated and quantitative approach to science he had, with a strong emphasis on linking mathematical theory and data. Every ecologist should read his classic (and short) book, The Struggle For Existence (the link goes to a free online version).