In the early 1970’s, when we were young girls spending our summers at “the Brook”, we did not really appreciate the significance of what was happening around us. We just lived it, surrounded by birds, trees, soil, water, scientists, and students. And caterpillars.
2013 marks the 50th Anniversary of the launching of the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study. This pioneering effort to explore the complex ways in which water, air, soil, plants and animals interact began in 1963. It became, and remains today, a world-renowned laboratory yielding many important insights, including identifying the phenomena of acid rain and enhancing the understanding of the impact of climate change on natural systems.
For us, it meant summers living in a tent on the lawn of a big old farmhouse, and lots of walks in the woods. Our dad spent his days catching and measuring birds. Our mom was writing a book.
That book, The Endless Chain of Nature: Experiment at Hubbard Brook, was published in 1976, and was one of the first efforts to introduce core ideas of what is now called “ecology” to young people. It was a new and unfamiliar word, and the notion that the world around us is shaped by a complex web of interdependencies was far from the mainstream. Pat thought of calling the book “Eco-Puzzle”, but her publisher said that nobody would know what it was about. We’ve come a long way since then, but like the Hubbard Brook experiment itself, we still have a long way to go.
Pat wanted to make ecology accessible, and interesting, to young people. She wanted to show that science is something done by real people, asking questions, solving puzzles, getting their hands dirty. She wanted to reveal the scientific process as it is – a long-term conversation among many different people with different expertise and perspectives. She saw Hubbard Brook as a perfect example of this.
Pat passed away in 2002. In revising The Endless Chain for a new generation, we are honoring Pat’s dream that this work would continue to live, even after she was gone. Like the ecosystems it explores and the experiment at Hubbard Brook itself, this revised edition reflects both continuity and change. The research being carried out at Hubbard Brook today uses technologies and techniques that were not available in 1963, to answer questions that were unasked at the time. Yet many of the fundamental inquiries remain the same, and some questions have actually been answered.
While the core of the book remains as Pat wrote it, we have added some new text and photos to help bring it up to date. Going one step further, we have chosen to make it available as a living interactive document on the web (http://endlesschain.org). In doing so, we invite you to continue the conversation by adding your input, updates, perspectives, stories, and questions. We look forward to hearing from you as we, together, forge the next links in our Endless Chain.
Sheryl Sturges and Karen Sturges-Vera
July, 2013
