Tansley’s 1917 paper is a good paper for it’s time. It explains the steps and approaches in his experimental methodology, but not as detailed as the current standards. To cover what’s missing, first we must cover what is present in the paper:
Tansley, A. (1917). On Competition Between Galium Saxatile L. (G. Hercynicum Weig.) and Galium Sylvestre Poll. (G. Asperum Schreb.) On Different Types of Soil. Journal of Ecology,5(3/4), 173-179. doi:10.2307/2255655
Tansley’s interest in this paper is around the competition between closely related species and how that relationship plays into effect when put against different soils. His inspiration arose from the relationship represented by Achillea moschata and A. atrata, as he investigates a possibly similar phenomenon between Galium saxatile and G. sylvestre. These species were grown on different soils and displayed the following growth:
- G. sylvestre grew most freely on calcareous soil and least on acid peat.
- G. saxatile grew most on acid peat and least on calcareous soil.
- When grown in sandy loam G. saxatile grew more than G. sylvestre.
- Both species failed to grow in the original experiment on sandy loam.
Tansley concluded that competition worked through suppression of the shoots, done by the out-competitor. The paper does a great job of explaining the logical thinking behind the conclusions made, but when presenting the numerical data, it is a bit disappointing. Data in terms of recorded growth was not represented in the detail manner that would be expected by today’s standards. This critical missing piece could be attributed to statistics, which plays a large part of today’s research. Granted statistics was invented past Tansley’s time, it is the most apparent missing piece to this otherwise easy to follow paper. Though, I would like to point out that the level of transparency and detail in the methods portion is also not up to today’s standards, that would allow for an accurate duplication of the experiment. It’s also important to note that the writing style of this older paper lacks the rigid empirical structure that is expected of scientific articles today. But personally, I believe this lack of structure is what contributed to it’s easy-to-read nature.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 