Frederic Edward Clements was an American plant ecologist and pioneer in the study of both plant ecology and vegetation succession.
11 Facts About Frederic Clements
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Frederic Clements was classmate of Willa Cather and Roscoe Pound.
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From his observations of the vegetation of Nebraska and the western United States, Frederic Clements developed one of the most influential theories of vegetation development.
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Frederic Clements suggested that the development of vegetation can be understood as a unidirectional sequence of stages resembling the development of an individual organism.
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Frederic Clements observed that some groups of species, which he called "formations", were repeatedly associated together.
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Frederic Clements is frequently said to have believed that some species were dependent on the group, and the group on that species in an obligatory relationship.
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However, this interpretation has been challenged by the argument that Frederic Clements did not assume mutual dependence as an organizing principle of formations or plant communities.
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Frederic Clements observed little overlap in kinds of species from type to type, with many species confined to just a single type.
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Frederic Clements was quite convinced of the validity of his experiments, but this experimental Lamarckism fell to experimental disproof in the 1930s.
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Frederic Clements spent much time trying to demonstrate the inheritance of acquired traits in plants.
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Together with his wife Edith Frederic Clements he edited three exsiccata works.