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   It is not the case that "from a mathematical standpoint our discipline is a special
case of ecology."  Mathematical economics certainly predated mathematical ecology, and the
concept of a mathematically defined ecological community equilibrium came well after it
did in economics, in the 1950s with Eugene Odum, and even there it was relatively ad hoc
from the perpsective of mathematical economics, more along the lines of what one would
find in Walras or Leontieff rather than von Neumann or Arrow and Debreu, the idea of a
"community matrix."
 
     For that matter, the very term "ecology" only dates from Haeckel in the 1860s.  Prior
to then, discussions of what we now call ecology went under the rubric in English of "the
economy of nature."  After all, Malthus influenced Darwin crucially, not the other way
around, although Marshall would give his famous nod to biology over physics, despite the
actual main corpus of his writings.
 
     If one wishes to stretch things, one can perceive a glimmer of the idea of ecological
equilibrium in Linnaeus in the 1750s in his original discussion of taxonomic
classification systems.  Likewise, in 1916, Clements posited the idea of a steady state
ecological "climax" condition for each locality, an idea now not in favor with most
ecologists, although it can be seen as a sort of equilibrium concept.  But then one can
find equally vague hints of general economic equilibrium in Quesnay and even in the early
1700s in Boisguillebert.
 
      Despite these remarks, I happen to think that economists can learn a lot from
ecology, but they did not learn of equilibrium from the ecologists (or their predecessors
the "natural economists.")
 
      Furthermore, I think chemistry was at least as important in developing the idea of
equilibrium as was physics, even if it was the physicists (and engineers) who were more
responsible for bringing it into economics.
 
Some relevant references: 
 
Carolus Linnaeus, 1751. "Specimen Academicum de Oeconomia 
Naturae," Amoenitas Academicae 2, 1-58. 
 
Ernst Haeckel, 1866. Generelle Morphologi der Organismen. Berlin. 
 
Frederic E. Clements, 1916. Plant Succession: Analysis of the Development 
of Vegetation. Washington: Carnegie Institute. 
 
Eugene P. Odum, 1953. Fundamentals of Ecology. Philadelphia: 
W.B. Saunders. 
 
Donald Worster, 1977. Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
 
Barkley Rosser 
 
 
 
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