patricia berjak, don cowan, richard cowling,
norman pammenter & robert scholes
5.1 Introduction
S
everal happy coincidences have con- tionally deep. In the decade 1996 to 2005,
tributed to the relative strength of bio- the plant and animal sciences contributed
logical sciences in South Africa. First, more publications to the global literature
southern Africa, by tectonic and evolution- than any other South African disciplinary
ary accident, is one of the most biologically area (Jeena and Pouris, 2008). Bearing in
diverse places in the world; home not only mind that South Africa spends somewhat
to the famous Cape Floral Kingdom, but also less than 1% of the global investment in sci-
several other less well-known centres of en- ence, and thus has a correspondingly small
demism of plants and animals, on land, in fraction of global researchers and published
freshwater and in the oceans. Second, the output, the contributions by South Africans
region has been inhabited since the very in selected areas have been disproportion-
origins of Homo sapiens, and thus there is ately large. Several of these areas are in the
an accumulation of well-tested indigenous biological sciences (Lovegrove and John-
knowledge regarding plants and animals. son, 2008), where South Africa ranks 18
th
in
The colonisation and exploration of south- the world in terms of published output, and
ern Africa by Europeans, starting in the 18
th
several South African universities are in the
century, coincided with a popular and sci- top 1% of cited institutions, worldwide, in
entific surge of interest in ‘natural history’. biological fields (Pouris, 2007).
The Cape was a rich source of material for
the pioneers of modern biological science, This introduction sketches four themes in
including Linneus, Darwin and their dis- the development of biological sciences in
ciples. The early focus on description and South Africa, broadly labelled evolution,
classification was complemented, starting ecology, agriculture and medicine. It builds
in the 20
th
century, by a growing curiosity a platform for a series of more detailed dis-
regarding function, process and use, and as cussions of the contributions and current
the depletion of the natural resource assets state of several key sub-disciplines. The fo-
became apparent, by a concern for conser- cus in the chapter as a whole is on the re-
vation and management. cent period since about 1990.
At the beginning of the 21
st
century, the The early fascination with collecting and
biological sciences in South Africa are both classifying exotic plants and animals led to
broadly-based (spanning the scale range several globally-significant biological speci-
from molecular biology, through genetics, men repositories located in South Africa.
evolution, physiology to ecosystem sci- The national herbarium, headquartered
ence) and, in several sub-disciplines, excep- at the South African National Biodiversity
133
TWAS book_Chap1-6.indd 133 2009/10/06 12:03:54 PM
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