Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Nature of Defense: Coevolutionary Studies and the Evolution of 'Natural Insecticides,' 1959-1980

This dissertation explores how research on the mutual biochemical evolution of herbivorous insects and their plant prey was a critical element in the development of evolutionary ecology in the 1960s. This history of 'coevolutionary studies' will elucidate the conflicts and collaborations that generated successful interdisciplinary alliances in evolutionary ecology, as plant and insect biologists built a new research program around natural history, chemical analysis, and evolutionary inference. In the 1950s, botanists and entomologists offered conflicting solutions to the adaptive puzzle of plant biochemistry. But by 1964, botanist Peter Raven and entomologist Paul Ehrlich had actively collaborated on a coevolutionary solution: Plants evolved chemical defenses against insect predators and insects evolved the means to detoxify those defenses in response. This dissertation asks how the martial metaphors, model organisms, experimental techniques, and theoretical concepts of insecticide research in economic entomology shaped this new program of coevolutionary research, suggesting that the practical concerns of agriculture were instrumental in the development of evolutionary theory and methods. Coevolutionists posited the evolution of 'natural insecticide,' a concept that blurred the boundary between natural and artificial modes of evolution, while alliances between chemists and ecologists, initiated by ecologists like Daniel Janzen and Paul Feeny, brought the chemical methods of applied scientists to bear directly on questions of community evolution. This dissertation will support these arguments by analyzing a combination of primary source print materials, archival collections, and oral history interviews with researchers still active in their careers.

This project's intellectual merit is comprised by its analysis collaboration between plant and insect biologists, whose research practices were reconciled in the development of a new research program organized around evolutionary co-adaptation. Close attention to the establishment of standards and practices in coevolutionary studies will yield insights into the negotiations necessary when synthesizing inference and experimentation, laboratory and field study, and basic and applied science. This project will also expand upon the history of evolutionary ecology by studying the connections between agricultural practices and the development of evolutionary theory. Moreover, the collection and analysis of oral histories will build connections between science and the history of science, allowing scientists to be active participants in the reconstruction of their own histories and enhancing the interpretation of archival and historical print materials with the experiences of direct participants in early coevolutionary studies.

Ecology and evolutionary biology are deeply theoretical fields of study, even as they attract broad public attention. Understanding the narratives of evolutionary adaptation and scientific change is important not only for historians, but also for practicing scientists and the general public. This project's cross-disciplinary relevance gives it its broader impacts, revealing connections between practicing biologists, rich archival sources, and compelling examples of evolutionary adaptation. Two papers have been written based on this research thus far and presented at professional history of science conferences, but the placement of the PI and Co-PI in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior also affords many opportunities to share these findings with scientists and others beyond the historical community. The Co-PI's experience designing an internet teaching tool on the history of forensic DNA testing (see bio. sketch) will be invaluable in the development of a web-based collection of primary source materials on coevolutionary studies. The website will complement efforts to relate this research through popular online and print publications that reach a broad audience, beyond academia.