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# The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms

## Details

**Authors** Tansley, Arthur George

**Year** 1935

**Publisher** Ecology

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Ecology

**Secondary disciplines** Biology, Philosophy

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.2307/1930070) 
10.2307/1930070

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To criticize the use of the 'complex organism' and 'biotic community' concepts in vegetation science and to propose better concepts and terms for describing plant communities and their succession.

### How they did it (methods)

Conceptual and terminological analysis of the vegetation concepts of Clements and Phillips, drawing on examples from plant ecology.

### What they found (results)

Tansley argues that the 'complex organism' is a misleading term and that the community's activity is the combined action of its components. He proposes the ecosystem, in which organisms and their physical environment form one physical system, as the basic unit of ecological study. He holds that such systems are mentally isolated by the investigator, that the isolation is partly artificial, and that systems overlap and interlock.

## Commentary

### In short

A founding paper of ecology that rejects the idea of a plant community as a single organism and proposes the ecosystem, in which organisms and their physical environment form one system, as the basic unit of study.

### Response

Tansley's argument draws on all four patterns. The ecosystem is a whole made of organic and inorganic parts (S) that exchange matter and energy and are ranked by their influence on one another (R). He separates the ecosystem from the organism and from the biotic community (D). He also states that systems are 'mentally isolated' by the investigator, and that the unit depends on the observer's point of view (P). Caveats: this is a conceptual essay, not an empirical test, so it shows the structure in a scientist's reasoning rather than in measured data. The perspective point is made in passing rather than developed, and the distinction pattern is the thinnest of the four.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P

Formal proof or model

**Added** 2026-10-17

**How to cite this** Tansley, Arthur George (1935). The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms. Ecology.