units composed of individuals, and that contradictory and competing theories about these supra-individual units exist. These two different areas of knowledge have in common that their objects are ‘societies’, i.e. This paper uses structural analogies to competing political philosophies of human society as a heuristic tool to differentiate between ecological theories and to bring out new aspects of apparently well-known classics of ecological scholarship. Similarly, newer generations are using Odum’s multidisciplinary approach to address the most pressing global change issues and designing solutions that make the Earth life sustaining system compatible with growing human demands. Newer generations have their work cut out for them by bridging evolutionary biology and ecosystem science or metabolic theory and ecological stoichiometry. Simplicity of the framework was its strength, and major limitation, painting ecosystem functioning in broad strokes, with no acknowledgement about interactions among the predictions. Odum’s conceptual framework for ecosystem studies-as well as his forward-thinking attempts to connect ecosystem ecology with humans and society-continues to be pertinent to current and future research frontiers. Although we found that support for Odum’s framework grew over time, support for any particular prediction was inconsistent, highlighting the unresolved nature of some of the framework’s principles. Odum’s 24 predictions on “ecosystem development” were a key component of this paper’s legacy: The framework was referenced in 62.0% and tested in 28.7% of 1598 citing papers we examined. (Gene) Odum’s 1969 “The strategy of ecosystem development.” Odum’s paper presented testable predictions about species diversity, energy flow, and biogeochemical dynamics during ecosystem succession and provided guiding principles for environmental conservation and management. Here, we examine the legacy and sustained impact of a paper long considered a classic in ecology, E.P. Ecosystem ecology, like all scientific disciplines, is often propelled forward by “classic” papers that identify key concepts within the field and define the core questions for generations of scientists.
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