Angela Creager, Princeton University

"The Atom and the Ecosystem"

Abstract: This talk shows how the ecological sciences radiate the legacy of the atomic age. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States Atomic Energy Commission championed the atom?s benefits for biology and medicine, sending radioisotopes to thousands of scientists. These proved vital to the rise of ecosystems ecology by revealing nutrient cycles and food webs. But radioactive tracers also made visible the spread of nuclear contamination, generating concern about the very program that produced them.