Ecological Research at the Beginning of the Next Century

One of the most fascinating aspects of science is that it appears to be endless in spite of constant progress with more and more scientific knowledge accumulating. At the end of a project there are usually many more unanswered scientific questions than the number recognized at the beginning. A scientist can for various reasons stop working with a certain problem, but sooner or later someone else will continue along the same track, perhaps detect unexpected facts and, maybe, also make a real scientific breakthrough. We will argue here that there are two ways in which the scientific progress in ecology takes place. One is mainstream ecology where many scientists, step by step, are making small but steady and foreseeable progress, particularly in the most attractive scientific fields, usually looked upon as the scientific frontier. The other one consists of theoretical innovations, new thoughts and new ideas, giving rise to great leaps forward and to new scientific fields attractive for those in the mainstream. The development in mainstream ecology is rather predictable because it is possible to identify the forces steering it, while the theoretical innovations are usually completely unpredictable.