UPPSC 2020 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 144 of 150

Correct — B, Bennett. The concept of the 'Ecological Transition' was propounded by the American cultural anthropologist John W. Bennett (1915-2005) in his 1976 book 'The Ecological Transition: Cultural Anthropology and Human Adaptation' (Pergamon). Bennett used the term for the shift in the human-environment relationship as societies move towards an increasingly intensive, technology-driven and instrumental use of nature, and for the way social and cultural factors mediate how humans adapt to their physical surroundings.

• (a)Elton — Charles Elton was a British animal ecologist known for the 'ecological niche', food chains and food webs, and the study of biological invasions — not for the 'ecological transition' concept.
• (c)Berkeley — This does not name the author of the concept. (The Berkeley school of cultural geography under Carl Sauer studied the cultural landscape, but the term 'ecological transition' is Bennett's.)
• (d)Ratzel — Friedrich Ratzel, the German geographer, is associated with anthropogeography, environmental determinism and 'Lebensraum' — not with the ecological-transition concept.

'Ecological transition' is a concept from human / cultural ecology. John W. Bennett framed it as the process by which human societies pass into a phase of intensive, purposive and technologically mediated exploitation of the environment, with culture and social organisation shaping how people adapt. It links anthropology, ecology and sociology in the study of the man-environment relationship.

This is a thinker-to-concept recall item. The trap is that three of the four names are real scholars of nature or space: separate Bennett (cultural anthropologist, 'ecological transition') from Elton (natural-science ecology, the niche) and Ratzel (deterministic geography). Fix the pairing 'ecological transition = Bennett (1976)'.

• 'Ecological Transition' — term coined by the anthropologist John W. Bennett in his 1976 book of the same name
• It concerns cultural anthropology and human adaptation — the intensifying, instrumental human use of nature
• John W. Bennett was emeritus professor of anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis (1915-2005)
• Contrast: Elton = animal ecology and the ecological niche; Ratzel = environmental determinism and anthropogeography

• Choosing Elton because he is a famous ecologist — his work is on niches and food chains, not the ecological transition
• Choosing Ratzel by association with 'environment' — he is the determinist geographer, not the source of this term

UPPSC and UPSC ask 'thinker → concept' recall in geographical thought and human ecology — match the idea ('ecological transition') to its author (Bennett) and keep the rival theorists' contributions straight.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The concept of the 'ecological niche' in ecology is most closely associated with

  • (a)Charles Elton
  • (b)John W. Bennett
  • (c)Friedrich Ratzel
  • (d)Carl Sauer

  Answer(a) Charles Elton — the British animal ecologist who developed the niche concept and pioneered food-chain/food-web studies.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Environmental determinism in geography, and the concept of 'Lebensraum', are associated with which scholar?

  • (a)Friedrich Ratzel
  • (b)John W. Bennett
  • (c)Charles Elton
  • (d)Vidal de la Blache

  Answer(a) Friedrich Ratzel — the German geographer linked to anthropogeography, environmental determinism and Lebensraum; Vidal de la Blache is the possibilist counterpoint.