Abstract

Ecological knowledge is produced through hypothetico-deductive methods fueled by natural history observations. Nevertheless, the biologist-naturalist is becoming a rare species. The lack of incentive and financial investment to natural history related courses, as taxonomy, field biology, and organismal biology is constantly diminishing the graduation of ecologists with first-hand knowledge about nature. The interdependence between natural history and ecology science demands more student training in natural history while updating college curricula and teaching strategies to increase the number of graduates with significant field experiences.