Carl F. Jordan


Carl F. Jordan is Professor Emeritus, Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia.

Biography

During the 1940s and early 50s, Carl F. Jordan spent boyhood summers at his uncle’s hunting and fishing lodge in northern Maine. He enjoyed the wilderness there, especially canoe trips on the Allagash and Penobscot rivers, and deplored the  cutting of the spruce-fir forests by the pulp and paper companies. In 1953, he enrolled at the University of Michigan and majored in forestry, because he believed that it could help him conserve the forests, but in those days, forestry was all about “getting out the cut”. In 1962 he enrolled in graduate school at Rutgers University where the Botany Dept. had a program in Plant Ecology, but it was a course in soil morphology that introduced him to the concept of nutrient cycling.
After he acquired his Ph.D. in 1966,  he joined  H.T. Odum in an Atomic Energy Commission project in Puerto Rico and applied the cycling concept to the dynamics of radioactive isotopes in the rain forest, for which he was awarded the Ecological Society of America’s Mercer award. In 1969, Carl moved to Argonne National Laboratory where he continued to study radioactive pollution from nuclear power plants around Lake Michigan. In 1974, he had the opportunity to lead a project for the University of Georgia near San Carlos de Rio Negro in the Amazon Region of Venezuela. During this time he focused on determining how forests of the Amazon survived on the nutrient-poor soils and could even flourish and support shifting cultivation. His research showed that nutrients from decaying organic matter on the forest floor recycled directly back into the roots of living trees. As long as the cycle was intact, the forest flourished, but destruction by agriculture or grazing cut the cycle and destroyed productive capacity.
In 1980, Carl returned to the University in Athens Georgia. He began taking graduate students, while continuing his research in San Carlos, and expanding it to Brazil, Ecuador, and Thailand. Most notable projects were studies in Brazil of the Jari Plantation in Brazil, a pulp plantation of hundreds of square miles, and rehabilitation of the forests around the Carajas mines in central Amazonia. The primary concentration in all these studies was the importance of preserving the soil organic matter to keep the nutrient cycle intact and functioning.
In 1993, Carl acquired a farm near Athens Georgia that had once been part of a pre-Civil cotton plantation and began research on more sustainable ways to manage organic agriculture. He originated the first University course in Georgia on organic farming, and opened the farm to tours and classes interested in sustainable agriculture. By 2017, more than 20,000 students had toured the farm. By then he had published 10 books, 140 professional papers, and mentored 35 graduate students. Carl retired as Professor Emeritus in 2009, and took his new freedom to interpret the emerging thermodynamic concept of ecosystem evolution in terms that could be understood by an audience beyond biophysicists.

Books

1.Jordan, C.F. 1981. Benchmark Papers in Tropical Ecology. Hutchinson and Ross, Inc. Stroudsburg, Pa.
2.Jordan, C.F. 1985. . Wiley, Chichester.
3.Jordan, C.F. 1987. . Springer Verlag. N.Y.
4.Jordan, C.F. 1989. An Amazonian Rain Forest. The Structure of Function of a Stressed Ecosystem and the Impact of Slash and Burn Agriculture. Man and the Biosphere Series, Volume 2. UNESCO, Paris and Parthenon, Carnforth, England.
5.Jordan, C.F., J. Gajaseni, and H. Watanabe 1992. Taungya: Forest Plantations with Agriculture in S.E. Asia. C.A.B. International, U.K.
6.Jordan, C.F. 1995 : Replacing Quantity with Quality as a Goal for Global Management.. Wiley, N.Y.
7.Jordan, C.F. 1998. : Resource Management for Sustainability. Harwood Academic Publishers. Overseas Publishers Association. Amsterdam.
8. Castellanet, C. and C.F. Jordan. 2004. . Taylor and Francis. UK.
9. Montagnini F. and C.F. Jordan. 2005 Tropical Forest Ecology: . Springer Verlag, Berlin.
10. Jordan, C.F. 2013. : Energy Use Efficiency in the American South. Springer Verlag. Heidelberg.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

1. Jordan, C.F. 1968. A simple, tension-free lysimeter. Soil Science 105: 81-87.
2. Kline, J.R. and C.F. Jordan. 1968. Tritium movement in soil of a tropical rain forest. Science 160: 550-551.
3. Jordan, C.F. 1969. Derivation of leaf area index from quality of light on the forest floor. Ecology 50: 663-666.
4.Jordan, C.F., J.J. Koranda, J.R. Kline, and J.R. Martin. 1970.Tritium movement in a tropical ecosystem. BioScience 20: 807-812.
5. Jordan, C.F. 1971. Productivity of a tropical forest and its relation to a world pattern of energy storage. Journal of Ecology 59: 127-142.
6. Jordan, C.F. 1971. A world pattern in plant energetics. American Scientist 59: 425-433.
7. Jordan, C.F., J.R. Kline, and D.S. Sasscer. 1972. Relative stability of mineral cycles in forest ecosystems. The American Naturalist 106: 237-253.
8. Jordan, C.F. and J.R. Kline. 1976. Strontium-90 in a tropical rain forest: 12th year validation of a 32-year prediction. Health Physics 30: 199-201.
9. Jordan, C.F. and J.R. Kline. 1977. Transpiration of trees in a tropical rain forest. Journal of Applied Ecology 14: 853-860.
10. Jordan, C.F. and P.G. Murphy. 1978. A latitudinal gradient of wood and litter production and its implications regarding competition and species diversity in trees. American Midland Naturalist 99:415-434.
11. Stark, N. and C.F. Jordan. 1978. Nutrient retention by the root mat of an Amazonian rain forest. Ecology 59: 434-437.
12. Herrera, R. T. Merida, N. Stark, and C.F. Jordan. 1978. Direct phosphorus transfer from leaf litter to roots through mycorhizzal connections in an Amazonian rain forest. Naturwessenschaften 65:208-209.
13. Jordan, C.F., and G. Escalante. 1980. Root productivity in an Amazonian rain forest. Ecology 61: 14-18.
14. Herrera, R., C.F. Jordan, E. Medina, and H. Klinge. 1981. How human activities disturb the nutrient cycles of a tropical rainforest in Amazonia. Ambio 10: 109-114.
15. Jordan, C.F., W. Caskey, G. Escalante, R. Herrera, F. Montagnini, R. Todd, and C. Uhl. 1982. The nitrogen cycle in a "tierra firme" rain forest on oxisol in the Amazon Territory of Venezuela. Plant and Soil 67: 325-332.
16. Jordan, C.F. and R. Herrera. 1981. Tropical rain forests: are nutrients really critical? The American Naturalist 117: 167-180.
17. Jordan, C.F. 1982. Amazon rain forests. American Scientist 70: 394-401.
18. Jordan, C.F. 1982. The nutrient balance of an Amazonian rain forest. Ecology 63: 647-654.
19. Smathers, W, M., C.F. Jordan, E.G. Farnworth, and T.H. Tidrick. 1983. An economic production-function approach to ecosystem management. BioScience 33: 642-646.
20. Uhl, C. and C.F. Jordan. 1984. Vegetation and nutrient dynamics during the first five years of succession following forest cutting and burning in the Rio Negro region of Amazonia. Ecology 65: 1476-1490.
21. Jordan, C.F., W. Caskey, G. Escalante, R. Herrera, F. Montagnini, R. Todd, and C. Uhl. 1982. The nitrogen cycle in a "tierra firme" rain forest on oxisol in the Amazon Territory of Venezuela. Plant and Soil 67: 325-332.
22. Jordan, C.F. 1986 Ecological effects of forest clearcutting. pp 345–357 in Committee on application of Ecological Theory to Environmental Problems, eds. Ecological knowledge and environmental problem solving. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
23. Jordan, C.F. 1986 Ecological effects of nuclear radiation. pp. 331–344 in Committee on application of Ecological Theory to Environmental Problems, eds. Ecological knowledge and environmental problem solving. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
24. Jordan, C.F. and C. Miller. 1995 Scientific Uncertainty as a Constraint to Environmental Problem-Solving: Large Scale Ecosystems. pp 91–117 in J. Lemons ed. Scientific Uncertainty and Environmental Problem Solving. Blackwell Scientific Publishers. Cambridge, Mass.
25. Jordan, C.F. 2002. Genetic Engineering, the Farm Crisis, and World Hunger. BioScience 52: 523-529 -
26. Jordan, C.F. 2004. Organic farming and agroforestry: Alleycropping for mulch production for organic farms of southeastern United States. Agroforestry Systems 61: 79-90.
27. Carrillo Y., B.A. Ball, M.A. Bradford, C.F. Jordan, M. Molina. 2011. Soil fauna alter the effects of litter composition on nitrogen cycling in a mineral soil. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 43: 1440-1449.
28. Carrillo, Y., C. F. Jordan, K. L. Jacobsen, K.G. Mitchell, & P. Raber. 2011. Shoot pruning of a hedgerow perennial legume alters the availability and temporal dynamics of root-derived nitrogen in a subtropical setting. Plant and Soil 345: 59-69.
29. Jordan, C.F. 2016. The Farm as a Thermodynamic System: Implications of the Maximum Power Principle

Courses Taught at the School of Ecology, University of Georgia

American Association for the Advancement of Science
Ecological Society of America
Sigma Xi
Sierra Club
Audubon Society
Nature Conservancy
National Wildlife Federation
Inter. Soc. Tropical Foresters
Wilderness Society
Fundacion Neotropica
National Parks and Conservation

Selected Awards and Recognition

Mercer Award, of the Ecological Society of America
Who's Who in America
Fellow
Conservationist of the Year Award Oconee River Soil & Water Conservation District
2012 Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award District 2