Biological Succession in the Aleutians^ 
Theodore P. Bank, IP 
World War II provided "shock treatment” 
to American interest in the Aleutian Islands. 
Prior to 1942, the Aleutians were only vaguely 
known, and thought of, if at all, as cold, 
desolate, and totally inhospitable. This ig- 
norance was shared by scientists, military 
leaders, and, too frequently, by governmental 
agents responsible for the administration of 
that part of the Alaskan Territory. A sudden 
awakening came when the United States and 
Canada were forced by the exigency of war 
to land and maintain a large force of men on 
these hitherto neglected shores, and imme- 
diately they assumed new importance as our 
North Pacific frontier. Attesting to this new 
importance is the fact that eight university- 
sponsored expeditions have been sent to ex- 
plore the islands in the past 4 years. Greatly 
outnumbering these have been governmental 
survey parties and individual investigators. In 
all, more than 30 scientific projects have been 
directly concerned with the Aleutian Chain 
in postwar years. Moreover, this surge of 
interest seems likely to continue, as several 
current programs are organized on a long- 
term basis. 
Wartime and early postwar studies were 
naturally concerned more with the strategic 
potentialities of the islands for military oc- 
cupation than with purely scientific questions. 
However, from these investigations have come 
an increasing appreciation of the peculiar eco- 
^ Contribution No. 971 from the Botanical Gardens 
and the Department of Botany, University of Michi- 
gan. Manuscript received September 30, 1952. 
2 Field Director, University of Michigan Expeditions 
to the Aleutian Islands, 1948-52. 
logical relationship which exists between 
Aleutian environment and biota. Here a 
unique set of environmental factors has mold- 
ed flora, fauna, and human culture into pat- 
terns quite different from those on most of 
the Mainland. This paper will outline briefly 
some of these patterns, which are transitional 
stages of biological succession. 
Field work upon which this paper is based 
has been sponsored by the University of 
Michigan, the Michigan Phoenix Project, and 
the Office of Naval Research. In all, four 
trips have been made to the Aleutians, during 
which more than 20 islands were visited. 
Critically important localities such as glacial 
margins, hot springs, volcanic craters, and 
prehistoric village sites were given special 
attention by members of our expeditions, and 
an attempt was made to correlate biological 
and anthropological investigations with a 
view toward establishing a chronology of 
postglacial events in the Aleutians. 
PLEISTOCENE PHYTOGEOGRAPHY 
The most ambitious phytogeographical 
treatment of arctic and subartic regions in 
Pleistocene times is that of Dr. Eric Hulten 
(1937^). For reviews of his hypotheses, the 
interested reader is referred to several excel- 
lent summaries which have been published 
(Raup, 1941, 1947; Cain, 1944). It will be 
useful, however, to outline quickly Hulten’s 
major conclusions regarding the Aleutians. 
Hulten undertook extensive field work in 
both Kamchatka and the Aleutians, supple- 
menting this with an examination of all avail- 
able herbarium material from the arctic and 
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