生物學混亂了好幾個世紀，直到1735年出現了一個重大轉折點，Carl Linneaus的Systema Naturae出版了一本系統化混沌的著作，為所有進一步的生物學研究提供了基準。不幸的是，林奈分類學的興起帶來了代價，因為它幾乎消除了生物學研究中的生態系統方法，這方法源於科學史上最傑出的人物之一Maria Sibylla Merian（1647-1717）。

原文標題：Maria Sibylla Merian: 17th Century Artist, Entomologist, Explorer And Proto-Ecologist

Biology took a while to figure itself out. For centuries, it was a mish-mash of Aristotelian sentiments and cabinets of Unnatural Curiosities whose only organizing principle was a Ripleyish sense of the weird. One of the great turning points came in 1735, with the publication of Carl Linneaus’s Systema Naturae, a work which systematized the chaos and provided a baseline for all further biological research. Unfortunately, the rise of Linnaean taxonomy came at a cost, namely in that it all but obliterated the struggling ecosystem approach to biological study originated by one of the most fantastic figures in scientific history, Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717).