Ulanowicz has authored or co-authored over a hundred articles in theoretical ecology and related areas of philosophy, especially those dealing with autocatalysis and causality.

His research expands through many areas in theoretical ecology including spatial ecology, biological invasions, structured populations, and model fitting.

His emphasis on hypothesis testing helped change ecology from a primarily descriptive field into an experimental field, and drove the development of theoretical ecology.

His work played a key role in the development of theoretical ecology through the 1970s and 1980s.

Meanwhile, climax theory was deeply incorporated in both theoretical ecology and in vegetation management.

Ecosystem science, both basic and applied, began to compete with theoretical ecology (then called evolutionary ecology and also mathematical ecology).

Integrodifference equations are widely used in mathematical biology, especially theoretical ecology, to model the dispersal and growth of populations.

Dr. Ginzburg's work has been focused on the foundations of theoretical ecology.

Professor Slobodkin's first book, published in 1961, was a work of theoretical ecology written for the young scientist.

Like other fields in theoretical ecology, it uses and extends concepts from thermodynamics and develops other macroscopic descriptions of complex systems.