PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER - AUTHOR OF THE FIRST GRAPHIC FOOD CHAINS SCHEME

Abstract

The drawing of Netherlandish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Big Fish Eat the Little Fish reflects perhaps not political allusions, as it is interpreted in the history of art, but a graphic food-chains scheme. It is possible that the picture engraving, stored in the British Museum, has influenced the creation of the food-chains concept by British ecologists Johnstone [1], Hardy [2] and Elton [3]. The taxonomic attachment of organisms depicted in the drawing has been determined.

Keywords

• pieter bruegel the elder
• “the big fish eat the little fish”
• food-chains
• food-nets
• trophoecology