<P> David Wilkinson gives a thorough history of the hypothesis in his paper titled, "The disturbing history of the intermediate disturbance". In this paper, he explains that the idea of disturbance relating to species richness can be traced back to the 1940s in Eggeling 1947, Watt 1947, and Tansley 1949 . Though studies supporting the hypothesis began in the 1960s, the first concrete statements of the intermediate disturbance hypothesis didn't occur until the 1970s . The hypothesis was initially illustrated using what has been referred to as a "hump - backed model", which graphed the proposed relationship between diversity and disturbance . This graph appeared first in Grime's' Competitive exclusion in herbaceous vegetation' where it was used to show the relationship between species density and both environmental stress and intensity of management . The graph appears again in Horn's' Markovian properties of forest succession' and Connell's' The influence of interspecific competition and other factors on the distribution of the barnacle' . Though Grime was the first to provide a model for the relationship and Horn was the first to explicitly state the hypothesis, Connell is generally cited in text books and journals as the founder of the hypothesis . </P> <P> The hypothesis caused concern among the marine science community because of the discrepancy with the 1976 Competition / Predation / Disturbance model proposed by Menge and Sutherland In this model, low disturbance influences high predation and high disturbance creates low predation, causing competitive exclusion to take place . Menge & Sutherland formulated a new model, one that incorporated Connell's ideas in a two part graph published in The American Naturalist (1987). This model proposes that predation, competition, and disturbance are all responsible for shaping the diversity of a community under certain circumstances . </P> <P> Research regarding the effects of intermediate disturbance is ongoing . In one study, dry and tropical forest regions were compared to determine how the effects of IDH change due to varying climate . More recently, the intermediate disturbance hypothesis has been examined in marine and freshwater ecosystems and protist microcosms . </P> <P> Debates over the validity of the IDH are ongoing within the discipline of tropical ecology as the theory is tested in various ecological communities . Other evidence exists for and against the hypothesis . The intermediate disturbance hypothesis has been supported by several studies involving marine habitats such as coral reefs and macroalgal communities . In shallow coastal waters off of south - west Western Australia, a study was conducted to determine whether or not the extremely high diversity observed in macroalgal communities was due to disturbance from waves . Using a numerical wave model to estimate the forces caused by waves, researchers were able to determine that there was a significant relationship between species diversity and disturbance index; this is consistent with the intermediate disturbance hypothesis . Furthermore, diversity was lower at exposed offshore sites where disturbance from waves was highest, and at extremely sheltered site where disturbance from waves was minimized . The study provided evidence that biodiversity in microalgal reef communities possess some relationship with their proximity to the outer edge of lagoon systems typical of the Western Australian coast . While this study may have been localized to the Western Australian coast, it still provides some evidence to support the validity of the IDH . </P>

Who came up with the intermediate disturbance hypothesis