Adolphe Dureau de la Malle

Adolphe Jules César Auguste Dureau de la Malle (3 March 1777 – 17 May 1857) was a French geographer, naturalist, historian and artist. He was the son of the scholar and translator Jean-Baptiste Dureau de la Malle.

Dureau de la Malle published a number of works on the economy and topography of the classic countries, i.e. Italy and Carthage at the time of the Roman Empire:

As a naturalist, he published on the origins of the ceral crops,

and, his most significant work, on vegetation succession.

Here he present results of his observations in clear-cut forests. He was the first to use the term succession (prior to Steenstrups use) about an ecological phenomenon and probably the first to use the term community (ecology) (societé) for an assemblage of (plant) individuals of different species (prior to Karl Möbius).