Rh whittaker biography of william hill

In he married Ivy Burley and together they had one daughter, Kathleen Hill. In he had a second daughter, Miranda Baker, with his partner Sheila Baker. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. DOI: The definitive biography of Robert H. Later reprinted in van der Maarel Available online for purchase or by subscription.

Peet, and G. In Biographical Memoirs. Edited by the National Academy of Sciences, — A biography of Robert H. Whittaker based largely on Westman and Peet Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login. Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions.

For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Sign in Get help with access You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Username Please enter your Username. Family [ edit ]. Works [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Evolutionary relations are better represented by new classifications than by the traditional two kingdom's in Avantika ".

BioScience62 1 : Ecological Monographs, 30, — Evolution and Measurement of Species Diversity. Taxon, 21, Biographical Memoirs: Volume ISBN Retrieved 26 October Authority control databases. To him these differences appeared related to community age, substrate fertility and grazing stress. Community organization and dynamics Whittaker's contributions to the theory of community structure and function followed several lines, most of which were related to his gradient view of vegetation organization.

Although much of this work is interrelated conceptually, it is treated here under several headings. Niche theoo' Whittaker's conceptualization of niche differentiation along environmental gradients b, c, c, cwas his way of explaining the spread of modal peaks of importance value curves for dominant species along environmental gradients.

On the one hand, niche differentiation served as a mechanism to explain the coenoclines he was observing along topographic moisture gradients on mountain slopes. Hutchinson in Thus Whittaker's concept of a n n - d i m e n sional space of environmental factors in which Gaussian hypervolumes of species distributions could be found b corresponded well with Hutchinson's and MacArthur's views of niche.

A new term was needed to embrace the concept that the species' environmental tolerances acted both within a site in defining the species niche volume, and between sites along major physical gradients of habitat. Whittaker then edited, with Levin, a book of historically important p a p e r s on niche theory g. Small-scale pattern analysis Unlike R.

MacArthur, whose inclinations led him further into mathematical conceptualizations of the niche, Whittaker's field orientation led him towards attempts to identify the niche preferences of plants in the landscape. He encouraged his graduate student, Susan Bratton, to identify ways in which understory vegetation in the Great S m o k y Mountains might be responding to environmental microheterogeneities.

Whittaker recognized that MacArthur and other members of the Princeton school were similarly concerned with environmental heterogeneity or 'grain' in their theoretical studies of species diversity. He sought to make his own contributions at a theoretical level, and collaborated with S. Levin h and D. Goodman h and manuscript to try to relate population fluctuations due to climate and disturbance at the microscale to the maintenance of alpha diversity, and at a larger scale to beta and g a m m a diversities.

His thinking on these subjects was still in an early stage of formulation at the time of his death, but the larger goal was already clear: to relate individual demographic strategies and microsite heterogeneities to patterns of species diversity at the micro- and ultimately macro-scales. Concurrent with these efforts, Whittaker began to obtain species richness data using nested quadrats ranging from his initial 0.

These data could be used not only to construct species-area curves, but to observe floristic patterns at a range of scales. The resulting data could be analyzed to detect microcommunity or synusual groupings, particularly for herb species, He had thus succeeded in characterizing 'patches' in the field, and was in a position to attempt to relate these to theories of population dynamics, disturbance and habitat graininess, and in turn to diversity.

This work of synthesis is, of course, the most difficult step, but Whittaker had brought his research to the brink of this phase at the time of his death. Succession and climax pat tern Whittaker's first publication was a challenge to the Clementsian notions of a regional monoclimax determined by climate, and to the notion of the seral replacement of one plant association by another.

In this paper he suggested that by adopting Gleason's individualistic hypothesis of species distributions, the principle of community continuity both in space and time followed. Therefore, individual species, rather than whole communities, must replace each other over time. Site differences will induce differences in floristic composition from place to place, resulting not in a single climax type, or even a polyclimax, but in gradients of steady-state vegetation, a regional 'climax pattern.

Whittaker himself returned to his concern with successional theory in the s b, dand in his paper with Levin hsought to use microsite heterogeneities and disturbance to understand mosaic successions. He also encouraged two graduate students to study mosaic succession of forest trees. Although Whittaker b, h recognized such processes as direct and cyclic succession and even established 'categories' of successional types, he was not typological in outlook.

Instead he viewed successional changes in time and space in relation to a number of axes, and constructed verbally a picture of forces leading toward vegetational stability, countered by forces of disturbance, leading to successional mosaics in the landscape. It was part of Whittaker's writing skill, as well as conceptual talent, to weave together threads linear axes representing a variety of environmental and biotic forces into a tapestry which, though complex in design, could evoke almost poetically a picture of the dynamic ecological processes in the mind of the reader.

Biomass, production and nutrient cycling The earliest rh whittaker biographies of william hill to ecosystem function in Whittaker's research were his radiophosphorus tracer studies in aquaria, performed at Hanford Laboratories between b. This early study is remarkable for its effective characterization of phosphorus movement using the compartment model pioneered by E.

Odum only a few years earlier. The aquarium study applied several concepts which were later to find widespread use in nutrient cycling studies: the concentration ratio for elements between trophic levels; turnover rates and decay constants; and the determination of transfer rate constants between compartments. Whittaker's first major attempt to characterize production in terrestrial ecosystems was his study of aboveground production along the elevational gradient in the Great Smoky Mountains.

His development of logarithmic regressions based on allometric growth assumptions permitted the estimation of forest biomass and production in forests of similar species and physiognomy, but on different sites. With Violet Garfine, a Master's student, he also explored the use of chlorophyll content as an index of productivity c. In collaboration with G.

Woodwell, Whittaker expanded and refined his production measurement methods into the technique dubbed 'dimension analysis.

Rh whittaker biography of william hill: R. H. Whittaker enlivened many

During field work in the 's, Whittaker applied the dimension analysis approach to vegetation gradients in the Santa Catalina Mountains of Arizona kthe Hubbard Brook watershed in New Hampshire c and the San Jacinto Mountains of California, although the latter data remain largely unpublished. His discussion of the Santa Catalina data k was particularly insightful in tracing patterns of primary production and biomass in relation to environmental gradients.

Westman and Whittaker b also applied the technique to Californian coastal conifer forests. Whittaker did not confine use of the method to production measurement, but also began to use dimension analysis techniques, along with tissue nutrient analyses, to develop cation budgets, first for the Brookhaven forestand later for the Hubbard Brook forest i.

Whittaker was able to build an extensive base for comparison of biomass and production characteristics in plant communities from his own data. Publication of the massive data tables resulting from the studies was often difficult because of journal policies, but Whittaker argued convincingly that future studies of production depended on the availability of species-specific regression equations, and that recognition of global patterns in production depended on reliable data being available from many sites.

The global productivity data gave Whittaker an opportunity to contribute to the debate on vegetation as a net source or sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide i and Whittaker's major contributions to production studies were firstly in his development of a detailed rh whittaker biography of william hill for static production measurement in temperate forest ecosystems, and secondly in his compilation of extensive sets of data, both from his own work and from the world literature, to reveal major patterns of plant primary production in relation to environmental factors.

His extension of this work to nutrient cycling produced an extensive and useful base of empirical information, although as he himself commented in the Hubbard Brook paper ithe degree of effective generalization about patterns of nutrient cycling was somewhat disappointing. Allelochemistry The contributions of R. Whittaker to allelochemistry derive exclusively from his analysis and synthesis of existing literature on the subject.

InC. Muller invited him to be the keynote speaker at a National Academy of Sciences symposium on plant-plant interactions. Muller provided Whittaker with a brief bibliography of recent publications on allelopathy. With characteristic thoroughness, Whittaker researched the literature and provided a lecture entitled 'The Chemistry of Communities' f which impressed many of the researchers assembled.

It is somewhat ironic that the paper on allelochemics published with Paul Feenyin l awhich was an expansion of the themes in this lecture, became the single most frequently cited article Whittaker ever wrote Table 1. Whittaker developed a strong friendship with C. Muller while both were at campuses of the University of California in the mid's.

They shared a c o m m o n training f r o m Vestal at Illinois, 3 and a c o m m o n cultural and political background from their youths, Muller having been raised in southern Texas. Whittaker funded a chemical analytic facility in Muller's laboratory in the late 's. In his review of allelopathy, Whittaker was a strong supporter of Muller's work, although its applicability to field situations was being challenged by others e.

Bartholomew, The ultimate predictive power of this work on allelopathy is still being evaluated. Whittaker's support of it is therefore still a matter for scientific controversy. Whittaker's contribution to the present has lain in his synthesis of evidence from a variety of areas of allelochemistry, and his postulation of a number of evolutionary mechanisms for the origin and selection of such phenomena.

Concluding remarks R. Indeed, it was characteristic of Whittaker to ask of an existing categorical generalization in ecology, How can this generalization be conceptualized in terms of gradients? How can this axis of change be viewed as one of many axes in an n-dimensional space? This same pattern of thought characterized first Whittaker's approach to the distribution of species in relation to environmental factors in space the gradient theory and time the climax patternand subsequently to communities and ecosystems.

Whittaker typically selected for study areas with little apparent theoretical cohesion. In both the thoroughness of his reviews and the eclecticism of his approach he was unequalled among ecologists of his time, save perhaps for G. There was not always unanimity of acceptance of the newcomer's interpretations of the literature, and to some Whittaker seemed overly dogmatic once his views were presented.

Nonetheless, Whittaker's reviews were consistently thorough and insightful. Typically he would identify a problem, collect the appropriate data, and then interpret the results in what seemed to him the most intuitively satisfying manner. He often smoothed or transformed data to better fit an expected pattern, and deleted 'outliers. While Whittaker was prone to draw 'smoothed' Gaussian curves through scatters of points with an impunity that amazed and alarmed his graduate students, he nevertheless resisted the temptation to become too entranced with elegance and simplicity.

It was perhaps the latter side of him, along with his own limitations in mathematical training, that dissuaded him from pursuing at greater lengths the kind of mathematical model building characteristic of MacArthur and his followers. A passage at the end of Whittaker's article with S. Levin, h on mosaic phenomena concisely illustrates his viewpoint p.

Ecologists have sought a theory or master plan of evolution permitting interpretation of communities through a limited number of strongly linked and widely significant relationships. Such a theory is naturally desired by ecologists as scientists; b u t. It is difficult at this point in the history of the discipline to assess with certainty which of Whittaker's contributions to the science of ecology will be most profound or longlasting.

Nevertheless, certain hallmarks of his contributions are already clear: the challenge posed to classificatory approaches to vegetation structure led to the development of the set of theoretical and methodological developments now known as gradient analysis. Although he gave credit to Ramensky and Gleason for the origins of this tradition and to Curtis and Mclntosh for inspiring indirect gradient analysis approaches, it was Whittaker who, more than anyone, solidified the theoretical, methodological and empirical bases for this approach.

More than any other unifying notion, it was the conceptualization and demonstration of the continuity of species' response to environmental gradients that characterized Whittaker's work, and which seems likely to be his most enduring contribution. Through his personal diplomacy, Whittaker built bridges between American and European ecologists over waters which he had troubled with his challenges to phytosociological theories and methods of classification.

His reviews of classification and ordination studies, and his global studies of diversity and productivity helped inspire some North American ecologists to increase contacts and collaboration with ecologists beyond their borders. Whittaker played a major role in generating and disseminating methodologies for the study of plant communities diversity measurement, gradient analysis, ordinationwhich he furthered by encouraging Hugh Gauch, Jr.

Further, Whittaker's authority status gave his methods a credibility that led to some degree of international standardization of methods. A particularly clear example of this function is the widespread use of the 0. The loss of this authority in a field short on internationally acknowledged authorities can have a major impact in loosening the cohesion that he helped foster.

Finally, many of Whittaker's contributions remain unpublished in the marginalia of countless manuscripts, and in the correspondence files of myriad colleagues. In addition to his formal editorial duties, Whittaker corresponded with and encouraged an immense number of students and colleagues, many of whom he never personally met. He also delivered a large number of lectures and seminars, characteristically with a sharpness of delivery and density of information that impressed even skeptical audiences.

In this way, his influence spread far beyond his published work. The breadth of Whittaker's influence is a reflection of his own enormous grasp of the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology. In his analysis and synthesis of this material he used an intensity of written and oral delivery that reflected his own intellectual ferment.

Rh whittaker biography of william hill: BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS EDUCATION AND EARLY

To those who knew him, and are yet to know him, through his writings and scientific influence, he is destined to remain one of the most important figures in community ecology to have lived in this century. Acknowledgements We thank the following for responding to our requests for information: B. Chabot, H. Glenn-Lewin, M. Hill, S. Kendeigh, S.

Levin, H. Lieth, E. McHargue, C. Muller, W. Niering, L. Olsvig-Whittaker, R. Tobey, W. Schlesinger, O. Sholes, A. Smith, T. Wentworth, G. The following people provided comments o n earlier drafts of the article: E. Marks, R. McIntosh, W. Olsvig-Whittaker, W. Schlesinger, R. Notes The letters cited were addressed to the authors, and are on file in the History of Ecology Archives, University of Georgia, under 'R.

Alice Whittaker Smith, personal communication to W. Westman, September 29, Letter; Linda Olsvig-Whittaker, December 3 l, Letter; Cornelius H. Muller, January 12, H, Whittaker e. Letter; S. Kendeigh, February 3, Letter; David C. Glenn-Lewin, April 7, Whittaker, personal communication to W. Westman, Letter; Simon Levin, March 18, Letter; Owen Sholes, January 15, Letter; Helrnut Lieth, February 23, H, Whittaker, personal communication to R.

Peet, Appendix: Publications of Robert H. Whittaker Whittaker, R. A vegetation analysis of the Great Smoky Mountains. Dissertation, University of Illinois, Department of Zoology. Whittaker, R. A criticism of the plant association and climatic climax concepts. Northwest Sci. A study of summer foliage insect communities in the Great Smoky Mountains.

A consideration of climax theory: The climax as a population and pattern. Monogr, Plant populations and the basis of plant indication. German summ. WienFestschr. Aichinger 1: The ecology of serpentine soils. The vegetational response to serpentine soils. In honor of Erwin Aichinger. Review of Festschrift for Erwin Aichinger zum 60 Geburtstag. A new Indian Ecological Journal.

Recent evolution of ecological concepts in relation to the eastern forests of North America. Steere, ed. McGraw-Hill, New York, The Kingdoms of the living world. Gradient analysis in agricultural ecology. Review of H. Landwirtschaftliche Pflanzensoziologie. Two ecological glossaries and a proposal on nomenclature. A study of plankton copepod communities in the Columbia Basin, southeastern Washington.

Hazen, ed. A manual of phytosociology. Review of Bharucha, F. A practical guide to plant sociology for foresters and agriculturalists. The Pergamon Institute and Russian journals of ecology. On the broad classification of organisms. In McGrawa. Hill Encyclopedia of Science andTechnology, p. McGraw-Hill, New York. Vegetation of the Siskiyou Mountains, Oregon and California.

A vegetation bibliography for the northeastern states. Review of F. A cartographic guide to selected regional vegetation literature where plant communities have been described. Ecology 41 :a. Estimation of net primary production of forest and shrub communities. Experiments with radiophosphorus tracer in aquarium microcosms. Vegetation history of the Pacific Coast states and the 'central' significance of the Klamath Region.

Madrofio New Serials. Ecology d. Classification of natural communities. Reprinted by Arno Press, New York, Net production relations of shrubs in the Great Smoky Mountains. Leaf characteristics and chlorophyll in relation to exposure and production in Rhododendron maximum. The pine-oak woodland community. Review ofJ. Birds of pine-oak woodland in southern Arizona and adjacent Mexico.

Niering, W. The saguaro: A population in relation to environment. Science : Essays on enchanted islands.

Rh whittaker biography of william hill: R. H. Whittaker enlivened many

Net production of heath balds and forest heaths in the Great Smoky Mountains. Net production relations of three tree species at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Vegetation of the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona. Ecological classification and distribution of species. The saguaro problem and grazing in southwestern national monuments.