Robert Ricklefs

Robert Eric Ricklefs
Robert Eric Ricklefs
Born (1943-06-06) June 6, 1943 (age 81)
Alma materUniversity of Pennsylvania
AwardsSewall Wright Award (2005)
National Academy of Sciences (2008)
Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology (2015)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Missouri, St. Louis
Stanford University
ThesisThe Significance of Growth Patterns in Birds (1967)
Websitewww.umsl.edu/~ricklefsr/

Robert Eric Ricklefs (born June 6, 1943) is an American ornithologist and ecologist. He was the Curators' Professor of Biology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis from 1996 until August 2019.

Education

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Born in 1943, he grew up near Monterey, California, where his interest in biology was fostered by a teacher.[1] He graduated with a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University in 1963 and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1967. His doctoral advisor was originally Robert H. MacArthur (prior to his move to Princeton University), but he finished his dissertation under W. John Smith.[2] During his PhD, he studied avian growth and development, which he continued for much of his career. He completed a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama before taking up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the 1982 recipient of the American Ornithologists' Union's William Brewster Memorial Award, the union's most prestigious award given annually for an exceptional body of work on birds of the Western Hemisphere.[3] In 2003, he received the Pacific Seabird Group's Lifetime Achievement Award for his work on growth and development in seabirds.[4] He was awarded the 2003 Margaret Morse Nice Medal by the Wilson Ornithological Society.[5] He was the 2006 recipient of the Cooper Ornithological Society’s Loye and Alden Miller Research Award, which is given in recognition of lifetime achievement in ornithological research.[6]

Research

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During his career,[7] he has made major contributions to the island biogeography, including testing E. O. Wilson's Taxon Cycle Concept,[8] His most-cited scientific paper examined ecological communities.[9] Recent work has sought to rescale the concept of an ecological community.[10] He has made major contributions to life-history theory of birds, avian growth and development,[11][12][13][14] tropical ecology, and avian disease research. His original method for avian growth rate estimation[11] continues to be used today though modifications have been proposed. His textbook Ecology, first published in 1973, continues to be updated and used in university courses.[15] He has also published The Economy of Nature[16], Avian Growth and Development: Evolution Within the Altricial-precocial Spectrum[17] and Aging, A Natural History.[18]

Awards

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Career

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  • Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, 1968-1972
  • Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, 1972-1978
  • Professor, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, 1978-1995
  • Curators’ Professor, Department of Biology, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 1995-2019.[26]

Personal life

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Ricklefs is married to the botanist Susanne Renner.[21]

References

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  1. ^ "Noted ecologist and ornithologist Bob Ricklefs aims to remain involved at UMSL even after retirement". UMSL Daily. 2019-08-28. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
  2. ^ a b Gillespie, Rosemary G. (2011). "Interview with Robert E. Ricklefs, recipient of the 2011 Alfred Russel Wallace award". Frontiers of Biogeography. 3 (1). doi:10.21425/F5FBG12391. S2CID 83880583.
  3. ^ a b "Brewster Award, 1982: Robert E. Ricklefs". The Auk. 100: 268. 1983. doi:10.1093/auk/100.1.268. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
  4. ^ a b Pacific Seabirds Vol. 30
  5. ^ a b "Margaret Morse Nice Medal". Wilson Ornithological Society. 2010-05-29. Archived from the original on 2012-12-09. Retrieved 2012-04-09.
  6. ^ a b COS: Miller Awards Archived 2007-08-14 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ Robert Ricklefs publications indexed by Google Scholar
  8. ^ Ricklefs, Robert. E.; Cox, George W. (1972). "Taxon Cycles in the West Indian Avifauna". The American Naturalist. 106 (948): 195–219. doi:10.1086/282762. JSTOR 2459928. S2CID 84412686.
  9. ^ Ricklefs, R. E. (1987). "Community Diversity: Relative Roles of Local and Regional Processes". Science. 235 (4785): 167–171. Bibcode:1987Sci...235..167R. doi:10.1126/science.235.4785.167. PMID 17778629. S2CID 2792273.
  10. ^ Ricklefs, R. E. (2008). "Disintegration of the Ecological Community". The American Naturalist. 172 (6): 741–750. doi:10.1086/593002. PMID 18954264. S2CID 17464820.
  11. ^ a b Ricklefs, Robert E. (November 1967). "A Graphical Method of Fitting Equations to Growth Curves". Ecology. 48 (6): 978–983. doi:10.2307/1934545. JSTOR 1934545.
  12. ^ Ricklefs, Robert E. (2008-04-03). "Patterns of Growth in Birds". Ibis. 110 (4): 419–451. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1968.tb00058.x.
  13. ^ Ricklefs, Robert E. (1968). "Weight Recession in Nestling Birds". The Auk. 85 (1): 30–35. doi:10.2307/4083621. JSTOR 4083621.
  14. ^ Ricklefs, Robert E. (2008-04-03). "Growth Rates of Birds in the Humid New World Tropics". Ibis. 118 (2): 179–207. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1976.tb03065.x.
  15. ^ Ricklefs, Robert E.; Miller, Gary L. (2000). Ecology. San Francisco: Freeman. ISBN 0-7167-2829-X.
  16. ^ Ricklefs, Robert E. (2008-12-11). Amazon.com: The Economy of Nature (9780716786979): Robert E. Ricklefs: Books. ISBN 978-0716786979.
  17. ^ Starck, J. Matthias; Ricklefs, Robert E. (1998). Avian Growth and Development: Evolution Within the Altricial-precocial Spectrum. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-510608-4.
  18. ^ Ricklefs, Robert E. (1995). Aging : a natural history. Caleb Finch. New York: Scientific American Library. ISBN 0-7167-5056-2. OCLC 31969925.
  19. ^ Ricklefs, Robert E. (2008-12-01). "Disintegration of the Ecological Community". The American Naturalist. 172 (6): 741–750. doi:10.1086/593002. ISSN 0003-0147. PMID 18954264. S2CID 17464820.
  20. ^ Turelli, Michael (2006-01-01). "2005 Sewall Wright Award: Robert E. Ricklefs". The American Naturalist. 167 (1): i. doi:10.1086/498280. ISSN 0003-0147. PMID 17209245. S2CID 84755619.
  21. ^ a b Viegas, J. (2012). "Profile of Robert Ricklefs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (38): 15075–15077. Bibcode:2012PNAS..10915075V. doi:10.1073/pnas.1213178109. PMC 3458327. PMID 22908302.
  22. ^ "Home - The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine - National-Academies.org - Where the Nation Turns for Independent, Expert Advice".
  23. ^ "2015 Robert e. Ricklefs".
  24. ^ "Honorary Lifetime Membership Award: Robert Ricklefs". The American Naturalist. 189 (5): iii. 2017-05-01. doi:10.1086/691357. ISSN 0003-0147. PMID 28410020.
  25. ^ "Past Honorary Degree Recipients".
  26. ^ "Robert E".
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