Egbert Leigh

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Egbert Giles Leigh, Jr.
Born(1940-07-27)July 27, 1940 [1]
EducationA.B., Princeton University (1962)
Ph.D., Yale University (1966) [1]
SpouseElizabeth Hodgson [2]
Scientific career
FieldsEvolutionary ecology
InstitutionsSmithsonian Tropical Research Institute (1969–)
Princeton University (1966–1972)
Academic advisors G. Evelyn Hutchinson [2]
Website stri.si.edu/scientist/egbert-leigh

Egbert Giles Leigh, Jr. (born July 27, 1940, in Richmond, Virginia) is an evolutionary ecologist who spends much of his time studying tropical ecosystems. [1] He is a researcher for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and is well known for the work he has done on Barro Colorado Island. He is a US citizen, but has resided at the Smithsonian in Panama for nearly 50 years. [3] Along with studies on Barro Colorado Island, Leigh is also known for the research he has done related to the Isthmus of Panama and its historical significance on the evolution of South American species.

Contents

Early life and education

When he was a young man, Leigh's initial interests had him drawn to topics of history. A biology teacher he had in the 10th grade changed that by shifting his interests to that of biology. [4] From then on, he pursued an education in biology, but still incorporated his initial interest of history into his studies. Leigh received his B.A. degree in mathematics from Princeton University in 1962 and his Ph.D. in biology from Yale University in 1966 while studying under G. Evelyn Hutchinson. [1]

Career

Leigh's career began as a teacher. He briefly held an acting instructor position in biology at Stanford University during the spring of 1966, but then took on an assistant professor of biology position at Princeton University which lasted from 1966 to 1972. While in this position, Leigh was appointed by Princeton to act as a biologist for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute starting in 1969, one of the first to ever join STRI's scientific staff. His partnership with Princeton and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) lasted from 1969 to 1972. After 1972, Leigh left his teaching position at Princeton and solely dedicated his time to his research with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. [1] While working with STRI, Leigh was sent around the world to compare altitudinal gradients in tropical forests that included the Ivory Coast of Madagascar and montane forests in India. During this time, Leigh was also based in Barro Colorado Island by STRI from 1969 to 2011 to conduct research on the island. [4]

Research contributions

Leigh's primary research interests involve evolutionary biology and, more specifically, how cooperation (within and between species) has evolved and the ways in which mutualism “enhances ecosystem productivity and its diversity”. [5] He also looks to answer the question of why there are such an abundance and diversity of trees in tropical ecosystems and has been involved in research regarding evolutionary biogeography of islands, such as Madagascar and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Barro Colorado Island. [5]

The evolution of island biogeography

Research by Leigh and his colleagues investigated why it is larger islands have more species who descended from species from the main land compared to smaller islands, even though it has been millions of years since either sized island has been connected to a mainland. Much of Leigh's work was done on the island of Madagascar, considered a large island. When comparing the historical data found on Madagascar and other large islands to the smaller islands, they found that smaller islands tend to have less descendants because the smaller size of the island makes it less attractive for species to colonize. The smaller space increases extinction and decreases opportunities for diversification. This work, along with countless other studies performed by Leigh and his colleagues contributed to the framework of island biogeography and provided supporting evidence to its influence on the evolution of tropical ecosystems. [6]

Barro Colorado Island, a “Nature Monument”

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute facility on Barro Colorado Island Barro Colorado Research.JPG
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute facility on Barro Colorado Island

In the world of science, Barro Colorado Island is considered one of the most famous tropical forests in the world due to the intensity in which its ecosystem has been studied. Research on the island has been under the supervision of the Smithsonian since the mid-1960s, which is when the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute was formed. [7] Leigh has been part of long-term forest and climate monitoring studies, which were implemented by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute during its formation and continue to present day. However, his work on the island has consisted of mainly synthesizing other people's data vs doing his own field work. [5] In this way, he has acted as an advisor for other scientists' projects and helped to connect all of the research into a bigger picture that depicts how tropical ecosystems change over time.

Historical biogeography

Isthmus of Panama Isthmus of Panama (closure) - Speciation of marine organisms (w annot).png
Isthmus of Panama

Much of Leigh's research focuses on explaining how present-day species came to be by examining how their ancestors evolved under the influential changes of geography the earth has experienced over its lifetime. The Isthmus of Panama is one of those geographical structures that has changed over millions of years. Three million years go it formed, connecting North and South America, and caused an exchange of species between the two continents known as the Great American Biotic Interchange. This greatly affected the biota of South America, a continent that had originally been isolated for over 50 million years, by connecting it to the rest of the world. At the time the isthmus formed, North America was also connected to the rest of Eurasia by another land bridge. Leigh's work has examined how the flora and fauna changed in Panama since the formation of the isthmus and how it influenced the tropical ecosystems of South America known today. [8]

Sexual harassment

In 2021, Leigh admitted to Buzzfeed News that he sexually harassed colleagues throughout his time as a field researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Among other items, Leigh admitted to sexually obsessing over junior colleagues, discussing explicit details of sexual acts in professional settings, and greeting at least one female student under his supervision by "lifting her up by the waist, pressing his body against hers, and leaning back". [9]

Notable publications

EG Leigh, Jr. 2017. Cooperation, Evolution of. Reference Module in Life Sciences, Elsevier.

EG Leigh, Jr. 2010. The group selection controversy. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 23: 6-19.

EG Leigh, Jr. 2008. Tropical forest ecology: sterile or virgin for theoreticians? pp. 121–144 in W. P. Carson and S. Schnitzer, eds. Tropical Forest Community Ecology. Wiley-Blackwell.

Leigh, E., & Ziegler, C. (2016). A Magic Web: The Tropical Forest of Barro Colorado Island (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.

Leigh, E. (1999). Tropical Forest Ecology: A View from Barro Colorado Island. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.

Related Research Articles

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Barro Colorado Island is located in the man-made Gatun Lake in the middle of the Panama Canal. The island was formed when the waters of the Chagres River were dammed to form the lake in 1913. When the waters rose, they covered a significant part of the existing tropical forest, but certain hilltops remained as islands in the middle of the lake. It has an area of 15.6 km2 (6.0 sq mi).

Insular biogeography or island biogeography is a field within biogeography that examines the factors that affect the species richness and diversification of isolated natural communities. The theory was originally developed to explain the pattern of the species–area relationship occurring in oceanic islands. Under either name it is now used in reference to any ecosystem that is isolated due to being surrounded by unlike ecosystems, and has been extended to mountain peaks, seamounts, oases, fragmented forests, and even natural habitats isolated by human land development. The field was started in the 1960s by the ecologists Robert H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson, who coined the term island biogeography in their inaugural contribution to Princeton's Monograph in Population Biology series, which attempted to predict the number of species that would exist on a newly created island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute</span> Research institute in Panama

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute is located in Panama and is the only bureau of the Smithsonian Institution based outside of the United States. It is dedicated to understanding the past, present, and future of tropical ecosystems and their relevance to human welfare. STRI grew out of a small field station established in 1923 on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal Zone to become one of the world's leading tropical research organizations. STRI's facilities provide for long-term ecological studies in the tropics and are used by some 1,200 visiting scientists from academic and research institutions around the world every year.

Stephen P. Hubbell is an American ecologist on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles. He is author of the unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography (UNTB), which seeks to explain the diversity and relative abundance of species in ecological communities not by niche differences but by stochastic processes among ecologically equivalent species. Hubbell is also a senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Balboa, Panama. He is also well known for tropical forest studies. In 1980, he and Robin B. Foster of the Field Museum in Chicago, launched the first of the 50 hectare forest dynamics studies on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. This plot became the flagship of a global network of large permanent forest dynamics plots, all following identical measurement protocols. This global network now has more than 70 plots in 28 countries, and these plots contain more than 12000 tree species and 7 million individual trees that are tagged, mapped, and monitored long-term for growth, survival and recruitment. The Center for Tropical Forest Science coordinates research across global network of plots through the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The program has expanded into the temperate zone, and is now known as the Forest Global Earth Observatory Network or ForestGEO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Moynihan (biologist)</span>

Martin Humphrey Moynihan was a behavioral evolutionary biologist and ornithologist who studied under Ernst Mayr and Niko Tinbergen, and was a contemporary of Desmond Morris. He was the founding director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama.

The Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS)/Organización para Estudios Tropicales (OET), founded in 1963, is a non-profit consortium of over 50 universities and research institutions based in the United States, Latin America, and South Africa. OTS manages a network of ecological research stations in Costa Rica and South Africa. The North American Office is located on the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina. OTS offers a variety of courses in Spanish and English for high school, university, graduate students and professionals. Most of the coursework and research conducted at OTS stations focuses on tropical ecology, and the three research stations in Costa Rica are located in distinct ecoregions. OTS provides housing and a cafeteria for students researchers, and sometime ecotourists. OTS is involved in the policy related to tropical biology through courses, hosting meetings and conferences and managing conservation related projects

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisabeth Kalko</span> German tropical scientist and ecologist (1962–2011)

Elisabeth Klara Viktoria Kalko was a German tropical scientist and ecologist working at the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Ulm.

Tropical ecology is the study of the relationships between the biotic and abiotic components of the tropics, or the area of the Earth that lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The tropical climate experiences hot, humid weather and rainfall year-round. While many might associate the region solely with the rainforests, the tropics are home to a wide variety of ecosystems that boast a great wealth of biodiversity, from exotic animal species to seldom-found flora. Tropical ecology began with the work of early English naturalists and eventually saw the establishment of research stations throughout the tropics devoted to exploring and documenting these exotic landscapes. The burgeoning ecological study of the tropics has led to increased conservation education and programs devoted to the climate. Tropical ecology provides a wealth of natural resources to humans, this includes contributing to the carbon cycle, with the ability to store 50% of carbon emissions as well as turnover 40% of global oxygen. However, despite the natural services provided by tropical ecology, deforestation is a threat of tropical rainforests. Any plant of interest can be exploited for commercial reasons and extraction of these specific plant species can be at a rapid rate without time for healthy regeneration. Most of the global plant biodiversity is hosted in tropical areas, however studies in this area is mostly covered by scientist from Northern countries. Inclusion of scientist from countries where rainforest is present is heavily encouraged because it extends global knowledge and research which advances scientific contributions, benefiting tropical ecology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olga F. Linares</span> Panamanian–American academic anthropologist and archaeologist

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Tachigali versicolor or the suicide tree is a species of tree found from Costa Rica to western Colombia. It is monocarpic, flowering only once before dying, which gives rise to its common name of the "suicide tree".

<i>Niphidium crassifolium</i> Species of fern

Niphidium crassifolium, commonly known as the graceful fern, is a species of fern in the family Polypodiaceae found in Central and South America. It is predominantly epiphytic, growing on other plants—for example, in the canopies of trees—but occasionally grows on rocks or on the ground, particularly at higher altitude. It has a rhizome from which many fine rootlets covered in dark reddish-brown scales grow. Together they form a root basket that, when growing on trees, helps to trap leaf litter and dust, forming a nutrient-rich soil that holds water. Its leaves are simple in shape, 13–85 centimetres (5–33 in) long and 3–5 centimetres (1.2–2.0 in) wide and when dry, and covered by a wax-like film. The sori are round and large, occurring in single rows between veins at the far end of the leaf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ira Rubinoff</span> American marine biologist

Ira Rubinoff is an American marine biologist and was a former director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

Christian Ziegler is a German photojournalist, BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 2005, and regular contributor to National Geographic. He is known for his photography at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and a forest in Barro Colorado Island, which was used in a science book called A Magic Web, published by Oxford University Press in 2002. Later on, he collaborated with Egbert Leigh as a co-author and together they published a book of orchids which was published in 2011 by University of Chicago Press. Currently he is a member of the Photo Society.

Jennifer S. Powers is an American ecologist and full professor in the departments of ecology, evolution and behavior, and plant and microbial biology at the University of Minnesota. Powers' research has advanced the understanding of global change consequences, ecosystem ecology, restoration and conservation of tropical dry forests. She also has been very active on several editorial boards, and in 2019 became the editor-in-chief of Biotropica, a scientific journal from the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC).

Jose Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany was initiated in 2001 by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, USA. It is named after José Cuatrecasas, a pioneering botanist and taxonomist who worked on the flora of tropical South America. It is awarded annually to a scientist who has made a very significant contribution to advancing the field of tropical botany. Nominations for the award can be made by all in the Botany Department at the museum.

Annette A. Aiello is an American zoologist, botanical entomologist, and professor. She develops academic activities at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

<i>Sericopelma embrithes</i> Species of spider

Sericopelma embrithes is a tarantula that is native to Panama. To date, only specimens from Barro Colorado Island have been studied. Like other tarantulas, it is relatively large compared to other spiders. It can grow up to 59 mm long, including its chelicerae. S. embrithes is data deficient according to the IUCN.

Robin B. Foster is a botanist studying tropical forests. He co-originated the "tropical forest dynamics plot".

Margaret Chatham Crofoot is an American anthropologist who is a professor at the University of Konstanz and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. Her research considers the behavior and decision making of primates. She was appointed an Alexander von Humboldt Professor in 2019.

Henk Wolda is a Dutch entomologist. He was an employee at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, where he studied insects. During the 1980s he was one of the top publishers on biodiversity based in Panama. His papers from circa 1974 to 1990 are kept in the Smithsonian Institution Archives. His insection collection is held at the STRI, and derived from performing light trapping techniques, with large numbers coming from Barro Colorado Island.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Curriculum Vitae: Egbert Giles Leigh, Jr" (PDF). Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Retrieved 2018-12-17.
  2. 1 2 Sapp, Jan (2016). Coexistence : the ecology and evolution of tropical biodiversity. New York, NY. ISBN   9780190632441. OCLC   956501880.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. PerezJI (2012-10-05). "Profile: Egbert Leigh". Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  4. 1 2 S. Tejada (personal communication, November 20, 2018)
  5. 1 2 3 GonzalezJH (2017-02-10). "Egbert Leigh". Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  6. Egbert Giles Leigh, Annette Hladik, Claude Marcel Hladik, Alison Jolly. The biogeography of large islands, or how does the size of the ecological theater affect the evolutionary play. Revue d’écologie, 2007, 62, pp.105-168. <hal-00283373>
  7. sysadmin (2016-10-31). "Barro Colorado". Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  8. Leigh, Egbert G.; O'Dea, Aaron; Vermeij, Geerat J. (2013-07-19). "Historical biogeography of the Isthmus of Panama" (PDF). Biological Reviews. 89 (1): 148–172. doi:10.1111/brv.12048. ISSN   1464-7931. PMID   23869709. S2CID   9481569.
  9. Jha, Nishita. "Women Scientists Described A Culture Of Sexual Misconduct At The Smithsonian's Tropical Research Institute". Buzzfeed News. Buzzfeed. Retrieved 9 December 2021.