Robin B. Foster | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Dartmouth College, Duke University |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Ecology |
Institutions | University of Chicago, Field Museum of Natural History |
Thesis | Seasonality of fruit production and seedfall in a tropical forest ecosystem in Panama [1] (1973) |
Doctoral advisor | Dwight Billings |
Doctoral students | Phyllis Coley [1] |
Robin B. Foster is a botanist studying tropical forests. He co-originated the "tropical forest dynamics plot". [2]
Foster graduated from Dartmouth College in 1966 with a Bachelor of Science in biology, and attained his Botany / Plant Ecology PhD in 1974 at Duke University under ecologist Dwight Billings. [1] [3] In 1979, while at the University of Chicago, work on Barro Colorado Island with frequent coauthor Stephen P. Hubbell contributed to the development of the first tropical forest dynamics plot, leading to a global network of 18 such parcels. [4] The "audacious" plan was to periodically map and measure every tree within 50 hectares (120 acres). [4] As a plant ecologist with Conservation International he participated in studies to inform urgent conservation decisions as part of the first "Rapid Assessment Program". [5] [6] During his extensive fieldwork in Perú, he contracted both malaria and hepatitis. [7] He has taught biology at the University of Chicago and served as a staff biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. [3] At the Field Museum he founded the Live Photos of Plants project and Rapid Reference Collection. [8] [9] In 2013, Foster was elected an honorary fellow of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC). [2]
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Madre de Dios is a department and region in southeastern Peru, bordering Brazil, Bolivia and the Peruvian departments of Puno, Cusco and Ucayali, in the Amazon Basin. Its capital is the city of Puerto Maldonado. It is also the third largest department in Peru, after Ucayali and Loreto. However, it is also the least densely populated department in Peru, as well as its least populous department. It has one of the lowest poverty rates in Peru.
The scarlet macaw is a large yellow, red and blue Neotropical parrot native to humid evergreen forests of the Americas. Its range extends from southeastern Mexico to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil in lowlands of 500 m (1,600 ft) up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft), the Caribbean island of Trinidad, as well as the Pacific island of Coiba. Formerly, the northern extent of its range included southern Tamaulipas. In some areas, it has suffered local extinction because of habitat destruction, or capture for the parrot trade, but in other areas, it remains fairly common. It is the national bird of Honduras. Like its relative the blue-and-yellow macaw, the scarlet macaw is a popular bird in aviculture as a result of its striking plumage.
Daniel Hunt Janzen is an American evolutionary ecologist, and conservationist. He divides his time between his professorship in biology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology, and his research and field work in Costa Rica.
Canopy research is the field of scientific research based upon data collected in the canopy of trees.
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.
Margaret D. Lowman, Ph.D. a.k.a. Canopy Meg is an American biologist, educator, ecologist, writer, explorer, and public speaker. Her expertise involves canopy ecology, canopy plant-insect relationships, and constructing canopy walkways.
Tambopata National Reserve is a Peruvian nature reserve located in the southeastern region of Madre de Dios. It was established on September 4, 2000, by decree of President Alberto Fujimori. The reserve protects several ecosystems of the tropical rainforest for the preservation of such forest and the sustainable use of forest resources by the peoples around the reserve.
The pied plover, also known as the pied lapwing, is a species of bird in the family Charadriidae. It is a bird of least concern according to the IUCN and can be found in northern South America. The species name cayanus refers to Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana, where the pied plover can be found.
Philip James DeVries is a tropical biologist whose research focuses on insect ecology and evolution, especially butterflies. His best-known work includes symbioses between caterpillars, ants and plants, and community level biodiversity of rainforest butterflies.
The Parker/Gentry Award, established in 1996 and presented annually by the Field Museum of Natural History, honors an outstanding individual, team or organization in the field of conservation biology whose efforts have had a significant impact on preserving the world's natural heritage and whose actions and approach can serve as a model to others. The award is designed to highlight work that could benefit from wider publicity and fuller dissemination of scientific results.
Alwyn Howard Gentry was an American botanist and plant collector, who made major contributions to the understanding of the vegetation of tropical forests.
The Macaw Society is a long-term research project on the ecology and conservation of macaws and parrots under the direction of Donald Brightsmith and Gabriela Vigo of the Schubot Center for Avian Health at the Texas A&M University. The project has been working with wildlife and local communities since 1989. The long-term research and monitoring have provided many insights into various aspects of parrot and wildlife of south-eastern Peru. Macaws are among the most effective flagship species for ecosystem conservation in the Amazonian rainforest.
Charles A Munn III is an American conservation biologist and ecotourism entrepreneur. Munn is the founder and owner of SouthWild, a conservation-based ecotourism company that offers photography safaris throughout South America. In 2013, Condé Nast Traveller listed him as one of worlds's three leading experts on wildlife tourism, and the only one for South America. From 1984-2000 he was a conservation field biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He also founded Peru Verde Conservation Group, the BioBrasil Foundation, and Tropical Nature Conservation Group. Munn is an American citizen but spends most of his time in Brazil and Chile. He is based in the Mato Grosso state.
In ecology, a light gap is a break in forest canopy or similar barrier that allows young plants to grow where they would be otherwise inhibited by the lack of light reaching the seedbed. Light gaps form predominantly when a tree falls, and thus produces an opening in the forest canopy. Light gaps are important for maintaining diversity in species-rich ecosystems.
Walter John Emil Kress is an American botanist and the vice-president for science at the National Museum of Natural History. He currently holds the appointment (2010) as the Director of the Consortium for Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet at the Smithsonian and is the former Executive Director of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.
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.
Jean H. Langenheim was an American plant ecologist and ethnobotanist, highly respected as an eminent scholar and a pioneer for women in the field. She has done field research in arctic, tropical, and alpine environments across five continents, with interdisciplinary research that spans across the fields of chemistry, geology, and botany. Her early research helped determine the plant origins of amber and led to her career-long work investigating the chemical ecology of resin-producing trees, including the role of plant resins for plant defense and the evolution of several resin-producing trees in the tropics. She wrote what is regarded as the authoritative reference on the topic: Plant Resins: Chemistry, Evolution, Ecology, and Ethnobotany, published in 2003.
Rainer W. Bussmann is a German botanist and vegetation ecologist, specializing in ethnobotany and ethnobiology, wild food plants, wild crop relatives, climate change, gastronomic botany and preservation of traditional knowledge in the Andes, the Caucasus and the Himalayas. He has worked at the University of Bayreuth, University of Hawaii, University of Texas, the Missouri Botanical Garden, Ilia State University and the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe; he has founded several international non-governmental organizations, including Nature and Culture International, Saving Knowledge, and Ethnomont.
Liza Sheera Comita is an American ecologist and Professor of Tropical Forest Ecology in the School of the Environment at Yale University. Her research focuses on tropical tree species ecology and how spatial and temporal variation in early life-stages affects abundance and diversity of species in tropical forests.
Robin Lee Chazdon is an American tropical ecologist. She is a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut.