Don E. Wilson

Don Ellis Wilson (born April 30, 1944 in Davis , Oklahoma ) is an American zoologist. His research focus is mammalogy , especially the group of bats , for the study of which he traveled to 65 countries around the world.

Life

Wilson spent his childhood and youth in Nebraska, Texas, Oregon, and Washington. In 1961 he made in Bisbee , Arizona 's high school Accounts. In 1965 he graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Science. As a student, he made his first expedition to the tropics in 1964, where he kept returning to study the mammal fauna.

After working one summer for the National Park Service in a fire tower in Grand Canyon National Park , he attended the graduate faculty of the University of New Mexico , where he graduated with a Master of Science degree in biology in 1967 and a Ph.D. PhD. During this time he worked in the summer months for the United States Forest Service as a naturalist in the Sandia Mountains . His diploma thesis dealt with the relationships between five deer vole species in the Sandia Mountains in New Mexico, and he wrote his doctoral thesis on the small tropical insectivorous bat species, the black mouse -eared bat ( Myotis nigricans ).

In 1968, Wilson began a long-term collaboration with the Organization for Tropical Studies in Costa Rica , where he has since given regular courses in tropical biology . He also lived in Costa Rica for 15 months to study seed eaters with a post-doctoral scholarship from the University of Chicago . He was also chairman of the board of the Organization for Tropical Studies.

In 1971 Wilson was hired by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a scientific zoologist at the National Museum of Natural History, where he worked in the Department of Biological Research. From 1973 to 1978 he was head of the mammalian department and from 1978 to 1983 head of the museum. From 1983 to 1990 he headed the department for biological research. In September 1990 he was named director of the Smithsonian Institution's biodiversity program . In 2000, he returned to the Mammals Division of the National Museum of Natural History as a senior scientist and curator on mammals.

From 1986 to 1988, Wilson was President of the American Society of Mammalogists . In 1992 he was President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation . He was editor of the Journal of Mammalogy for five years and editor of the Mammalian Species and Special Publications series for three years . He also worked in various editorial boards. He is on the board of directors of Bat Conservation International, The Biodiversity Foundation for Africa, Integrated Conservation Research and the Lubee Foundation.

Wilson has published over 200 scientific publications, including the book Mammals of New Mexico and three monographs on bats. In 1997, the book Bats was published in Question - The Smithsonian Answer Book . In 2005 he was co-editor (alongside DeeAnn Reeder ) of the reference work Mammal Species of the World . Since 2009 he has been co-editor alongside Russell Mittermeier of the book series Handbook of the Mammals of the World from the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions. He also published the books Animal , Human , Smithsonian Handbook of Mammals and Mammal for Dorling Kindersley . He also wrote a field guide on the North American mammal fauna and the Smithsonian Book of North American Mammals .

Wilson is a recipient of the Smithsonian Institution Award for Excellence in Tropical Biology, the Outstanding Publication Award from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Gerritt S. Miller Award from the North American Symposium on Bat Research, and the Hartley HT Jackson Award from the American Society of Mammalogists . He received recognition from the Asociación Mexicana de Mastozoologia for his outstanding scientific achievements, and the American Society of Mammalogists also recognized him as an honorary member.

Wilson lives in Gainesville , Virginia with his wife, whom he married in 1962 . The couple have two daughters who work as teachers and four granddaughters.

Dedication names

Robert J. Baker and his colleagues named the bat species Eumops wilsoni after Don E. Wilson in 2009 .

literature

• Matthew C. Perry (Ed.): The Washington Biologists' Field Club: Its Members and its History (1900-2006) . Washington Biologists' Field Club, Washington, DC 2007, ISBN 978-0-615-16259-1 , pp. 290-291.

Web links

• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History employee profile
• List of publications by Don E. Wilson at Google Scholar