Henry Chandler Cowles

Henry Chandler Cowles

Henry Chandler Cowles (born February 27, 1869 in Kensington , Connecticut , † September 12, 1939 in Chicago , Illinois ) was an American botanist and vegetationist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Cowles ".

Life

Cowles studied at Oberlin College in Oberlin (Ohio) until 1893 and was an instructor of natural science at Gates College in Waterloo (Iowa) in 1894 and a graduate fellow at the University of Chicago in 1895 .

In 1896 he moved from the geological to the botanical department after John Merle Coulter had taken over management. In 1898 he received his PhD there with a thesis on the sand dunes on Lake Michigan . In 1925 he became professor of botany and head of the botanical department at the University of Chicago . He retired in 1935 .

Cowles was one of the first researchers to study ecosystems as a whole, placing particular emphasis on geographic aspects. In vegetation science he mainly dealt with syndynamic questions. He was the founder and first president of the Ecological Society of America .

His work led towards Frederic Clements continued that for the Carnegie Institution in winter Marine Biological Laboratory in Santa Barbara (California) and in the summer in the Alpine laboratory Pikes Peak worked (Colorado).

Cowles published the first American ecology textbook together with John Ernest Weaver in 1929 , and he was also the author of area monographs on vegetation. In particular his studies on the succession processes ( Plant succession: an analysis of the development of vegetation. Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1916) and on the climax theory Nature and structure of the climax ( J. of Ecology. 24, 1936, pp. 252-284. ) became known worldwide.

Web links

• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Henry Chandler Cowles at the IPNI