Robert Whittaker
Robert Harding Whittaker (born December 27, 1920 in Wichita , Kansas , USA , † October 20, 1980 ) was an American botanist and climatologist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Whittaker ".
Life
Whittaker first studied from 1938 at Washburn Municipal College (now the university) in Topeka ( Kansas ), where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology and languages in 1942 . After serving as Army-Air Force weather observer and forecaster , he studied at the University of Illinois from 1946 , where he received his Ph.D. received his doctorate.
Whittaker was a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca and was vice president of the Ecological Society of America . In 1975 he was admitted to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1979 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
job
Whittaker dealt in around 130 publications, in particular with the theoretical principles and methods of gradient analysis. In addition, he advocated the revival of the “Individualistic Community Approach” and the continuum hypothesis of Henry Gleason (1926, 1939) and in this way influenced vegetation not only in Anglo-American countries for decades. He was one of the first ecologists to grapple with the advantages and disadvantages of discrete and indiscreet boundaries in landscape ecology. Whittaker argued for indiscreet boundaries, because flowing transitions would come much closer to natural conditions. The worldwide application of numerical, multivariate methods in vegetation science only experienced the breakthrough against this theoretical background. In combination with modern statistical software packages, they now form the basis for many habitat modeling in ecology.
In 1957 Whittaker classified the biomes in a temperature-precipitation diagram. The two climate factors are plotted in the first quadrant of an XY coordinate system, which is divided into different areas, which in turn characterize the different vegetation zones. With the corresponding diagrams, the corresponding vegetation zone can be read off at a certain temperature and a certain amount of precipitation .
For example, hot deserts are found in regions with high temperatures and little precipitation , evergreen tropical rainforests in areas with high temperatures and high amounts of precipitation, and alpine and arctic tundras in regions with low temperatures and low precipitation . Whittaker endeavored to approximate the ordination and classification methods and thus to the union of continental European and American vegetation.
In 1969 Whittaker proposed expanding the biological systematics to five realms :
| Haeckel (1894) Three realms |
Whittaker (1969) Five Realms |
Woese (1977) Six Realms |
Woese (1990) Three Domains |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protista | Monera | Eubacteria | Bacteria |
| Archaebacteria | Archaea | ||
| Protista | Protista | Eukarya | |
| Plantae | Fungi | Fungi | |
| Plantae | Plantae | ||
| Animalia | Animalia | Animalia |
Publications
- Whittaker: Vegetation of the Great Smoky Mountains . 1960
Web links
- Author entry and list of the described plant names for Robert Whittaker at the IPNI
- Fabian Würtz: Comparison of the Köppen climate classification with the classification of vegetation zones according to Whittaker and Holdridge . (PDF; 752 kB)
Individual evidence
- ^ Whittaker: Vegetation of the Great Smoky Mountains . 1960
- ^ RH Whittaker: New concepts of kingdoms of organisms. In: Science , Vol. 163, 1969, pp. 150-160.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Whittaker, Robert |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Whittaker, Robert Harding (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American botanist, climatologist, and university professor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 27, 1920 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wichita , Kansas, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | 20th October 1980 |