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Robert Whittaker
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American ecologist (1920–1980)
OverviewAI-generated
Robert Whittaker was an American botanist, ecologist, university teacher and climatologist, born on 27 December 1920 in Wichita. He was educated at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign and was employed by Cornell University. Whittaker was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and worked in the fields of ecology, geobotany and plant ecology. He died of lung cancer in Ithaca on 20 October 1980. He is recognised in the American Academy Arts Sciences collection.
Synthesized by Vinony from 18 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1920-12-27 ) December 27, 1920, Wichita, Kansas , U.S.
- Died
- October 20, 1980 (1980-10-20) (aged 59), Ithaca, New York , U.S.
- Alma mater
- University of Illinois
- Known for
- gradient theory in ecology , five-kingdom system
- Awards
- Eminent Ecologist Award (1981)
- Fields
- Ecology
- Institutions
- Cornell University , Washington State University
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Robert
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Wichita
- Place of death
- Ithaca
- Occupation
- university teacher
- Educated at
- University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
- Employer
- Cornell University
- Languages spoken
- English language
Show 6 more facts
- date of birth
- 1920-00-00
- date of death
- 1980-00-00
- manner of death
- natural causes
- cause of death
- lung cancer
- name in native language
- Robert Whittaker
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Robert Harding Whittaker (December 27, 1920 – October 20, 1980) was an American plant ecologist, active from the 1950s to the 1970s. He was the first to propose the five kingdom taxonomic classification of the world's biota into the Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, and Monera in 1969. He also proposed the Whittaker Biome Classification, which categorized biome types upon two abiotic factors: temperature and precipitation. He proposed the concepts of Alpha diversity, Beta diversity, and Gamma diversity.
Whittaker was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1974, received the Ecological Society of America's Eminent Ecologist Award in 1981, and was otherwise widely recognized and honored. He collaborated with many other ecologists including George Woodwell (Dartmouth), W. A. Niering, F. H. Bormann (Yale), and G. E. Likens (Cornell), and was particularly active in cultivating international collaborations.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Robert Whittaker” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.