Ebbe Schmidt Nielsen

Ebbe Schmidt Nielsen (7 June 1950 – 7 March 2001) was a Danish entomologist. Nielsen was influential in systematics and Lepidoptera research, and was an early proponent of biodiversity informatics. The journal Invertebrate Systematics was established with significant contributions from Nielsen and he assisted in the founding of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Nielsen authored several books, published over eighty scientific papers, and was highly regarded within the scientific community. Following his death, the GBIF organised the Ebbe Nielsen Prize in his memory, awarded annually to promising researchers in the field of biodiversity informatics. The moth Pollanisus nielseni is dedicated to Nielsen.

Nielsen was born on 7 June 1950 in Ry, Denmark. His parents were farmers and he and his brother frequently explored the surrounding Jutland countryside, playing in forests and by the shores of Mossø, a lake near their home. Inspired by reading about collecting and identifying moths and butterflies, Nielsen began gathering specimens at the age of fourteen and later joined an entomology club based in Århus.

Nielsen attended Aarhus University while working part-time for a local museum. Following graduation, he was solicited to join a project on the ecosystem of Danish beech forests, which the museum had been involved in. With this appointment, Nielsen began his masters research, collecting numerous specimens as part of the project and studying their phenology and distribution, gaining his MSc in zoology in 1976.

Following writing a volume on the moth family Elachistidae and working on the checklist of Danish Lepidoptera, Nielsen was invited through the University of Copenhagen to participate in a six-month expedition to South America. The trip commenced in 1978 and focused on extensive biodiversity surveys of the Patagonia region. Nielsen managed much of the expedition and was involved with it for the whole of the period, one of only two of the original fifteen scientists to see the project through to completion. The experience provided him with considerable material for his PhD and he developed an appreciation for the fauna of the southern hemisphere, where he would live for the next two decades.

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