Frederic Edward Clements | |
---|---|
Born |
Lincoln, Nebraska, United States |
September 16, 1874
Died | July 26, 1945 Santa Barbara, California |
(aged 70)
Fields | Plant ecology |
Institutions | |
Alma mater | University of Nebraska |
Known for | Ecological succession |
Spouse | Edith Gertrude Schwartz |
Frederic Edward Clements (September 16, 1874 – July 26, 1945) was an American plant ecologist and pioneer in the study of vegetation succession.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he studied botany at the University of Nebraska, graduating in 1894 and obtaining a doctorate in 1898. (One of his teachers was botanist Charles Bessey, and he was a classmate of Willa Cather and Roscoe Pound.) While at the University of Nebraska, he met Edith Gertrude Schwartz (1874–1971), also a botanist and ecologist, and they were married in 1899.
In 1905 he was appointed full professor at the University of Nebraska, but left in 1907 to head the botany department at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. From 1917 to 1941 he was employed as an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Washington, D.C., where he was able to carry out dedicated ecological research.
During winter he worked at research stations in Tucson, Arizona and Santa Barbara, California, while in the summer he performed fieldwork at the Carnegie Institution's Alpine Laboratory, a research station in Angel Canyon on the slopes of Pikes Peak, Colorado. During this time he worked alongside staff of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service. In addition to his field investigations, he carried out experimental work in the laboratory and greenhouse, both at the Pikes Peak station and at Santa Barbara.