Warder Clyde Allee | |
---|---|
Born | June 5, 1885 Bloomingdale, Indiana |
Died |
March 18, 1955 (aged 69) Gainesville, Florida |
Nationality | United States |
Fields | Behavioral sciences Zoology |
Institutions |
University of Florida University of Illinois University of Chicago |
Alma mater |
Earlham College (S.B., 1908) University of Chicago (S.M., 1910)(Ph.D, 1912) |
Known for | Research on animal behavior, , and for identifying the Allee effect |
Spouse | Marjorie Hill Allee |
Warder Clyde Allee (June 5, 1885 – March 18, 1955) was an American ecologist. He is recognized to be one of the great pioneers of American ecology. As an accomplished zoologist and ecologist, Allee was best known and recognized for his research on social behavior, aggregations and distributions of animals in aquatic as well as terrestrial environments. Allee attended Earlham College and upon his graduation in 1908, pursued advanced studies at the University of Chicago where he received his PhD and graduated summa cum laude in 1912. Allee’s most significant research occurred during his time at the University of Chicago and at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole in Massachusetts. His research findings led to many publications, with the most notable being Principles of Animal Ecology and Animal Aggregations. Allee was married to author Marjorie Hill Allee and remained active in the field of biology until his death in 1955 at the age of 70.
Warder Clyde Allee was born on June 5, 1885, on a farm in Bloomingdale, Indiana. His father, John Wesley Allee, was orphaned as a child and grew up at the homes of various relatives in the Bloomingdale region. Clyde Allee attended a one-room country school and led his class in scholarship. At Bloomingdale Academy he was again at the head of his graduating class and the winner of the oratorical contest. At the age of seventeen, he taught country school for a year and then the fifth and sixth grades in the Bloomingdale elementary school for another year. Then, at nineteen, he began his first year at Earlham College. He was a Methodist, and joined the Society of Friends to marry Marjorie Hill, whose Quaker ancestry extended back into the seventeenth century. His strong Quaker beliefs would play a large role in his research later in his academic and professional career.
Family background combined with the Quaker influence at Earlham College contributed to the Quaker mold in which Allee was cast. In 1912, he confirmed himself as a member of the Society of Friends in order to marry Marjorie Hill. Allee met Marjorie when she was a freshman at Earlham College while Allee was a senior. Marjorie was most interested in English Literature and Writing and would go on to help her husband in his books and scientific papers. Specifically, she served as a critic, collaborator, and joint author to the works of her husband. Eventually, she established herself as an author, with a notable series of novels for girls.