Robert H. MacArthur (April 7, 1930 – November 1, 1972)

American ecologist who made a major impact on many

areas of community and population ecology.

Father was a genetics professor at Marlboro College

(Vermont)

Older brother (John W.) was a physicist

• Bachelor's degree from Marlboro College

• Master's degree in mathematics from Brown University (1953)

• Ph.D. from Yale University in 1958

o student of G. Evelyn Hutchinson (“father” of American limnology; author of

four-volume “Treatise on Limnology”; member National Academy of

Science; 1959. Homage to Santa Rosalia or Why are there so many kinds

of animals? Amer. Nat.; niche as “n-dimensional hypervolume”)

o thesis was on the division of ecological niches among five warbler

species in the conifer forests of New York (“MacArthur’s warblers”)

• Post-doctoral studies (1957-58) at Oxford University with David Lack

• Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, 1958-65

• Professor of Biology at Princeton University, 1965-72

• Played an important role in the development of niche partitioning theory

• With E.O. Wilson he co-authored The Theory of Island Biogeography, a work

which changed the field of biogeography, drove community ecology, and led to

the development of modern landscape ecology

• Emphasis on hypothesis testing helped change ecology from a primarily

descriptive field into an experimental field, and drove the development of

theoretical ecology.

• Served as the general editor of the series Princeton Monographs in Population

Biology, and helped to found the journal Theoretical Population Biology

• Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1969

• Wrote Geographical Ecology: Patterns in the Distribution of Species (1972)