108 Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

CITATION

H. Ronald Pulliam

The Distinguished Service Citationrecognizes long and distinguished ser-vice to the ESA, to the larger scientificcommunity, and to the larger purposeof ecology in the public welfare. Thewinner of the 2002 Distinguished Ser-vice Award is H. Ronald Pulliam, Re-gents Professor of Ecology at the Uni-versity of Georgia. Professor Pulliamis unique in fulfilling completely allthree criteria for this award: he hascontributed long, distinguished serviceto our Society, to the larger scientificcommunity, and has made highly sig-nificant contributions toward the appli-cation of ecology to the public welfare.This is in addition to being a first-class,internationally known scientist whoseideas have contributed substantively tocurrent research in behavioral ecology.

Ron Pulliam has served as ESA’sVice President and President. Hehelped to initiate the Issues in Ecologyseries that has encouraged ecologists torelate their research to public policy is-sues. He played a key role in develop-ing the Sustainable Biosphere Initia-tive, which greatly raised the profile ofESA, and the field of ecology, in globalenvironmental issues. Both of these ef-forts continue as major ESA activities.

In 1994, Ron bravely stepped out-side the walls of academia, taking aleave of absence from the University ofGeorgia to serve as the Director of theNational Biological Survey. He subse-

quently served as Science Advisor tothe Secretary of the Interior. While inWashington, he made major institu-tional changes that strengthened therole of ecological science within theInterior Department, and he continuesto serve as an advisor on national en-vironmental policy. He also has servedon a wide range of boards for majorenvironmental councils and organiza-tions that have played an importantrole in bringing good ecological sci-ence into the arena of public policy. Hecurrently is on the Board of Directorsof the Committee for the National In-stitute for the Environment; the Na-tional Research Council’s Commissionon the Environment, Geosciences, andResources; the Board of Directors ofthe Defenders of Wildlife; and the Sci-ence Advisory Board for the Davidand Lucille Packard Foundation.

For his service to the Society, to thescientific community, and to the pur-pose of ecology in the public welfare,ESA is delighted to award the Distin-guished Service Award to Ron Pulliam.

Distinguished Service Citation Sub-committee: Katherine L. Gross (Chair),Deborah Goldberg, Robert Holt,Beatrice VanHorne, Paul Dayton, andPeter Groffman.

WILLIAM S. COOPER

AWARD

Nigel Pitman

The William Skinner Cooper Awardhonors an outstanding recent contribu-tion in geobotany, physiographic ecol-ogy, plant succession, or the distribu-tion of organisms along environmentalgradients. The 2002 Award goes toNigel C. A. Pitman and his coauthors,John W. Terborgh, Miles R. Silman,Percy Núñez V., David A. Neill, CarlosE. Cerón, Walter A. Palacios, and MiltonAulestia, for their 2001 paper, “Domi-nance and distribution of tree species inupper Amazonian terra firme forests,”published in Ecology 82: 2101–2007.This research is largely the work of Dr.Pitman and formed part of his Ph.Dthesis at Duke University.

These authors investigated broad-scale spatial patterns of trees in Ama-zonian forests. They demonstrated thattropical forests are dominated by oli-garchies of tree species, many of whichare truly common, as opposed to rareand spatially isolated. Although speciesclumping has been previously reportedin tropical forests, this study by Pitmanand his colleagues extends this knowl-edge much farther by demonstratingthat on sites of similar soil types thatare separated by 1300 km, the same oli-garchy of tree species reappears.

A major observation emergingfrom this study is that forests are notrandomly composed of possible poolmembers. Such insights are hugely im-portant in studying coevolution and inrethinking community ecology in thesesystems. For example, several mem-bers of the oligarchy are palms thatproduce large fruits and form the di-etary mainstay for populations of largefrugivores, such as peccary. If largemammals are to be conserved, we needto better understand the forest structureon which they depend. Oligarchy sta-bility through time has yet to be tested,but this research provides a predictivetarget that can be addressed through pa-leoecological studies. It adds much toour understanding of tropical forest dy-namics and is clearly deserving of theW. S. Cooper Award.

William S. Cooper Award Subcom-mittee: Andrea Lloyd (Chair), MarkBush, Paul Dayton, Marie-JoséeFortin, John Lichter, Glenn Motzkin,and Ricardo Villalba.