Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists:
Chrono-Biographical Sketches

Shreve, Forrest (United States 1878-1950)
plant physiology & ecology

Photo courtesy of Ecology.

Forrest Shreve began his career with floristic studies of his native Maryland and Jamaica, and then moved to Arizona where he spent the rest of his life investigating the ecological and biogeographical conditions under which desert vegetation flourishes. The fourth edition of American Men of Science (1927) succinctly lists Shreve's research as having involved "development of Sarracenia; plant life of Maryland; ecology and physiology of the mountain rain-forests of Jamaica and of desert vegetation; water relations of plants; rainfall and temperature in mountains; vegetation and climate in the United States; soil temperature; ecology of the coastal mountains of California; soil conditions in relation to the distribution of desert vegetation."

--born in Easton, Maryland, on 8 July 1878.
--1901: A.B., Johns Hopkins University
--1904-1908: conducts a botanical survey of the state of Maryland
--1905: Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
--1905-1906, 1909: studies mountain vegetation of Jamaica
--1906-1908: associate professor of botany, Goucher College
--1908: moves to Tucson, Arizona, to work at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Desert Laboratory
--1911-1919: editor of Plant World
--1914: publishes his A Montane Rain-forest
--1915: helps found the Ecological Society of America
--1915-1919: secretary-treasurer, Ecological Society of America
--1921: president, Ecological Society of America
--1926: publication editor, Naturalist's Guide to the Americas
--1928: placed in charge of Desert Investigations of the Carnegie Institution
--1932: begins floristics studies on the Sonoran Desert region
--1940: vice-president, Association of American Geographers
--1942: publishes "The Desert Vegetation of North America" in Botanical Review
--dies at Tucson, Arizona, on 19 July 1950.
--1964: his Vegetation and Flora of the Sonoran Desert is published posthumously, with Ira L. Wiggins

--National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 40 (1955).
--A Sense of Place: The Life and Work of Forrest Shreve (1988).
--Taxonomic Literature, Vol. 5 (1985).
--Ecology, Vol. 32(3) (1951): 365-367.
--Science, Vol. 114(2970) (1951): 569-570.