Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists:
Chrono-Biographical Sketches

Transeau, Edgar Nelson (United States 1875-1960)
botany, phytogeography

Photo courtesy of the Botanical Society of America.

Although he made a considerable impact as an all-around scholar and educator, Transeau is most remembered for his analyses of the so-called "prairie peninsula," that extent of unforested land in the central United States that seemingly extends too far eastward to be accounted for by climatological factors alone. Transeau was also interested in a variety of topics in algology, ecology, and higher education, and as chairman of the Department of Botany at The Ohio State University for many years was instrumental in turning it into a first-rate program.

--born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on 21 October 1875.
--1897: B.A., Franklin and Marshall College
--1897-1902: high school science teacher in Pennsylvania and Colorado
--1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1904, 1907: field trips to study plant ecology in Michigan, Kansas, Indiana, Iowa, Great Plains states, western U. S. and British Columbia, Nova Scotia
--1904: Ph.D., University of Michigan
--1904-1906: professor of biology, Alma College
--1906-1907: conducts research at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island
--1907-1915: professor of botany, Eastern Illinois Teachers College
--1915-1946: professor of botany, The Ohio State University
--1918-1946: chairman of the botany department, The Ohio State University
--1924: president, Ecological Society of America
-1924: president, Ohio Academy of Sciences
--1935: publishes "The Prairie Peninsula" in Ecology
--1940: president, Botanical Society of America
--1940: publishes his Textbook of Botany
--1941: receives honorary doctorate from Franklin and Marshall College
--1951: publishes his The Zygnemataceae
--1956: receives the Certificate of Merit from the Ecological Society of America
--dies at Columbus, Ohio, on 25 January 1960.

--Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists (1997).
--Ohio Journal of Science, Vol. 60 (1960): 253.
--Taxonomic Literature, Vol. 6 (1986).
--Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, Vol. 41 (1960): 62-64.
--The Prairie Peninsula--In the "Shadow" of Transeau (1981).