Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 2005 by then WSN president Mark Carr to honor an outstanding scientist who has been involved in WSN throughout their career and has made an exemplary life-long contribution to increasing our understanding of natural history. The recipient is not requested to make a formal presentation and is recognized with the presentation of a plaque at the annual society meeting. The nomination and selection are done by the recent suite of WSN Presidents - current president, immediate past president, and president elect.

2007 Paul Dayton Professor of Oceanography Integrative Oceanography Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego pdayton@ucsd.edu As a biological oceanographer, Paul Dayton researches coastal and estuarine habitats, including seafloor (“benthic”) and kelp communities, as well as global fisheries. He has conducted investigations in several parts of the world, including spending 50 months in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, performing research during scuba dives under the ice. The scientific papers resulting from these research projects are largely believed to have set the standard for Antarctic undersea ecology. He has studied nearshore benthic communities in many parts of the world and is presently working on California kelp communities and Antarctic benthic communities. Dayton’s studies also include the impacts of overfishing on marine ecosystems. Besides his own students, the part of his career that gives him the most satisfaction is his contribution to the UC Natural Reserve System.

2006 Robert (Bob) Paine Professor of Zoology, Emeritus University of Washington painert@u.washington.edu Except for his dissertation research and a postdoc at Scripps Institution (La Jolla), Robert Paine's academic career has been spent at the University of Washington. Persistent themes of his research are the central role of natural history, predation and the related top-down influences (with the necessity of experimental manipulation if one wants to understand ecological processes). Food web structure and the roles of disturbance have been a common focus. Most of Robert's research has been done on exposed, rocky intertidal shores on the outer coast of Washington State, especially Tatoosh Island. His 34 PhD students remain sources of friendship, inspiration and continuing pride. Bob has gone the extra mile in training a lot of students who have become leaders in the field of Natural History.

2005 Joseph (Joe) Connell Professor of Zoology, Emeritus Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology University of California, Santa Barbara connell@lifesci.lscf.ucsb.edu How appropriate it was for the WSN to give Joseph Connell the first award because of the sweeping fundamental ecological insights that Joe has pulled from nature in such very different ecosystems. He truly is one of the all time synthetic geniuses in the field of natural history and almost all of his fundamental work came from his appreciation of natural history. Joe joined the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) faculty in 1956, specialized in the study of the ecology of tropical rain forests and coral reefs. He was a research professor of ecology, evolution, and marine biology. Now Emeritus, Joe is interested in long-term studies in ecology with specialties in population biology, community ecology, marine ecology, terrestrial ecology and theoretical ecology.