George Evelyn Hutchinson

George Evelyn Hutchinson

"After the war Prof. Hutchinson advised E. P. and H. T. Odum, brothers who profoundly influenced ecological research in Japan, and laid the foundation of ecosystem ecology, which is the study of the biotic community and its biotic environment as an integrated system from the point of view of energy transmission. It was also Prof. Hutchinson who encouraged a mathematical ecologist, R. H. MacArthur, to study theoretical ecology, especially the mathematical analysis of population dynamics with reference to interspecific interactions such as competition and predation.

"Besides Prof. Hutchinson's guidance and influence on younger researchers, his own "theory of ecological niches" laid an indispensable foundation for the further development of ecology. The concept of niches was introduced earlier by J. Grinnell and C. S. Elton, but Prof. Hutchinson defined it more strictly in a measurable form as made the distinction between "fundamental niche" and "realized niche," and made it possible to show the effect of interspecific interactions by measuring differences between the two.

"Prof. Hutchinson bridged the gap between population ecology and community ecology, which are the two major aspects of contemporary ecological science. This work laid the foundation for the development of modern functional ecology and evolutionary ecology."

• Winner of the 1987 Kyoto Prize

Select Publications

• George Evelyn Hutchinson, An Introduction to Population Ecology (Yale University Press, 1978)