Joseph H. Connell

Joseph Hurd Connell FAA (5 October 1923 – 1 September 2020) was an American ecologist. He earned his MA degree in zoology at the University of California, Berkeley and his PhD at Glasgow University.^[2] Connell's first research paper examined the effects of interspecific competition and predation on populations of a barnacle species on the rocky shores of Scotland.^[3] According to Connell, this classic paper is often cited because it addressed ecological topics that previously had been given minor roles.^[2] Together, with a subsequent barnacle study on the influence of competition and desiccation,^[4] these two influential papers have laid the foundation for future research and the findings continue to have relevance to current ecology.^[5] His early work earned him a Guggenheim fellowship in 1962^[6] and the George Mercer Award in 1963.^[7]

In 2010, a Symposium was held in his honour by the Ecological Society of America said that "Connell’s observations, insights, syntheses, and example have motivated education and research in population and community ecology for over six decades".^[8] Among his important works were the Connell–Slatyer model of ecological succession (facilitation, tolerance and inhibition) and the Janzen-Connell hypothesis that explains plant-species diversity in tropical forests.^[9] Other notable works are his 1978 intermediate disturbance hypothesis^[10] and his thirty-year study of corals in the Great Barrier Reef.^[11]

He was a corresponding member of the Australian Academy of Science,^[12] a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,^[13] and a Guggenheim fellow,^[14] and has received the Eminent Ecologist Award from the Ecological Society of America.^[15] He was a professor emeritus at the University of California Santa Barbara until his death in September 2020.^[16]

Connell was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 2002 as a Corresponding Fellow.