Odum, Eugene Pleasants, 1913–2002, American ecologist, b. Newport, N.H., Ph.D. Univ. of Illinois, 1939; son of Howard W. Odum. He joined the department of zoology at the Univ. of Georgia in 1940, eventually becoming Callaway Professor of Ecology before retiring in 1984. A pioneer of the concept of the ecosystem (see ecology), he helped found the university's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, its marine institute on Sapelo Island, and what is now the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology. His widely used textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology (1953), was written with his brother, Howard T. Odum. Other works include Ecology and Our Endangered Life Support Systems (1989) and Ecological Vignettes: Ecological Approaches to Dealing with Human Predicaments (1998).
See biography by B. J. Craige (2001).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Environmental Studies: Biographies
