Background
Paine grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard University.
Paine grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard University.
Harvard University; University of Michigan.
In his classic 1966 paper, Doctor Paine described such a system in Makah Bay in Washington State. This led to his 1969 paper where he proposed the keystone species concept. After Harvard, Paine served in the United States. Army where he was the battalion gardener.
He later entered graduate school at the University of Michigan intending to study paleontology.
After he took some courses in zoology and ecology at Michigan, his interests and studies changed after taking an ecology course with Fred Smith. Upon graduating from the University of Michigan, Paine competed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In 1962, Paine joined the University of Washington where he spent the rest of his career and became well known for his work. Paine"s doctoral research thesis was on the ecology of living brachipods (living marine organisms that have shells on their upper and lower surfaces).
As a postdoctoral fellow, he worked on the history and energetics of opisthobranchs (marine gastropods).
Much of Paine"s work at the University of Washington focused on the organization of marine communities. lieutenant was here that much of his research on keystone species occurred. In 1969, Paine coined the term "keystone species".
Paine"s concept states that an ecosystem may experience a dramatic shift if a keystone species is removed, even though that species was a small part of the ecosystem by measures of biomass or productivity.
lieutenant has become a very popular concept in conservation biology. Vice-President, Ecological Society of America, 1977-1978.
President, Ecological Society of America, 1979-1980. MacArthur Award, Ecological Society of America, 1983.
Elected to The National Academy of Sciences, 1986.
International Cosmos Prize, 2013.
National Academy of Sciences.