Background
Whittaker, Robert Harding was born on December 27, 1920 in Wichita, Kansas, United States. Son of Clive Charles and Adeline (Harding) Whittaker.
Whittaker, Robert Harding was born on December 27, 1920 in Wichita, Kansas, United States. Son of Clive Charles and Adeline (Harding) Whittaker.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts at Washburn Municipal College (now Washburn University) in Topeka, Kansas, and, following military service, his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois.
He held teaching and research positions at Washington State College in Hanford, Washington, the Hanford National Laboratories (where he pioneered use of radioactive tracers in ecosystem studies), Brooklyn College, University of California, Irvine, and, finally Cornell University. Extremely productive, Whittaker was a leading proponent and developer of gradient analysis to address questions in plant community ecology. He provided strong empirical evidence against some ideas of vegetation development advocated by Frederic Clements.
Whittaker was most active in the areas of plant community analysis, succession, and productivity.
"During his lifetime Whittaker was a major innovator of methodologies of community analysis and a leader in marshaling field data to document patterns in the composition, productivity and diversity of land plant communities." Thus Whittaker was innovative in both empirical data sampling techniques as well as synthesizing more holistic theories. He was the first to propose the five-kingdom taxonomic classification of the world"s biota into the Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, and Monera in 1959.
He also proposed the Whittaker Biome Classification, which categorized biome-types upon two abiotic factors: temperature and precipitation. He collaborated with many other ecologists including George Woodwell (Dartmouth), West. A. Niering, F. H. Bormann (Yale) and G. East. Likens (Cornell), and was particularly active in cultivating international collaborations.
Ecologists completing Doctor of Philosophy.s under Whittaker include Walter Westman, Robert Peet (now at University of North Carolina), Susan Bratton (now at Baylor University), Thomas Wentworth (now at North Carolina State University), Owen Sholes (now at Assumption College), Mark Wilson (now at Oregon State University), Linda Olsvig-Whittaker (now at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority) and Kerry Woods (now at Bennington College).
Whittaker married biochemist Clara Buehl (then a coworker at Hanford Laboratories) in 1952. Their children are John Whittaker (b 1953, now a Professor of Anthropology at Grinnell College), Paul Whittaker (b 1955, formerly an ecologist/entomologist. Now an abstract artist and photographer in Evanston, Illinois) and Carl Whittaker (b 1957, a natural history illustrator and professional chef in Ithaca, New York).
Clara was diagnosed with cancer in 1972.
Her health deteriorated and she died December 31, 1976. Whittaker married graduate student Linda Olsvig in 1979, but was himself diagnosed with lung cancer.
He died October 20, 1980.
Served with United States Army Air Force, 1942-1946. Member Ecological Society American (Mercer award 1966), American Society Limnology and Oceanography, British Ecological Society, International Society Tropical Ecology, International Association Phytosociology, American Society Naturalists (president 1980), Torrey Botanical. Club, Swedish Plant Geographic Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society Zoologists, National Academy Sciences, American Academy Arts and Sciences, British Ecological Society (honorary), Swedish Plant Geography Society (honorary), Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Sigma.
Married Clara Caroline Buehl, January 1, 1953 (deceased. Married second, Linda Susan Olsvig, October 12, 1979. Children: John Charles, Paul Louis, Carl Robert.