Robert Sokal: Statistical giant in ecologists' boots

Robert Sokal (1960):
from Wikipedia

No student of my generation, trained in ecology and evolutionary biology, will not have heard of Sokal and Rholf’s Biometry textbook. Most would have used it in a class or to inform their analyses. Sadly, Robert Sokal passed away last month at the age of 86. He had a tremendous career, mostly at Stony Brook University in New York, and contributing to statistics and science for over half a century. As a testament to his impact, the third edition of Biometry has been cited over 14000 times! It is the canon for experimental design and analysis in the biological sciences.

He had extraordinary and tumultuous experiences as a youth -fleeing Nazi Germany and being raised in China. Whether, such experiences give rise to greatness, or whether his innate intellectual abilities sealed his destiny is an interesting question. Regardless, his impact and legacy will be deservedly long lasting.

Ross Crozier, evolutionary biologist and conservation biologist

Sadly, one of Australia's leading evolutionary biologists, Ross Crozier passed away suddenly last week (Nov. 12th, 2009). As a Professor at James Cook University, he worked on a plethora of evolutionary issues, from understanding the evolution of sociality in insects to population genetics and molecular phylogenetics. To my mind, his most influential papers were on how we can use patterns of evolutionary history in guiding conservation decisions -the agony of choice. While he promoted the conservation of phylogenetic diversity, per se, his great insight was that even comparing species that are relatively divergent does not mean that they are equally valuable, and we should consider information content as well. That is, a species with 80,000 genes is more valuable than a species with 20,000 genes, since the 80K-gene species has greater information content.

"Differences in the information content of genomes led to the realization that, other things being equal, some organisms have intrinsically higher conservation worth than others." -Ross Crozier

Ross also recently was the handling editor, at Ecology Letters, on a paper of mine and his insights and support were greatly appreciated and helped to improve our manuscript in numerous ways.

Here are my two favorite papers of his.

Crozier, R. H. 1992. GENETIC DIVERSITY AND THE AGONY OF CHOICE. Biological Conservation 61:11-15.

Crozier, R. H. 1997. Preserving the information content of species: Genetic diversity, phylogeny, and conservation worth. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 28:243-268.