From the society: Honorary Lifetime Membership awarded to James H. Brown

Abstract

membership corner ISSN 1948‐6596 from the society Honorary Lifetime Membership awarded to James H. Brown The International Biogeography Society (IBS) has established a third award, Honorary Lifetime Mem‐ bership, given on the occasion of a special anniver‐ sary or event involving a prominent biogeographer. Honorary Lifetime Membership is intended to rec‐ ognize someone who has made a large intellectual contribution to biogeography and also has played a prominent role in the IBS or contributed to similar public service roles that have fostered or promoted the discipline. It is intended that there should only ever be a small group of Honorary Lifetime Mem‐ bers—perhaps a half‐dozen or so—reflecting the truly distinguished standing of recipients. Honorary Lifetime Membership was first bestowed on Edward O. Wilson, in 2007 1 , on the 40 th anniversary of the publication of “The Theory of Island Biogeography”, co‐authored with Robert MacArthur. IBS is privileged to announce that James H. Brown is the recipient of its second Hon‐ orary Lifetime Membership, on the occasion of his retirement from the University of New Mexico. Jim is certainly among the best‐known bio‐ geographers of any generation. Beginning with his 1971 publication, “Mammals on mountaintops: nonequilibrium insular biogeography”, Jim has played a central role in the development of mod‐ ern biogeography. His textbook, co‐authored with Arthur Gibson and published in 1983, has been widely adopted and highly influential in the educa‐ tion of generations of biogeographers, and is now in its fourth edition (Lomolino et al., 2010). With his 1995 book, “Macroecology”, Jim defined a new term but more importantly a different perspective on biogeography, leading to a new and still promi‐ nent field of study. He served as one of the editors of the “Foundations of Biogeography” volume (Lomolino et al., 2004) that has helped to shape our understanding of the historical development of our field—a fitting contribution by someone who has himself contributed so much to its develop‐ ment. A quick search of “Google Scholar” with the keyword “biogeography” yielded over 125 titles authored by Jim, an indica‐ tion of his vast output. His research has been charac‐ terized by great breadth and inquisitiveness, with a healthy emphasis on test‐ ing the assumptions of ear‐ lier research and expand‐ ing the nature of the ques‐ tions that are asked. Jim also has played a central role in the de‐ velopment of IBS. He was one of the organizers of the workshop held at the National Center for Eco‐ logical Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in Santa Bar‐ bara, California in September 2001. In addition to producing the “Foundations” volume, as planned, the workshop also resulted in the formation of the IBS. Jim then served as the first President of the IBS, including the period of the first IBS conference held in Mesquite, Nevada, in January 2003. In recognition of this award, Jim has agreed to present a keynote paper at the Sixth Biennial IBS Conference, to be held in January 2013 at the Flor‐ ida International University in Miami, Florida 2 . Lawrence R. Heaney 1 and George C. Stevens 2 IBS President. lheaney@fieldmuseum.org. IBS Vice President for Development and Awards. georgecstevens@hotmail.com References Brown, J.H. (1971) Mammals on mountaintops: nonequilibrial insular biogeography. American Naturalist, 105, 467‐478. Brown, J.H. (1995) Macroecology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Brown, J.H. & Gibson, A.C. (1983) Biogeography. C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis. Lomolino, M.V., Sax, D.F. & Brown, J.H. (2004) Foundations of biogeography, classic papers with commentaries. Uni‐ versity of Chicago Press, Chicago. Lomolino, M.V., Riddle, B.R., Whittaker, R.J. & Brown, J.H. (2010) Biogeography, fourth edition. Sinauer Associ‐ ates, Sunderland. Edited by Michael N Dawson 1. http://www.biogeography.org/html/About%20IBS/awards.html 2. http://www.biogeography.org/html/Meetings/2013/index.html frontiers of biogeography 4.2, 2012 — © 2012 the authors; journal compilation © 2012 The International Biogeography Society