Dr. Steward T.A. Pickett
Plant Ecologist
Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Biography
Steward Pickett was on the faculty of Rutgers University until 1987, when he joined the Institute for Ecosystem Studies as a senior scientist. He co-edited The Ecology of Patch Dynamics and Natural Disturbance (1985), Ecological Heterogeneity (1991), Humans as Components of Ecosystems (1993), and The Ecological Basis of Conservation (1997). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has served as Vice President for Science of the Ecological Society of America, on the Science Advisory Board of the National Center for Ecological Synthesis and Analysis, and on the board of the Defenders of Wildlife. In all these efforts, he has been concerned with synthesis within ecology and the utility of science to the larger community.

All of Dr. Pickett's research focuses on patterns of variation in habitat and ecological communities on a variety of scales, ranging from forest gaps, desert patches, and landscape level processes.
As principal investigator for the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research project in Baltimore, he is researching how all the different habitats in the Baltimore watershed, urban areas, forested patches, streams, rivers, and more, are affected by environmental changes. Social and economic factors are responsible for much of the heterogeneity or patchiness in urban ecosystems, and the Baltimore watershed is a prime location to study these issues.

This watershed approach to ecological research has led to collaboration with scientists in South Africa on a project in Kruger National Park. Dr. Pickett and this team are investigating how relatively narrow wetland areas alongside rivers in the Kruger watershed interact with systems farther along the rivers, both upstream and downstream, as well as their interactions with neighboring upland areas. This project is also designed to help understand how animals, fire, water, and plant species move between the upland areas and the rest of the Park, and to describe how human management decisions influence these movements. Researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are looking forward to setting up student exchanges between Baltimore and Kruger so young scientists can benefit from this partnership as well.

Selected Publications
Pickett, S.T.A., M.L. Cadenasso, J.M. Grove, C.H. Nilon, R.V. Pouyat, W.C.Zipperer, and R. Costanza. 2001. Urban Ecological Systems: Linking terrestrial ecological, physical, and socioeconomic components of metropolitan areas. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 32:127-157.

Pickett, S.T.A. Why is public understanding of urban ecosystems important to science and scientists? In A.R. Berkowitz, C.H. Nilon, and K.S. Holweg, eds. A New Frontier for Science and Education. Springer-Verlag, New York, In Press.

McDonnell, M. J. and S. T. A. Pickett. 1993. Editors. Humans as Components of Ecosystems: Subtle Human Effects and the Ecology of Populated Areas. Springer-Verlag. New York. 363 pp.

McDonnell, M. J. and S. T. A. Pickett 1990. Ecosystem structure and function along gradients of urbanization: An unexploited opportunity for ecology. Ecology 71:1231-1237.

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