Arthur Tansley

Who was Arthur Tansley?

Sir Arthur George Tansley FRS was an English botanist and a pioneer in the science of ecology. Educated at University College London and Trinity College, Cambridge, Tansley taught at these institutions and at Oxford, where he served as Sherardian Professor of Botany until his retirement in 1937. He founded the New Phytologist in 1902 and served as its editor until 1931. Tansley was a pioneer of the science of ecology in Britain, being heavily influenced by the work of Danish botanist Eugenius Warming, and introduced the concept of the ecosystem into biology. Tansley was a founding member of the first professional society of ecologists, the Central Committee for the Survey and Study of British Vegetation, which later organised the British Ecological Society, and served as its first president and founding editor of the Journal of Ecology. Tansley also served as the first chairman of the British Nature Conservancy. Tansley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1915, and was knighted in 1950. The New Phytologist publishes regular Tansley Reviews and awards a Tansley Medal, both named in his honour.