Question

Identify the ecologist from the given hints.
(i) He carried out long-term ecosystem experiments using outdoor plots.
(ii) In his experiments, he showed that increased diversity contributed to higher productivity.
(a) Ahmed Khan
(b) David Tilman
(c) Stanley Cohen
(d) Earnest Chain
(e) Herbert Boyer

Answer 1

In recent years this ecologist has also devoted himself to studying sustainable farming methods, which are needed to meet the rapidly growing demand for food and energy. Through his experiment on outdoor plots, he concluded that the survival of a population directly depends on species richness.

Complete answer:
Several questions like which species in an ecosystem compete for a limited amount of food, which are more likely to survive, and which ones will not? This concept comes under a topic known as Resource competition theory that also uses a mathematical model to predict the winners and losers. David Tilman was the pioneer that developed this theory, which is also an essential part of virtually every textbook on ecology since the early 1980s. Tilman applied this theory to plants and came to a revolutionary discovery. He spent almost twenty years of his life observing more than two hundred plots of grassland and kept specific diversity of species and recorded his observation on each plot.
He observed that the plots where many varieties of species existed clearly did much better under difficult circumstances such as during periods of drought -than plots with very few species.
Through his experiment, he stated that biodiversity makes an ecosystem more stable, and protecting endangered species is important for the survival of the earth's ecosystems.

Additional information:
Let's know more about David Tilman
-G. David Tilman was born in 1949 in Aurora which is situated in Illinois and studied zoology at the University of Michigan.
-It was during his doctoral study on algae that he began to do research work on a mathematical model to predict the outcome of resource competition.
-He continued his work on this model and after receiving his appointment at the University of Minnesota his work became more renowned.
-Tilman became director of the University's Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, in 1992 where he also conducted his celebrated experiments since the early 1980s.
-Tilman's work is an inspiration to many thousands of scientists around the world. The worldwide renowned Institute for Scientific Information has selected him as the most highly recognized environmentalist of the decade (1990-2000 and 1996-2006) twice.

So, the correct answer is ‘David Tilman’.

Notes:
Professor David Tilman was awarded Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences in 2010. He worked on combining mathematical theories, laboratory research, and field experiments and thus made a fundamental contribution to the science of ecology.