TY - JOUR

T1 - Terry Erwin’s legacy

T2 - from taxonomy and natural history to biodiversity research and conservation biology

AU - Assmann, Thorsten

PY - 2021/6/16

Y1 - 2021/6/16

N2 - I first met Terry Erwin, already an icon of biodiversity research, at the fantastic 20th International Congress of Entomology in Florence in 1996. His high level of scientific expertise, open mind, cooperative attitude, and enthusiasm for carabids overawed me immediately. Terry also radiated interest in other insects and whole ecosystems. Over the years, these traits have inspired many others, especially young scientists and students, as is clearly evident in the contributions of this issue (e.g. Spence 2021; Grammer 2021) and Kavanaugh (2020). In addition to Terry’s human qualities, his basic natural history approach to scientific research has significantly shaped his life’s work.From my time as a graduate student, I literally devoured Terry’s publications, as his research made a deep impression on me. This was largely because Terry’s work was broad, ranging from classical taxonomy and natural history to sophisticated analyses of biodiversity and ecosystem services. I believe that Terry’s body of research is up-to-date and in many ways timeless, and that it will leave a lasting mark because of its broad organismic approach to biology. In this essay, I will briefly highlight what I regard as his most important research in a way that I hope will encourage others to read or even re-read it. That might be the way Terry would have been most happy to be remembered.

AB - I first met Terry Erwin, already an icon of biodiversity research, at the fantastic 20th International Congress of Entomology in Florence in 1996. His high level of scientific expertise, open mind, cooperative attitude, and enthusiasm for carabids overawed me immediately. Terry also radiated interest in other insects and whole ecosystems. Over the years, these traits have inspired many others, especially young scientists and students, as is clearly evident in the contributions of this issue (e.g. Spence 2021; Grammer 2021) and Kavanaugh (2020). In addition to Terry’s human qualities, his basic natural history approach to scientific research has significantly shaped his life’s work.From my time as a graduate student, I literally devoured Terry’s publications, as his research made a deep impression on me. This was largely because Terry’s work was broad, ranging from classical taxonomy and natural history to sophisticated analyses of biodiversity and ecosystem services. I believe that Terry’s body of research is up-to-date and in many ways timeless, and that it will leave a lasting mark because of its broad organismic approach to biology. In this essay, I will briefly highlight what I regard as his most important research in a way that I hope will encourage others to read or even re-read it. That might be the way Terry would have been most happy to be remembered.

KW - Biology

KW - neotropical forests

KW - arboreal beetles

KW - rain-forest

KW - systematics

KW - carabidae

KW - coleo

KW - zookeys

KW - diversity

KW - evolution

KW - Ecosystems Research

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/2471c756-3d9f-340d-88c7-158f2953ddd2/

U2 - 10.3897/zookeys.1044.68650

DO - 10.3897/zookeys.1044.68650

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 1044

SP - 23

EP - 39

JO - ZooKeys

JF - ZooKeys

SN - 1313-2989

ER -