From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.
The Department of Botany and the United States National Herbarium present this award to a botanist and scholar of international stature who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. The José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany is named in honor of Dr. José Cuatrecasas, a pioneering botanist and taxonomist, who spent nearly a half-century working in the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Botany. Dr. Cuatrecasas devoted his career to plant exploration in tropical South America and this award serves to keep vibrant the accomplishments and memory of this outstanding scientist.
The winner of this prestigious award is selected by a committee made up of four botanists on staff in the Department in consultation with other plant scientists outside of the Smithsonian Institution. Nominations for the Medal are accepted from all scientists in the Botany Department. The award consists of a bronze medal bearing an image of José Cuatrecasas on the front with the recipient’s name and date of presentation on the back. Highlights from past presentations to the recipients are available at <http://botany.si.edu/cuatrecasas/cuatrecasasMedal.cfm>.
Robin B. Foster is the 15th recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany. Foster received an A.B. degree from Dartmouth College in 1966 and a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1974 under noted ecologist W.D. Billings. He first joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, and then the Field Museum as a research associate where he has continued his primary affiliation. He has also had appointments in botany and ecology with Conservation International, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. His Ph.D. research relating to the recruitment dynamics (seasonality and seed production) of tropical forest ecosystems in Panama along with early fieldwork in Amazonian Peru set the stage for his continuing research focus on plant communities in those regions. He has published over 120 scholarly articles – garnering over 18,000 citations – along with numerous reports and floristic guides. Additionally, he has been involved in the leadership and boards of several organizations dedicated to tropical biology and, in 2013, was elected an honorary fellow of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC).
The Cuatrecasas Medal selection committee took special note of Foster’s pioneering work on cataloging the flora of Barro Colorado Island (BCI) in Panama and then subsequent development of the first tropical forest dynamics plot there. With its detailed look at forest composition and spatial context, the BCI plot has transformed the study of tropical ecosystems and spurred new approaches and theories to explain their function and high biodiversity. It has led to a network of 50-hectare plots around the world, serving as testimony to the importance and power of this approach. Of special relevance to this year’s Smithsonian Botanical Symposium is Foster’s botanical exploration of remote regions of Ecuador and Peru, especially as part of Conservation International’s “Rapid Assessment Program” (RAP), which does fieldwork in poorly known biodiversity hotspots and promotes their conservation.
The past recipients of the Cuatrecasas Medal are Rogers McVaugh from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2001); P. Barry Tomlinson from Harvard University (2002); John Beaman from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2003); David Mabberley from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney (2004); Jerzy Rzedowski and Graciela Calderón de Rzedowski from Instituto de Ecología del Bajío, Michoacán, Mexico (2005); Sherwin Carlquist from Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Pomona College (2006); Mireya D. Correa A. from the University of Panama and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (2008); Norris H. Williams from the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Florida, Gainesville (2009); Beryl B. Simpson from the University of Texas at Austin (2010); Walter S. Judd from the University of Florida at Gainesville (2012); Ana Maria Giulietti Harley from the Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Brazil (2013); H. Peter Linder from Zurich University (2014); Paulo Günter Windisch from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (2015); and Kamal Bawa from the University of Massachusetts Boston (2016).
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