A Tragic Loss: E. O. Wilson has Died

E. O. Wilson examining a leaf. He advocated for a world where all species have the space and resources to survive. Photo courtesy of National Geographic.

E. O. Wilson died yesterday at the age of 92. The sciences of entomology, biodiversity, biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology have suffered a huge loss. Beyond those specific scientific disciplines, the world has lost an amazing science communicator and advocate of nature.

Edward Osborne Wilson was born in Birmingham Alabama, USA on June 10th, 1929. He grew up chasing snakes and birds and insects around Birmingham, Washington D.C., the various other towns he grew up in (his parents were divorced and each moved several times during his childhood) and also on the many hiking and camping trips he took into the surrounding areas. This early interest in the natural world solidified into an obsession with ants which he studied throughout his undergraduate and graduate work.

In his early career, E. O. Wilson worked with another scientist named Robert MacArthur to develop a way of explaining why species tend to be scattered across the planet in the patterns that we see. Originally, these two focused on explaining, with mathematical equations, why and to what extent big islands have more species than small islands, and islands close to continents have more species than remote islands. This set of concepts became known as Island Biogeography. It was quickly recognized as having much wider applications. Not only did it work for islands, but for other features as well. Lakes could be seen as ‘islands’ set in land masses. And even further, nature preserves could be seen as ‘islands’ set in inhospitable and highly modified landscapes. Island biography can be used to predict how large a nature preserve is needed to save a certain number of species. It can be used to determine how far apart nature preserve ‘islands’ can be and still maintain viable populations of animals, plants, and fungi.

On top of island biogeography, E. O. Wilson pioneered work in sociobiology by exploring how behaviors of insects and behaviors of humans and other vertebrates are similar in many ways. He popularized the term biodiversity and spent considerable effort in working toward the preservation and documentation of life on this planet.

E. O. Wilson was also a tremendous writer. His list of written works includes over 30 books and 430 scientific articles, and these span a range of scientific and popular science material. He made scientific topics accessible to a wide range of public readers and inspired countless people (including myself) to pursue these topics further. His book “Letters to a Young Scientist” is one of the best and most inspiring books I have ever read.

Without a doubt, Wilson was a giant in the field. He developed really impactful ideas. He mentored a huge number of other scientists. To popularized science to the wider world.

We have all lost a treasure.

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A Completed Habitat and Water Management Project

While I worked at the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy (Delta Conservancy) I managed a grant funded by Proposition 1 that sent money for improvements to the water management system of the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area. The organization managing the project was a nonprofit called Ducks Unlimited, and they worked with the wildlife area staff, several other funding agencies, and other nonprofit organizations to make these improvements happen.

Image showing a small drainage pipe that existed before this Ducks Unlimited project was undertaken. The pipe is small and easily choked with vegetation and debris. Photo courtesy of Ducks Unlimited.

The improvements that were needed all focused on allowing the wildlife area staff to be able to move water on and off the wildlife area when they needed to. To manage a site like the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, a lot of water needs to be brought onto and off of different sections of land at different times of year so that the different areas can be flooded to different depths for different amounts of time and in different seasons. All those differences mean that to move water around a lot of canals are needed that trace their way across the wildlife area, and a lot of pumps are needed that are scattered along those canals.

The particular issues that this project set out to fix were two points along some of the larger canals in the wildlife area were water flow was limited because of small pipes and shallow canals. These pipes were taken out and replaced by wider bridges and the canals dredged deeper. Further issues that this project addressed were the moving of one pump and the installation of a new one.

All this work took on the order of $5 million and about five years, but it is now complete! In early December of 2021, I joined a group of people including Ducks Unlimited staff, funders, other agency staff, elected officials, other nonprofit staff, etc. to take a tour around the wildlife area to see the improvements that were built! It was pretty great to see the completed project and think back on all the effort that went in to bringing the project to a successful close. To learn more about the project with really nice visuals that allow you to really get a sense of the work that was done, check out this YouTube video that Ducks Unlimited created.

Image showing a bridge that was built as part of this Ducks Unlimited project. The bridge is wide enough to allow for higher water flow to occur uninhibited by vegetation or debris. Photo courtesy of Ducks Unlimited.

This project is a great example of how changes to an area can sometimes be very important, yet not very exciting or dramatic to look at. These improvements are not as beautiful as planting oak trees along a stream, nor are they as interesting to look at as installing boulders in a river to create more habitat diversity, yet without improvements like this thousands of acres of land would not be providing the food, shelter, and other resources that are needed by thousands of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, etc!

So, congratulations to Ducks Unlimited and all the other organizations and agencies that were involved in this project for getting a lot of hard and complex work done and allowing this wildlife area to continue to be the amazing resource for wildlife that it is!

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