Charles Joseph Krebs (born 17 September 1936) is a professor emeritus of population ecology in the University of British Columbia Department of Zoology. He is also Thinker-in-residence at the Institute for Applied Ecology at the University of Canberra, Australia. He is renowned for his work on the fence effect, as well as his widely used ecology textbook Ecology: The Experimental Analysis of Distribution and Abundance.
Research Krebs was interested mostly in smaller mammal ecology; in 1965 he conducted an experiment on voles.GCS Research Society. 2015. Science.ca. http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=11 He fenced in an area of grassland in an Indiana pasture about the size of a soccer field and observed what happened to the population of voles living inside the fenced area, establishing the widely known "Fence Effect". Within a year of living in the fenced area the vole population had increased by about five times, much more than it would in an unfenced area. The population experienced a crash, just like the unfenced populations. Krebs believed this phenomenon was caused by density-dependent changes in vole social behaviour, and was more widely applicable. The voles had no place to migrate therefore the final crash seemed to stem from an increase of competition, aggressive behaviour, and decreased resources.
Krebs also worked in British Columbia and Northern Canada for over 40 years to look at cyclic populations of mammals.1. Ecological Society of America. 2002. Eminent Ecologist Award. http://www.esa.org/history/Awards/bulletin/eminent2002.pdf during this time he was helped transform the field of ecology from a descriptive science to an experimental discipline. For 20 years he studied the 10-year population cycle of snowshoe hares and their predators in the Yukon. He found that the population size of the snowshoe hares is regulated by predators such as the lynx, coyote, great horned owls and goshawks. 90% of their deaths were found to be due to these predators and almost none because of starvation and disease.
During his career, Krebs made the case for basic research.
A summary of Krebs's work and his influence on students and colleagues (Judith H. Myers, Stan Boutin, Rudy Boonstra and Tony Sinclair can be seen in a series of seminars entitled [https://www.biodiversidad.gob.mx/biodiversidad/regulacion-de-poblaciones "Krebs' ecologists: on the regulation of animal populations")
Select awards and recognition Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, 1979 Killam Senior Fellowship, 1985 President's Medal, University of Helsinki, 1986 Honorary doctorate, University of Lund, 1988 Sir Frederick McMaster Senior Fellowship, CSIRO, Australia, 1992 C. Hart Merriam Award, American Society of Mammalogists, 1993 Fry Medal, Canadian Society of Zoologists, 1996 Northern Science Award, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 2002 Corresponding Member, Australian Academy of Science, 2002 Eminent Ecologist Award, Ecological Society of America, 2002 Fellows of the Ecological Society of America, 2012 Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales 2013
References
External links Ecological Rants: Charles Krebs' Blogs