David Mark Richardson (born 16 June 1958) is a South African

ecologist Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

, particularly known for his work on invasive species, especially invasive trees and shrubs.

Biography

Richardson was born in

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

. He received his BSc degree in

Forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and Natural environment, environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and ...

from

Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...

in 1981 and his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

Botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

from the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

in 1989. He worked as

Associate Professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

of Botany and deputy director of the Institute for Plant Conservation at the

from 1992 to 2004. He joined the Department of Botany and Zoology at

as Professor of Ecology and served as Deputy-Director (Science Strategy) at the Centre for Invasion Biology between 2004 and 2012. In 2012 he was appointed Director of the Centre for Invasion Biology, and in 2014 he was promoted to Distinguished Professor. He was Editor-in-Chief of the journal ''

Diversity and Distributions Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business * Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce * Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers ...

'' between 1998 and 2015.

Awards and honours

* In 2006, Richardson was awarded the Hans Sigrist Prize from the Hans Sigrist Stiftung, Switzerland *In 2007 and 2013 he received A1 ratings from South Africa's

National Research Foundation of South Africa South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) is the intermediary agency between the policies and strategies of the Government of South Africa and South Africa's research institutions. History It was established on 1 April 1999 as an ...

* In 2008 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of South Africa The Royal Society of South Africa is a learned society composed of eminent South African scientists and academics. The society was granted its royal charter by King Edward VII in 1908, nearly a century after Capetonians first began to conceive of ...

. *In 2009 he won the National Science and Technology Forum Award (Category B; Individual, through research and its outputs over the last five years) *In 2009 he was elected a Member of the

Academy of Science of South Africa The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) is the national science academy in South Africa. It was started in 1996, and encompasses all fields of scientific work. Its legal foundation is the ''Academy of Science of South Africa Act'', Act ...

*In 2012 he received the John F.W. Herschel Medal from the

for his "multidisciplinary contribution to science in South Africa through your exceptional work on the ecology of biological invasions and management strategies for introduced species".Top award for local invasion biologist.
SA-people.com. Retrieved 9 January 2012 *In 2018 he received the

African Union Kwame Nkrumah Award for Scientific Excellence The African Union Kwame Nkrumah Award for Scientific Excellence was established by the African Union (AU) to recognize and honor outstanding scientific achievements in Africa. These awards were named after Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Gh ...

in the Life and Earth Sciences category.

Selected publications

:*Richardson, D.M. & Bond, W.J. (1991)
Determinants of plant distribution: Evidence from pine invasions.
''American Naturalist'', 137: 639–668. :*Rejmánek, M. & Richardson, D.M. (1996)
What attributes make some plant species more invasive?
''Ecology'', 77: 1655–1661. :*Cowling, R.M., Richardson, D.M. & Pierce, S.M. (eds) (1997). ''Vegetation of southern Africa''. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. . :*Richardson, D.M. (ed)(1998). ''Ecology and Biogeography of Pinus''. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. . :*Richardson, D.M. (1998)
Forestry trees as invasive aliens.
''Conservation Biology'', 12: 18–26. :*Higgins, S.I. & Richardson, D.M. (1999)
Predicting plant migration rates in a changing world: the role of long-distance dispersal.
''American Naturalist'', 153: 464–475. :*Richardson, D.M., Allsopp, N., D'Antonio, C.M., Milton, S.J. & Rejmánek, M. (2000)
Plant invasions: The role of mutualisms.
''Biological Reviews'', 75: 65–93. :*Richardson, D.M., Pyšek, P., Rejmánek, M., Barbour, M.G., Panetta, D.F. & West, C.J. (2000)
Naturalization and invasion of alien plants – concepts and definitions.
''Diversity and Distributions'', 6: 93–107. :*Richardson, D.M. & Rejmánek, M. (2004)
Invasive conifers: A global survey and predictive framework.
''Diversity and Distributions'', 10: 321–331. :*Richardson, D.M. & Pyšek, P. (2006)
Plant invasions – merging the concepts of species invasiveness and community invasibility.
''Progress in Physical Geography'', 30: 409–431. :*Richardson, D.M. & Rundel, P.W., Jackson, S.T., Teskey, R.O., Aronson, J., Bytnerowicz, A., Wingfield, M.J. & Procheş, S. (2007)
Human impacts in pine forests: past, present and future.
''Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics'', 38: 275–297. :*Richardson, D.M., Hellmann, J.J., McLachlan, et al.(2009)
Multidimensional evaluation of managed relocation.
''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'', 106: 9721–9724. :*Richardson, D.M. (ed.)(2011)

Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. . :*Richardson, D.M., Carruthers, J., Hui, C., Impson, F.A.C., Robertson, M.P., Rouget, M., Le Roux, J.J., Wilson, J.R.U. (2011)
Human-mediated introductions of Australian acacias—a global experiment in biogeography.
''Diversity and Distributions'', 17: 771–787 :*Hui, C. & Richardson, D.M.(2017).
Invasion Dynamics.
''Oxford University Press, Oxford. .

References

External links

Centre for Invasion Biology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richardson, David Mark 1958 births Living people South African people of British descent Scientists from Pretoria South African ecologists Stellenbosch University alumni Members of the Academy of Science of South Africa