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John J. Ewel

John (Jack) Ewel (born on January 20, 1941 at North Tonawanda, New York) is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biology at the University of Florida (Gainesville, Florida). He is known for his research using experiments to understand succession and ecosystem processes in terrestrial tropical environments.. His primary research conducted dealt with the beginning stages of the regrowth and recovery following agriculture practices. The results of his research help comprehend forest structure, forest management, and nutrient dynamics. Dr. Ewel also participated in studies regarding invasive species and restoration ecology. He currently resides in Gainesville with his wife Dr. Katherine Ewel, where he continues to publish and informally mentor students and faculty studying tropical ecology.

Early Life and Education

John Ewel graduated from North Tonawanda High School in 1958, and than studied forestry at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (located in Syracuse, NY). At SUNY, he focused on the biology and management of natural resources and the environment, and after graduation in 1962 he attended a graduate summer program in Puerto Rico. He remained in Puerto Rice after the program's completion to work for the U.S. Forest Service’s Institute of Tropical Forestry, where he tracked the effects of implemented irradiation on a tropical forest to understand the complexity of ecosystem ecology. In 1963, Joe Tosi hired Ewel to partake in an ecological mapping of Venezuela.

After three years, Ewel returned to the United States and began work on his M.S (Master of Science) degree in the Department of Botany at the University of Florida (1965- 1967), where his advisor was Hugh Popenoe. His thesis was on litter decay in Guatemalan second-growth vegetation. His Ph.D. was completed by working alongside with Howard T. Odum to study the succession in three sites in Costa Rica and two sites in Puerto Rico.

Career

In 1971, University of Florida hired Ewel as a professor. While working at UF he was also active in the creation of Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica (1974-1975). In 1990, Ewel was elected President of the Association for Tropical Biology & Conservation (ATBC); he also served on the Board of Directors and on multiple committees of the Organization for Tropical Studies. In 1994, he retired from the University of Florida and joined the U.S. Forest Service’s Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry as its director. He was held responsible for research as well as multiple outreach programs located in American Samoa, Commonwealth of Northern Marines, Guam, Hawaii, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau. In 2005, he retired from U.S. Forest Service’s Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry.

Research

Tropical Succession:

Dr. Ewel's investigation was conducted on successional landscapes by examining the regrowth and recovery following agriculture practices in Guatemala, Sarawak, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica. He studied the succession in its natural occurrence as well as in some cases were human-induced second growth by burning the forest to represent a farmer clearing a field for crop production.Additional research was conducted to examined the tropical succession using the gradients of temperature and moisture to gather more data for further analysis.

Biodiversity and Longevity of Plants:

John Ewel and his fellow researchers conducted two independent experiments in Costa Rica, at Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza. to investigate the plant productivity, nutrient loss, and interactions of the focal plant species with other species of plants, competitors, and consumers. They also examined plant resistance to pesticides and responses to decreasing soil fertility after erosion resulting from harvesting annual crops.

Novel Ecosystems:

A novel ecosystem can be defined as, “a system of abiotic, biotic, and social components (and their interactions) that, by virtue of human influence, differs from those that prevailed historically, having a tendency to self-organize and manifest novel qualities without intensive human management”(Hobbs, Richard). In the 1970s, Ewel and his colleges chose a certain amount of aquatic habitats that either possed a nutrient-rich (heavily polluted) environment or a nutrient-poor environment. The researchers added little clusters of water hyacinth to each of the marine ecosystems. The results of the experiment concluded that that the heavily nutrient-rich aquatic environment had extremely abundant and heavily dense water hyacinths compared to the water hyacinths growing in the nutrient-poor marine environment. This studied show human activities alter the structural stability of that ecosystem. More research has been conducted to fully understand changes created by human land use and develop new methods to manage the ecosystems more sustainably.

Honors and Awards

• Selected as a fellow in the field of plant sciences by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1985).  
• Received the Eminent Ecologist Award and Distinguished Service Citation Subcommittee (1985-86).
• Received the distinguished Faculty Award, the Florida Blue Key (1988).
• Named the University’s Teacher-Scholar of the Year (1991).

• Became a Honorary Fellow at the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation (2015).
• Elected into the UF Faculty in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2016). .

Ewel Postdoctoral Fellowship

The International Center at the University of Florida awards a John J. and Katherine C. Ewel Fellowship Program in Ecology and Environmental Science in the Tropics and Subtropics to recent doctorates who shall examine the field of ecology and environmental sciences at UF. The award pays $54,000 annually with an additional yearly pay of $15,000 for health coverage, research assistance, professional growth, and travel.

Publications

Dr. Ewel has over 100 publications, and those listed below, are some of the most notable contributions:

Dr. Ewel has co-authored 6 books:

Baker, P. J., P. G. Scowcroft, & J. J. Ewel. 2009. Koa (Acacia koa) Ecology and Silviculture. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-211. Albany, CA. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. 129 p.

Myers, R. L. & J. J. Ewel (eds.). 1990. Ecosystems of Florida. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville. 765 pp.

Ewel, J. & L. Conde. 1981. Potential Ecological Impact of Increased Intensity of Tropical Forest Utilization. BIOTROP, SEAMO Regional Center for Tropical Biology, Bogor, Indonesia. Special Publication No. 11. 70 pp.

Wade, D., J. Ewel, & R. Hofstetter. 1980. Fire in South Florida Ecosystems. U.S.D.A. Forest Service, General Technical Report SE-17, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Asheville, North Carolina 125 pp.

Ewel, J. & J. L. Whitmore. 1973. Ecological Life Zones of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Institute of Tropical Forestry, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. Forest Service Research Paper ITF-18. 71 pp. + map.

Ewel, J. , A. Madríz & J. Tosi. 1968. Las Zonas de Vida de Venezuela:  Memoria Explicativa Sobre el Mapa Ecológico. Ministerio de Agricultura y Cría, Caracas. 165 p. + map.

Succession Publications:

Ewel, J. 1983. Succession. Chapter 13, pp. 217-223 in F. B. Golley (ed.) Ecosystems of the World. Vol. 14A. Tropical Rain Forest Ecosystems:  Structure and Function of Tropical Forests. Elsevier, Amsterdam.

Ewel, J., D. Ojima, D. Karl, & W. DeBusk. 1982. Schinus in successional ecosystems of Everglades National Park. South Florida Research Center Report T-676. 141 pp.

Ewel, J. 1981. Secondary forests:  the tropical wood resource of the future. pp. 53-60 in M. Chavarria (ed.) Simposio Internacional sobre las Ciencias Forestales y su Contribución al Desarrollo de la América Latina. San José, Costa Rica.

Invasibility, Invasives, and Novel Ecosystems Publications:

Ewel, J. J., J. Mascaro, C. Kueffer, A. E. Lugo, L. Lach, & M. R. Gardener. 2013. Islands: Where novelty is the norm. pp. 29-44 in: R. J. Hobbs, E. S. Higgs, and C. M. Hall (eds.) Novel Ecosystems: Intervening in the New Ecological World Order. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. NY

Ewel, J. J. 2013. Case study: Hole-in-the-donut, Everglades. pp. 11-15 in: R. J. Hobbs, E. S. Higgs, and C. M. Hall (eds.) Novel Ecosystems: Intervening in the New Ecological World Order. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. NY

Ewel, J. J. 1987. Restoration is the ultimate test of ecological theory. pp. 31-33 in: W. R. Jordan, M. E. Gilpin, and J. D. Aber (eds.). Restoration Ecology.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.

Ewel, J. 1986. Invasibility: Lessons from South Florida. Chapt. 13, pp. 214-230 in: H. Mooney and J. Drake (eds.). Ecology of Biological Invasions of North America and Hawaii. Springer-Verlag, N. Y.

Ewel, J., D. Ojima & W. Debusk. 1981. Ecology of a successful exotic tree in the Everglades. Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Scientific Research in the National Parks. 8: 419-422. U.S.D.I., National Park Service, Washington, D.C.

Ewel, J., D. Ojima & W. Debusk. 1981. Seed fluxes among Everglades ecosystems. Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Scientific Research in the National Parks. 11: 96-98. U.S.D.I., National Park Service, Washington, D.C.

Ewel, J. 1979. Ecology of Schinus. pp. 7-21 in R. Workman (ed.) Technical Proceedings of Schinus Workshop. Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Sanibel, Florida.

Ewel, J. & L. Conde. 1979. Seeds in soils of former Everglades farmlands. pp. 225-234 in R. Linn (ed.) Proceedings of the Conference on Scientific Research in the National Parks, Vol. 1. U.S.D.I., Washington, D. C.