Edward Osborne Wilson (1929 – )
American zoologist and behavioral and evolutionary biologist

Edward Osborne Wilson was born on June 10, 1929, in Birmingham, Alabama, and is one of the foremost authorities on the ecology , systematics, and evolution of the ant.

Wilson developed an interest in nature and the outdoors at an early age. Growing up in rural, south Alabama, near the border of Florida, young Wilson earned the nickname "Snake" Wilson by having collected most of the 40 snake species found in that part of the country. He began studying ants after an accident impaired his vision and has been studying them for over 50 years, having progressed from amateur to expert with relative swiftness. His formal training in the biological sciences resulted in his receiving the Bachelor of Science degree in 1949 and Master of Science in 1950 from the University of Alabama. He received his Ph.D. in 1955 from Harvard University.

Wilson's work on ants has taken him all over the world on numerous scientific expeditions. He has discovered several new species of these social insects, whose current tally of named species numbers nearly 9,000. Wilson estimates, however, that there are probably closer to 20,000 species in the world, and those species comprise over a million billion individuals. Much of his work on this fascinating group of insects have been synthesized and published in a monumental book he co-authored with Bert Hölldobler in 1990, simply entitled The Ants.

Besides hundreds of scientific papers and articles, Wilson has published several other books that have been the focus of much attention in the scientific community. In 1967, Robert H. MacArthur, a renowned ecologist, and Wilson published The Theory of Island Biogeography, a work dealing with island size and the number of species that can occur on them. The book also examines the evolutionary equilibrium reached by those populations, the implications of which have been more recently applied to the loss of species through tropical deforestation . In 1975, Wilson published his most controversial book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, in which he discussed human behavior based on the social structure of ants. His book On Human Nature, also relating sociobiology and human evolution, earned him a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1979. Biophilia won him popular acclaim in 1984, as have his more recent books dealing with the threats to the vast diversity of species on earth, Biodiversity, published in 1988, and The Diversity of Life, published in 1992. Wilson again won the Pulitzer for General Non-fiction in 1991 for his work The Ants. He was also awarded the 1997 Earthwatch Global Citizen Award, the 1998 Zoological Society of San Diego Conservation Medal and 100 Champions of Conservation, 20th Century by the National Audubon Society (1998). Wilson was named Humanist of the Year in 1999 by the American Humanist Association.

[Eugene C. Beckham ]

RESOURCES

BOOKS

Hölldobler, B., and E. Wilson. The Ants. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1990.

Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984.

———. The Diversity of Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

———. Insect Societies. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971.

——. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1975.

PERIODICALS

Lessen, D. "Dr. Ant." International Wildlife 21 (1991): 30–34.