E. Lucy Braun
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 April 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 June 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0218
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 April 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 June 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0218
Introduction
Emma Lucy Braun (b. 1889–d. 1971) was one of the more influential plant ecologists of the 20th century. She is known primarily for her seminal book, Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America, first published in 1950 with later facsimile reprintings. Although this book tends to overshadow her other accomplishments, those contributions to the fields of plant ecology and taxonomy are quite notable and considerable in themselves; she was a pioneer in conservation biology, she published numerous papers in prominent ecological journals (including Ecology, Ecological Monographs, and Botanical Review), and she was a distinguished plant taxonomist (author of The Woody Plants of Ohio). She actively contributed to and was a member of several notable scientific and ecological societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Ecological Society of America, the Botanical Society of America, the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, and the British Ecological Society. The broad biogeographic range of her interests contrasts with the provinciality of her academic pedigree; she was educated, and then a long-standing faculty member, at the University of Cincinnati, her city of birth. Beginning with the degrees of B.A. (1910?), M.A. (1912), and Ph.D. (1914). She was appointed assistant and instructor of botany in 1914 and rose through the ranks to full professor of botany. She retired as professor emerita in 1948, although her retirement years were remarkably productive with the publication of three books and several noteworthy papers. In 1950, she became the first woman president of the Ecological Society of America and the only woman to hold that office until 1986. With graduate research experience in both geology (M.A.) and botany (Ph.D.), she was one of the earlier in the field to not only embrace the multidisciplinary nature of ecology, but also use it to advance the field. In addition to her earned degrees, she was awarded an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Cincinnati in 1964.
Biographies
Several biographical accounts offer keen insights into E. Lucy Braun’s personal and academic life. The earliest of such is Stuckey 1973, published shortly after her death in 1971. It begins largely as an obituary, but develops into a well-detailed chronology of her early life, education, and contributions to the varied fields of plant ecology, floristics and taxonomy, phytogeography, and conservation. Langenheim 1988 places Braun’s career within a genealogy of women ecologists from the 1950s to the 1980s. Acknowledging Braun’s University of Cincinnati roots, Langenheim appropriately places Braun within Henry Chandler Cowles’s Chicago School of Physiographic Ecology. Grinstein, et al. 1997 included Braun among sixty-five women from numerous eras (deceased or born before 1931) who have contributed notably to the field of biology. Ogilvie and Harvey 2000, a brief biographical entry on Braun, is given in a biographical dictionary covering contributions of women to science from ancient times to the mid-20th century. The most extensive biography of Braun is clearly Stuckey 2001. Published on the thirtieth anniversary of her passing, this work is organized into three parts. Part 1 is largely a reprinting of Stuckey 1973, along with a personal account from a student. Part 2 reprints five of Braun’s most important papers, with a particular focus on the flora of parts of Ohio and the ecology of prairies of unglaciated regions of the state. Part 3 is a reprinting of four guide books on prairie preserves in Adams County, Ohio. As part of its 2015 centennial, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) commissioned a centennial history of the society, Egerton 2015, which included a detailed entry on Braun describing her long association with ESA and highlighting her service as its first woman president.
Egerton, Frank N. 2015. A centennial history of the Ecological Society of America. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
DOI: 10.1201/b18493
An excellent summary of the first one hundred years of the ESA, the largest ecological organization in the world, with an entry for Braun among the past presidents, emphasizing her distinction as the Society’s first woman president.
Grinstein, Louise S., Carol A. Biermann, and Rose K. Rose, eds. 1997. Women in the biological sciences: A biobibliographic sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
A compendium of short biographies of sixty-five women from several countries through many eras who have gained recognition in biology, with an informative entry on Braun.
Langenheim, Jean H. 1988. Address of the past president: Davis, California, August 1988: The path and progress of American women ecologists. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 69:184–197.
A clear, succinct account of the prominence of women in the field of ecology, with a genealogy of these women with respect to their academic lineage that places Braun in Henry Chandler Cowles’s Chicago School of Physiographic Ecology.
Ogilvie, Marilyn, and Joy Harvey, eds. 2000. The biographical dictionary of women in science: Pioneering lives from ancient times to the mid-20th century. Vol. 1. London: Routledge.
An expansive, two-volume biographical dictionary of more than 3,000 women across the millennia; includes an entry on Braun.
Stuckey, Ronald L. 1973. E. Lucy Braun (1889–1971), outstanding botanist and conservationist: A biographical sketch with bibliography. The Michigan Botanist 12:83–106.
The first biographical account of Braun’s life and career, highlighting her significant contributions to a variety of areas (plant ecology, and well beyond) and including a complete bibliography of her publications.
Stuckey, Ronald L. 2001. E. Lucy Braun (1889–1971): Ohio’s foremost woman botanist; her studies of prairies and their physiographic relationships. Columbus, OH: RLS Creations.
The definitive biography of the personal and academic life of Braun, including the author’s earlier entry in The Michigan Botanist (Stuckey 1973), with a strong emphasis on her work with prairies.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Accounting for Ecological Capital
- Adaptive Radiation
- Agroecology
- Allelopathy
- Allocation of Reproductive Resources in Plants
- Animals, Functional Morphology of
- Animals, Reproductive Allocation in
- Animals, Thermoregulation in
- Antarctic Environments and Ecology
- Anthropocentrism
- Applied Ecology
- Approaches and Issues in Historical Ecology
- Aquatic Conservation
- Aquatic Nutrient Cycling
- Archaea, Ecology of
- Assembly Models
- Autecology
- Bacterial Diversity in Freshwater
- Benthic Ecology
- Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning
- Biodiversity, Dimensionality of
- Biodiversity, Marine
- Biodiversity Patterns in Agricultural Systms
- Biofuels
- Biogeochemistry
- Biological Chaos and Complex Dynamics
- Biological Rhythms
- Biome, Alpine
- Biome, Boreal
- Biome, Desert
- Biome, Grassland
- Biome, Savanna
- Biome, Tundra
- Biomes, African
- Biomes, East Asian
- Biomes, Mountain
- Biomes, North American
- Biomes, South Asian
- Biophilia
- Braun, E. Lucy
- Bryophyte Ecology
- Butterfly Ecology
- Carson, Rachel
- Chemical Ecology
- Classification Analysis
- Coastal Dune Habitats
- Coevolution
- Communicating Ecology
- Communities and Ecosystems, Indirect Effects in
- Communities, Top-Down and Bottom-Up Regulation of
- Community Concept, The
- Community Ecology
- Community Genetics
- Community Phenology
- Competition and Coexistence in Animal Communities
- Competition in Plant Communities
- Complexity Theory
- Conservation Biology
- Conservation Genetics
- Coral Reefs
- Darwin, Charles
- Dead Wood in Forest Ecosystems
- Decomposition
- De-Glaciation, Ecology of
- Dendroecology
- Disease Ecology
- Dispersal
- Drought as a Disturbance in Forests
- Early Explorers, The
- Earth’s Climate, The
- Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics
- Ecological Dynamics in Fragmented Landscapes
- Ecological Education
- Ecological Engineering
- Ecological Forecasting
- Ecological Informatics
- Ecological Relevance of Speciation
- Ecology, Introductory Sources in
- Ecology, Microbial (Community)
- Ecology of Emerging Zoonotic Viruses
- Ecology of the Atlantic Forest
- Ecology, Stochastic Processes in
- Ecosystem Ecology
- Ecosystem Engineers
- Ecosystem Multifunctionality
- Ecosystem Services
- Ecosystem Services, Conservation of
- Ecotourism
- Elton, Charles
- Endophytes, Fungal
- Energy Flow
- Environmental Anthropology
- Environmental Justice
- Environments, Extreme
- Ethics, Ecological
- European Natural History Tradition
- Evolutionarily Stable Strategies
- Facilitation and the Organization of Communities
- Fern and Lycophyte Ecology
- Fire Ecology
- Fishes, Climate Change Effects on
- Flood Ecology
- Food Webs
- Foraging Behavior, Implications of
- Foraging, Optimal
- Forests, Temperate Coniferous
- Forests, Temperate Deciduous
- Freshwater Invertebrate Ecology
- Genetic Considerations in Plant Ecological Restoration
- Genomics, Ecological
- Geoecology
- Geographic Range
- Gleason, Henry
- Grazer Ecology
- Greig-Smith, Peter
- Gymnosperm Ecology
- Habitat Selection
- Harper, John L.
- Harvesting Alternative Water Resources (US West)
- Heavy Metal Tolerance
- Heterogeneity
- Himalaya, Ecology of the
- Host-Parasitoid Interactions
- Human Ecology
- Human Ecology of the Andes
- Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence
- Hutchinson, G. Evelyn
- Indigenous Ecologies
- Industrial Ecology
- Insect Ecology, Terrestrial
- Invasive Species
- Island Biogeography Theory
- Island Biology
- Keystone Species
- Kin Selection
- Landscape Dynamics
- Landscape Ecology
- Laws, Ecological
- Legume-Rhizobium Symbiosis, The
- Leopold, Aldo
- Lichen Ecology
- Life History
- Limnology
- Literature, Ecology and
- MacArthur, Robert H.
- Mangrove Zone Ecology
- Marine Fisheries Management
- Marine Subsidies
- Mass Effects
- Mathematical Ecology
- Mating Systems
- Maximum Sustainable Yield
- Metabolic Scaling Theory
- Metacommunity Dynamics
- Metapopulations and Spatial Population Processes
- Microclimate Ecology
- Mimicry
- Movement Ecology, Modeling and Data Analysis in
- Multiple Stable States and Catastrophic Shifts in Ecosyste...
- Mutualisms and Symbioses
- Mycorrhizal Ecology
- Natural History Tradition, The
- Networks, Ecological
- Niche Versus Neutral Models of Community Organization
- Niches
- Nutrient Foraging in Plants
- Ocean Sprawl
- Oceanography, Microbial
- Odum, Eugene and Howard
- Old Fields
- Ordination Analysis
- Organic Agriculture, Ecology of
- Paleoecology
- Paleolimnology
- Parental Care, Evolution of
- Pastures and Pastoralism
- Patch Dynamics
- Patrick, Ruth
- Peatlands
- Phenotypic Plasticity
- Phenotypic Selection
- Philosophy, Ecological
- Phylogenetics and Comparative Methods
- Physics, Ecology and
- Physiological Ecology of Nutrient Acquisition in Animals
- Physiological Ecology of Photosynthesis
- Physiological Ecology of Water Balance in Terrestrial Anim...
- Physiological Ecology of Water Balance in Terrestrial Plan...
- Plant Blindness
- Plant Disease Epidemiology
- Plant Ecological Responses to Extreme Climatic Events
- Plant-Insect Interactions
- Polar Regions
- Pollination Ecology
- Population Dynamics, Density-Dependence and Single-Species
- Population Dynamics, Methods in
- Population Ecology, Animal
- Population Ecology, Plant
- Population Fluctuations and Cycles
- Population Genetics
- Population Viability Analysis
- Populations and Communities, Dynamics of Age- and Stage-St...
- Predation and Community Organization
- Predation, Sublethal
- Predator-Prey Interactions
- Radioecology
- Reductionism Versus Holism
- Religion and Ecology
- Remote Sensing
- Restoration Ecology
- Rewilding
- Ricketts, Edward Flanders Robb
- Sclerochronology
- Secondary Production
- Seed Ecology
- Senescence
- Serpentine Soils
- Shelford, Victor
- Simulation Modeling
- Socioecology
- Soil Biogeochemistry
- Soil Ecology
- Spatial Pattern Analysis
- Spatial Patterns of Species Biodiversity in Terrestrial En...
- Spatial Scale and Biodiversity
- Species Distribution Modeling
- Species Extinctions
- Species Responses to Climate Change
- Species-Area Relationships
- Stability and Ecosystem Resilience, A Below-Ground Perspec...
- Stoichiometry, Ecological
- Stream Ecology
- Succession
- Sustainable Development
- Systematic Conservation Planning
- Systems Ecology
- Tansley, Sir Arthur
- Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycle
- Terrestrial Resource Limitation
- Territoriality
- Theory and Practice of Biological Control
- Thermal Ecology of Animals
- Tragedy of the Commons
- Transient Dynamics
- Trophic Levels
- Tropical Humid Forest Biome
- Urban Ecology
- Urban Forest Ecology
- Vegetation Classification
- Vegetation Dynamics, Remote Sensing of
- Vegetation Mapping
- Vicariance Biogeography
- Weed Ecology
- Wetland Ecology
- Whittaker, Robert H.
- Wildlife Ecology