Ramon Margalef

Infobox Scientist
name = Ramon Margalef
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caption = Ramon Margalef
birth_date = 1919
birth_place = Barcelona
death_date = 2004
death_place = Barcelona
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nationality = Spain
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work_institutions = University of Barcelona
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Ramon Margalef i López (Barcelona 1919 - 2004) was Emeritus Professor of Ecology at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona. Margalef, unquestionably one of the most important scientists that Spain has produced, worked at the Institute of Applied Biology (1946-1951), and at the Fisheries Research Institute, which he directed during 1966-1967. He created the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona, from where he trained a huge number of ecologists, limnologists and oceanographers. In 1967 he became Spain's first professor of ecology.

In the late 1950s, with the translation into English of his inaugural lecture as a member of the Barcelona Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences "Information Theory in Ecology", he gained a worldwide audience. Another groundbreaking article, "On certain unifying principles in ecology", published in American Naturalist in 1963, and his book "Perspectives in Ecological Theory" (1968), based on his guest lectures at the University of Chicago, consolidated him as one of the leading thinkers of modern ecology.

Some of his most important work includes the application of Information Theory to ecological studies and the creation of mathematical models for the study of populations. Among his books, the most relevant are: Natural Communities (1962), Perspectives In Ecological Theory (1968), Ecology (1974), The Biosphere (1980), Limnology (1983) and Theory of Ecological Systems (1991). He received many scientific awards, including the first edition of the Huntsman Award (the «Nobel» in oceanography), the Naumann-Thienemann for Limnology, the Ramón y Cajal Award, and the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government).

ee also

*Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology and Environmental Sciences

External links

* [http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1139-67092004000300010&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en Biographical page "in memoriam" to Ramon Margalef]
* [http://www.gencat.net/premiramonmargalef/eng/biografia.htm Biographical page at Ramon Margalef Prize website]
* [http://www.icm.csic.es/bio/personal/fpeters/margalef/ Most of Margalef's scientific papers as PDFs; pictures; awards...]
* [http://www.bib.ub.edu/recursos-informacio/colleccions/colleccions-especials/margalef/ Special Collection: Ramon Margalef] (University of Barcelona Library)