Tansley, Arthur G.

Sir Arthur G. Tansley (1871-1955), a British botanist who first used the term “ecosystem” in a scientific publiction (1935). Apparently the term had been coined already in 1930 by Tansley's colleague Roy Clapham, who was asked if he could think of a suitable term to denote the physical and biological components of an environment considered in relation to each other as a unit. Tansley was a pioneer in the science of plant ecology; he coordinated a large project to map the vegetation of the British Isles, and in 1939 published The British Isles and Their Vegetation. Tansley was an instrumental figure in the formation of organizations devoted to the study of ecology and the protection of wildlife.