AASP Primary Records Program

Murray F. Buell

ESA Pres.

Eminent Ecol.

Memorial

Students

Bibliography

photo

ESA Bull. 42(4): 120, 1961.

PRESIDENT MURRAY F. BUELL

Our new President is professor of Botany and Director of the William L. Hutchinson Memorial Forest at Rutgers University. Born in New Haven Connecticut in 1906, he grew up in the New England states and received his Bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1930. His advanced degrees were received from the University of Minnesota, completing the M. A. in 1934 and the Ph. D. in 1935. Although his research was in the field of developmental morphology, the teaching of Dr. W. S. Cooper helped to stimulate an interest that has guided his research and teaching since leaving Minnesota. While a graduate student he married Helen Foot who completed her Doctor's degree in Algology at Minnesota. They have collaborated in a number of enterprises including several publications and the raising of two talented children.

Murray began his professional career at North Carolina State College in 1935. As instructor and later Assistant Professor, he initiated his research in ecology specializing in the vegetation and paleoecology of bogs. His published work on peat formation, fossil pollen and succession in the "Carolina Bays" as well as that on surface level fluctuations of Cedar Creek Bog in Minnesota were carried out during this period. In 1946 he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Botany at Rutgers University and attained the rank of Professor in 1956. Between 1937 and 1959 he served many summers on the staff of the University of Minnesota Biological Station. His interest in the vegetations of Minnesota and New Jersey has materialized as publications on the prairie forest margin, the conifer-hardwoods tension zone, effects of fire on and the hydrology of the New Jersey Pine Barrens and many other topics. His list of publications includes over 50 titles.

A dedicated conservationist, he has been instrumental in the setting aside of several important research preserves, one being the Wm. L. Hutchinson Memorial Forest which was chosen by Life Magazine to represent the "Woods of Home" in the series "The World We Live In".

As a teacher Murray Buell has few peers. A steady stream of undergraduate students has been flowing to graduate schools over the country as a result of stimulation derived from the ecology and geoecology courses initiated at Rutgers by him. Graduate students who received their advanced training there are sprinkled liberally over the country with a wide variety of research interests but uniformly showing the mark of this stimulating professor.

Other facets of this productive scientist are his contributions to professional and governmental organizations Examples are: Associate Editor of ECOLOGY 1948-50; Secretary, Ecological Society 1950-53; Vice-president 1954-55; Associate Editor of ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS 1953-56; Editor of TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB MEMOIRS 1958 ; Editorial Board TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB BULLETIN 1951 -; President, Torrey Botanical Club 1954; Council Member of Nature Conservancy 1960-62; AAAS Council 1953-56; and N.S.F. Panel on Environmental Biology 1955-58.

Although quiet both by nature and his early New England training, Murray Buell has a lively sense of humor, a personal warmth and a deep and understanding interest in people that make for warm and lasting friendships. I feel privileged to welcome our new President and take pleasure in introducing him to those members who have not already met him.

ESA Bull. 51(4): 11, 1970.

Eminent Ecologist 1970
Murray F. Buell

The eminent Ecologist for 1970 is a man who may well have influenced the professional ecological lives of a majority of those here tonight. Indeed he has been a major influence on the whole of ecology through his teaching, his research, his interest in public affairs and through his dedication to the Ecological Society of America.

He was reared in a liberal New England family, educated at the Loomis School, Cornell University and the University of Minnesota before beginning his professional career in North Carolina. There he made early contributions to palynology, paleoecology, and vegetation analysis. In 1946 he moved to a University where ecology was scarcely known and where today through his major influence you find one of the leading centers of ecology.

Our Eminent Ecologist of 1970 has pioneered ecological research in several directions long before their relevance, impact, and popular appeal were known. Two decades ago he and his students studied public park ecosystems and the impact of people on these systems. At this same time and for the intervening years he has directed inter- disciplinary research in hydrobiology and prescribed burning of forest ecosystems. For several years now he has had a large group of graduate students investigating the impact of urbanization and industrial pollution on ecosystem functions. In fact, his production of scholars in ecology has been so great that many laboratories in the nation bear the imprint of his students. There are many both in and out of Ecological Society of America who have benefited from his inspired, single-minded dedication to ecology.

He has served over the years in many, if not all, of the major elected and appointed offices of the Ecological Society. His influence was strongly felt in drafting our present Constitution and Bylaws and, in fact, he established the Eminent Ecology Award itself. He has been active, in a quiet way, in political and public matters where his ecological knowledge could lead to wiser public decisions. He pioneered the use of ecological knowledge in the courts of our land long before the more recent, elaborate and successful activities of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Finally, we all must agree that tonight we honor a liberal scholar and a quiet, patient, gentle man. Each of us can aspire to be as respected, as warm, as dedicated to the profession of ecology and as completely successful as is our EMINENT ECOLOGIST FOR 1970 - Dr. Murray F. Buell.

Paul Pearson
F. Herbert Bormann

ESA Bull. 56(4): 26, 1975.

Murray F. Buell

Murray F. Buell died July 2, 1975 while on a field trip in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. He had recently assumed the leadership of a natural resource study, and at the time of his death was actively engaged in activities that delighted him throughout his lifetime: working with students, studying vegetation, and advancing the cause of conservation.

Murray Buell's influence on ecology was deep, constant and long sustained. This quiet, patient scholar was reared in a liberal New England family, and studied at the Loomis School, Cornell University, and the University of Minnesota. After studying under W. S. Cooper, he started his professional career at North Carolina State University in 1935. There he began his notable work on the paleoecology of bogs, plant succession, and tension zones between vegetation types. In 1947, he moved to Rutgers University where he eventually became Professor of Botany and Director of the William L. Hutcheson Forest. He devoted great effort in setting aside this forest and in making it into a major ecological study area and one of the best studied woods in North America. Well before it was fashionable, he initiated important studies linking ecology to land-use management. Two decades ago he and his students studied the impact of people on park ecosystems, investigated the ecology of power line right of ways and the use of fire on forest and hydrologic management. He also made intensive studies of the structure and dynamics of vegetation in and around New Jersey, and now the State is among the best known ecological regions in North America. Among his last works is the book Vegetation of New Jersey coauthored with Beryl Robichaud.

After his retirement from Rutgers in 1971 he served as a visiting professor of ecology at Yale, the University of Minnesota, Georgia, Arizona, California Davis, California Santa Barbara, Montana and Colorado State.

Perhaps Murray Buell's greatest impact on ecology was achieved as a teacher. A gentle and thoughtful man, he was considerate of his students, yet demanding of excellence. His influence on undergraduates resulted in a steady stream of students flowing to graduate schools, while the ecology program he initiated at Rutgers attracted scores of students from throughout North America. In Murray Buell they found a stimulating teacher concerned not only about the study of ecology, but about them as individuals. His life touched many hundreds of North American ecologists through the Rutgers Ecology Seminar that he initiated and sponsored. In the many summers he taught at the University of Minnesota's Lake Itasca Biological Station, he recognized exceptionally promising young students. Often the fortunate person was hired as an assistant, transported across the country in his car, fed chicken dinners and given a thorough introduction to life as a field ecologist. A summer at Itasca was the beginning for at least a half dozen current full professors of Ecology. Murray Buell's relationship with his students did not end with the award of a diploma. He actively followed their careers, acted as a sounding board for ideas and decisions, and provided wise counsel when asked.

No recounting of Murray Buell's career could be complete without mention of his wife, Dr. Helen Foot Buell. Murray and Helen Buell worked as a team and between them maintained a lively and inquisitive interest in all things around them. Many of us were fortunate to pass through their sphere of interest.

Murray Buell labored long and hard for the Ecological Society of America. He served as Associate Editor of Ecology and Ecological Monographs, Secretary, Vice President and as President in 1961-62. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the ESA Awards Committee. Less obvious, but nonetheless important, was his contribution to the drafting of the new constitution and bylaws of the ESA and his contribution to the early development of the Institute of Ecology. For his multifaceted contributions to ecology, Murray F. Buell was named Eminent Ecologist by the Society in 1971.

The loss of this scholar is great, but there is some satisfaction in knowing that Murray Buell died while fully active and in pursuit of the things he loved.

F. Herbert Bormann
Paul G. Pearson

List of Paleoecology Graduate Students
Murray F. Buell
provided by Allen M. Solomon
June 25, 2003

Calvin Heusser

Partial Bibliography of Palynology and Paleoecology Papers of
Murray F. Buell
provided by Allen M. Solomon
June 25, 2003

Pinus banksiana

AASP Primary Records Program

PRESIDENT MURRAY F. BUELL

Eminent Ecologist 1970 Murray F. Buell

Murray F. Buell

Eminent Ecologist 1970
Murray F. Buell