Evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen has just died (1935-2010).I'm currently writing a paper in which I use the Ecological Species Concept originated by Van Valen in a paper from 1976 with my favorite title of all time: Ecological species, multispecies, and oaks. It's a great paper with a fabulous title.
Van Valen also invented the famous Red Queen hypothesis to explain co-evolving systems.
I'm so so sorry to hear this--what a loss. And he was only 5 years older than my dad. A moment of silence for a great biologist...
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