Cox, George W. 1935- (George Wyatt Cox)

PERSONAL:

Born February 10, 1935, in Williamson, WV; son of Ira F.J. and Edna D. Cox; married Carolyn C. Kay, December 21, 1957 (divorced, 1969); married Darla G. Bell (a school administrator), June 4, 1969; children: Daniel Robert, David William. Education: Ohio Wesleyan University, A.B. (with honors), 1956; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, M.S., 1958, Ph.D., 1960.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Santa Fe, NM. E-mail—geowcox@hughes.net.

CAREER:

University of Alaska, College, assistant professor of biology, 1960-61; California Western University (now U.S. International University), San Diego, assistant professor of biology, 1961-62; San Diego State University, San Diego, assistant professor, 1962-66, associate professor, 1966-69, professor of biology, 1969-96. National Science Foundation, director of ecology program, 1978-79; Ecology, member of board of editors.

MEMBER:

American Ornithologists Union, Ecological Society of America, Society for Conservation Biology, Sigma Xi.

WRITINGS:

Laboratory Manual of General Ecology, W.C. Brown (Dubuque, IA), 1967, 8th edition, 2002.

(Editor) Readings in Conservation Ecology, Appleton-Century-Crofts (New York, NY), 1969, 2nd edition, 1974.

(With B.D. Collier, A.W. Johnson, and P.H. Miller) Dynamic Ecology, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1973.

(And narrator) Biosphere and Biosurvival (television series), KPBS-TV (San Diego, CA), 1974-75, study guide (with wife, D.G. Cox) Palomar Community College (San Marcos, CA), 1976.

(With Michael D. Atkins) Agricultural Ecology: An Analysis of World Food Production Systems, W.H. Freeman (San Francisco, CA), 1979.

Conservation Ecology: Biosphere and Biosurvival, W.C. Brown (Dubuque, IA), 1993.

Conservation Biology: Concepts and Applications, W.C. Brown (Dubuque, IA), 1997.

Alien Species in North America and Hawaii: Impacts on Natural Ecosystems, Island Press (Washington, DC), 1999.

Alien Species and Evolution: The Evolutionary Ecology of Exotic Plants, Animals, Microbes, and Interacting Native Species, Island Press (Washington, DC), 2004.

Contributor to scientific journals and popular science magazines.

SIDELIGHTS:

George W. Cox once told CA: "Entering the field of ecology in 1960, I found myself not only in a field that was growing in scientific capability, but also in one that was capturing strong public concern. My interests in theoretical ecology have led me into field studies in Alaska, Central America and the Caribbean, all five of the world's areas of Mediterranean climate, and, more recently, East Africa. Regions of Mediterranean climate, like that of Southern California, have intrigued me because of the combination of striking similarities and subtle differences between California and the other regions: the European Mediterranean, central Chile, the South African Cape, and parts of Australia. East Africa has proved to be the most fascinating area in which I have carried out field work; in a real sense, this area presents a picture of the interrelations of man and nature over the whole of human evolution.

"My concern with the application of ecological principles to man, which also arose in the 1960s, has led me to examine the science of agriculture from an ecological perspective, and, most recently, to consider the important questions of conservation of wildlife and natural diversity. Ecology has been a field in constant change since I was first introduced to it in the 1950's, and I expect new and important focuses of this rapidly maturing branch of science to continue to emerge."