Samuel Joseph McNaughton (born August 10, 1939) was an American

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

. He received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

University of Texas-Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1964, and was tenured to

in 1966.

Research

Sam McNaughton is mainly known for his studies of

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

–

herbivore A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...

interactions and consequences of herbivory to

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

s. His focus is on ecosystem metabolism. His team’s research concentrates on these processes and, particularly, the coupling between trophic levels in ecosystems. He was mainly interested in ecosystems where large mammals are significant members of the food web, and how those mammals interact with energy flow and nutrient cycling. The focus of his team’s field studies was Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, east Africa. It is a grazing ecosystem with Earth's largest concentration of such mammals. Previous locations of research fields have included Yellowstone National Park in the USA, the Galapagos Islands, and southern Kenya. He has spent more than thirty years of exploring the interactions between

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...

and communities of wild grazers in the grasslands of

Serengeti National Park The Serengeti National Park is a large national park in northern Tanzania that stretches over . It is located entirely in eastern Mara Region and north east portion of Simiyu Region and contains over of virgin savanna. The park was established in ...

. He has also studied differentiation and geographical distributions of

ecotype In evolutionary ecology, an ecotype,Greek: ''οίκος'' = home and ''τύπος'' = type, coined by Göte Turesson in 1922 sometimes called ecospecies, describes a genetically distinct geographic variety, population, or race within a species, ...

s in

Typha ''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in A ...

. His team’s research has documented the patchy distribution of essential minerals and the importance of "critical" habitats where limiting minerals are in sufficient quantity in soils and plants to meet the nutritional needs of growing young animals and pregnant or lactating females. Current research is documenting the response of vegetation, microbes, and animals to supplemental nitrogen, and how the cycles of different minerals interact. He was given the Eminent Ecologist Award for 2004 by Ecological Society of America.

Personal life

Born August 10, 1939 Died January 18, 2024 Married – Margaret McNaughton 2 Children Schooling:- Ph.D., University of Texas-Austin, 1964 Postdoctoral Work Stanford University, 1965-1966 Work Background: (1992–2024) Syracuse University, William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Science (1966-1992) Syracuse University, Assistant and Associate Professor (1964-1965) Portland State College, Assistant Professor

Important Papers

Four Older Papers Each Cited Over 100 Times: McNaughton, S. J. 1979. Grazing as an optimization process: grass-ungulate relationships in the Serengeti. Am. Nat. 113: 691-703. McNaughton, S. J. 1976. Serengeti migratory wildebeest: facilitation of energy flow by grazing. Science191:92-94. McNaughton, S. J., and L. L. Wolf. 1970. Dominance and the niche in ecological systems. Science 167: 131-139. McNaughton, S. J. 1966. Ecotype function in the Typha community-type. Ecol. Monogr. 36: 297-325.

References

- McNaughton, S. J. 1979. Grazing as an optimization process: grass-ungulate relationships in the Serengeti. Am. Nat. 113: 691-703. - McNaughton, S. J. 1976. Serengeti migratory wildebeest: facilitation of energy flow by grazing. Science191:92-94. - McNaughton, S. J., and L. L. Wolf. 1970. Dominance and the niche in ecological systems. Science 167: 131-139. - McNaughton, S. J. 1966. Ecotype function in the Typha community-type. Ecol. Monogr. 36: 297-325. {{DEFAULTSORT:McNaughton, Samuel J. American ecologists Living people 1939 births Fellows of the Ecological Society of America Syracuse University alumni University of Texas at Austin alumni Syracuse University faculty