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Dr. William J. Ripple
Spirit of Defenders Award for Science
For the 2009 Spirit of Defenders Award for Science, Defenders is delighted to honor Dr. William (Bill) Ripple, whose pioneering research on predator, prey and plant relationships has offered ecosystem managers and public policy makers new ways to think about ecosystem restoration.
Professor of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University (OSU), William Ripple is a leader in the study of “trophic cascades,” a revolutionary look at how the presence or absence of large predators affects prey, plants, and entire ecosystems. He began this work in an effort to understand the decline of aspen forests in Yellowstone National Park. Working with OSU colleague Dr. Robert Beschta, they found that, only four years after wolf reintroduction into the park, the predator’s presence had created a spectacular rebound of some stream-side ecosystems. Subsequently, over the past eight years, Ripple and Beschta have studied similar effects of wolf and cougar presence in six national parks and produced 20 articles describing the “cascades” phenomenon. Their conclusion is that predation risk – that is, the threat of predation in addition to it’s actual occurrence – may have profound effects on the structure of ecosystems, making it an important constituent of native biodiversity. This phenomenon is also know as “the ecology of fear”. Their work has been featured in National Geographic’s Strange Days on Planet Earth and in the new documentary film Lords of Nature: Living in a Land of Great Predators.
Dr. William Ripple received his undergraduate degree from South Dakota State University, a master’s degree from the University of Idaho, and his doctorate from Oregon State University.
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