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Robert T. Paine (zoologist) Robert Treat "Bob" Paine III (April 13, 1933 – June 13, 2016) was an American ecologist who spent most of his career at the University of Washington. Paine coined the keystone species [1][2][3] concept to explain the relationship between Pisaster ochraceus, a species of starfish, and Mytilus californianus, a ...
A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance. The concept was introduced in 1969 by the zoologist Robert T. Paine. Keystone species play a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and ...
Pisaster ochraceus has been described as a keystone species. Experiments by zoologist Robert T. Paine in the 1960s demonstrated that a loss of only a few individual P. ochraceus seastars had a profound impact on mussel bed population, thereby reducing the health of the intertidal environment. [2]
Paine first established the concept of a keystone species by studying the sea star. Robert Paine (1969) first came up with the concept of a keystone species while studying the effects of the predatory sea star Pisaster ochraceus, on the abundance of the herbivorous gastropod, Tegula funebralis.
Robert T. Paine did experiments in 1966 [9] with Pisaster ochraceus which illustrated their role as a keystone species in regulating Mytilus californianus. [10] In this study, Paine observed that biodiversity and ecosystem persistence in intertidal zones were highly dependent upon sea star presence (Ceci, 2020).
By the 1960s, cultural and scientific understanding of ecosystems was changing attitudes toward the wolf and other large predators. In part, this included the emergence of Robert Paine's concept of the keystone species. In the early 1960s, Douglas Pimlott, a noted Canadian wildlife biologist was calling for the restorations of wolves in the ...
The keystone species concept was coined, in 1969, [4] by the zoologist Robert T. Paine, professor emeritus of the University of Washington, to explain the relationship between Pisaster ochraceus, a species of starfish, and Mytilus californianus. [5]
The concept of the keystone species was introduced in 1969 by the zoologist Robert T. Paine. [154] [155] Paine developed the concept to explain his observations and experiments on the relationships between marine invertebrates of the intertidal zone (between the high and low tide lines), including starfish and mussels.