Training University

John Pickering

Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia

*** ********** ******** ********, ******, GA 30602-2602

office phone: 706-***-**** cell phone: 706-***-****

email: ****@************.***; skype: johnpick69

homepage: www.discoverlife.org/who/Pickering,_John.html

Updated: 1 June, 2012

Education

Harvard University, Biology, A.M. 1976; Ph.D. 1980

University of Illinois, Honors Biology, B.S. 1973 (high departmental & university honors)

Appointments and Professional Experience

University of Georgia, Athens -- Faculty member

Odum School/Institute of Ecology, 1994-present

Department of Entomology, 1984-95

Institute of Bioinformatics, member, 2006-present

University of California, Berkeley

Postgraduate Research Entomologist, Div. of Biological Control, 1982-84

Research Associate, Div. of Entomology & Parasitology, 1981-82

Miller Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Entomological Sciences, 1979-81

Awards

Green Champion, Go Green Alliance, University of Georgia, 2010

SMART initiative for outstanding efforts related to sustainability

(www.discoverlife.org/smart)

Mellon Senior Research Fellowship, 1996-98

Organization for Tropical Studies, Costa Rica

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama

Outstanding Upper Division Advisor Award, University of Georgia, 1996

Special Sandy Beaver Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Georgia, 1994

Outstanding Conference Paper Presentation, GRASS Users Conference, Berkeley, 1991

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, 1979-81

Predoctoral Fellowship, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, 1976-77Richmond Fellow, Harvard University, 1974-79

Bronze Tablet, University of Illinois, 1973Research

My goal is to understand changes in the diversity, abundance, distribution and dispersal

of all living things across local to global scales. Clearly, I cannot accomplish this

alone. Hence, the advent of Discover Life (www.discoverlife.org) -- a website with the

technology to enable an army of scientists, students and volunteers to work together,

study biodiversity and share information on a grand scale. For over a decade my almost

single-minded passion has been to build this interactive encyclopedia. Currently it and

its partner databases provide information on 1.2 million species. This website has had

1.25 billion hits. In May, 2012, it served 37 million pages and images to 376,000 IP

addresses. Its online tools include a global mapper (www.discoverlife.org/map) that

enables users to compare the distribution of 450,000 species across geographic scales.

I am broadly trained as a biologist. I specialize in the natural history of the

Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies), the epidemiology and virulence of

infections, and sex ratio theory. In addition to natural history research, I have worked

in public health and agriculture. My field methods include comparative inventories across

tropical and temperate sites and long-term monitoring of populations and communities in

response to environmental and experimental changes. My current focus is "Mothing" (see

http://www.discoverlife.org/moth). We photograph moths at lights before dawn every night

to document how communities change seasonally and across years in response to changes in

temperature, air quality and other variables.

Besides field and microscope work, my laboratory builds interactive guides to identify

species, integrates databases so that web users can easily map and share information, and

pioneers barcode technology to track museum specimens. I started programming computers in

1972 and have considerable experience in designing, building and running systems. My forte

is using unix, perl scripts and natural language processing to automate the integration of

databases from disparate sources and to serve them in composite pages on the web.

In 1991, my collaborators, students and I started the Insect Diversity Project to

quantify how climate, biogeography, habitat type, disturbance, land-use and landscape

fragmentation affect species abundance, diversity and trophic interactions within

ecosystems. We have collected over 300 trap-years of insect samples from 12 tropical and 8

temperate sites in the New World. Don Windsor and I have an on-going monitoring project

that has collected weekly Malaise trap samples from Barro Colorado Island, Panama, since

June, 1992. In total my lab has mounted and labelled over 300,000 individual insects and

is currently using digital photography to document more. By modelling data across sites,

we hope to answer how seasonality, El Nino cycles and other large-scale factors affect

community structure and diversity in time and space.

In 1997, I co-founded the Great Smoky Mountains National Park's All Taxa Biodiversity

Inventory -- a comprehesive study of species in the park. In 1998, I began Discover Life

to support biodiversity studies and serve as a general portal to natural history

information. In 2002, I co-founded the Polistes Foundation

(www.discoverlife.org/polistes), the mission of which is to assemble and share knowledge

about nature in order to improve education, health, agriculture, economic development, and

conservation throughout the world. This non-profit foundation is the legal umbrella of

Discover Life. In 2007, I co-founded the International Center for Public Health and

Environmental Research (PHER, www.discoverlife.org/research) to help advance our research

and educational goals. PHER is centered at the University of Georgia and has an

international team of over 75 associated scientists employed at other institutions. In

2009, I co-founded the Proceedings of Life. This publication will be online, interactive,

peer reviewed and free to all users. It will provide authors with a means to get academic

credit and a permanent scientific citation for building and maintaining high-quality

databases on the web. In 2011, I co-founded the Georgia Natural History Survey (see

http://www.discoverlife.org/gnhs).

Organizations

All Species Foundation, Advisor, 2000-2004

American Museum of Natural History, Visiting Scientist (research.amnh.org/iz/staff), 2009-

present

Biodiversity Science & Education Initiative, Smithsonian Institution, Executive

Committee,

2005-2007

CONABIO -- National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity of Mexico,

Scientific Advisory Committee, 2011-present

Discover Life in America, Board of Directors, 1998-2002; Chairman, 1998-1999

Encyclopedia of Life, Smithsonian Institution, Steering Committee, 2004-2005

E. O. Wilson Foundation, Technical advisor, 2007-present

Georgia ForestWatch, Board of Directors, 2000-2002

Harvard University, Schools and Scholarships Committee member, 2008-present

Polistes Corporation, President, 1999-present

Polistes Foundation (www.discoverlife.org/polistes), President & CEO, 2002-present

Recent Support (see www.discoverlife.org/pa/or/polistes/pr)

Hill, Robert. 2011. Liking lichens (and other biota): applying ecological knowledge to

Georgia's performance standards in science. Improving Teacher Quality State Grant Title

II,

(http://www.discoverlife.org/nh/cl/counts/Apoidea_species.html).

Ascher, J. S. and J. Pickering. 2011. Bee species guide (Hymenoptera: Apoidea:

Anthophila)

(www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?guide=Apoidea_species&flags=HAS:)

and World Checklist of

Bees (www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?act=x_checklist&guide=Apoidea_species).

Pages 458-467 in P. R. Gil, R. A. Mittermeier, C. G. Mittermeier, J. Pilgrim, G. Fonseca,

W. R. Konstant and T. Brooks (eds.), Wilderness -- Earth's Last Wild Places.

Conservational International. (www.discoverlife.org/co)

Theses Directed

Ayoub, Nadia A. 1999. Nocturnal and diurnal parasitoid (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) activity

in the forest canopy and understory on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Senior honors

thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens.

Bartlett, Ryan P. 1997. Diversity, phenology, and sex ratio of Pimplinae

(Hymenoptera:Ichneumonidae) on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Senior honors thesis, Univ.

of Georgia, Athens, 63pp.

Bartlett, R. P. 2000. Efficiency of collection methods and flight activity of

Ichneumonidae (Hymenoptera) in three sites in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. M. S. thesis, Univ.

of Georgia, Athens, 59pp. (graduate.gradsch.uga.edu/etdarchive/summer2000/rbartlettms.pdf)

Crawford, Kelly B. 1994. Biodiversity, abundance, and distribution of Rogadinae

(Hymenoptera: Braconidae) in a Panamanian tropical forest and North American temperate

habitats. Senior honors thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, 69pp.

Eckman, Hans J. 1992. Male selection in the treefrogs Hyla chrysoscelis and versicolor.

Senior honors thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, 30pp.

Gaasch, Christine M. 1996. Flight phenology and species distribution of parasitic wasps

in a heterogeneous landscape in Georgia's piedmont, with special reference to the

Ichneumoninae and Campopleginae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae). M. S. thesis, Univ. of

Georgia, Athens, 200pp.

Kay, Melanie J. 1994. Estimating the biodiversity of Rogas (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) in a

tropical moist forest in Panama using Malaise and light trap samples. Senior honors

thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, 61pp.

Lockard, Elizabeth I. 1995. Biodiversity and geographic distributions of parasitic

Hymenoptera (Ichneumonidae: Campopleginae and Ichneumoninae) along a latitudinal gradient

in eastern North America. M. S. thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, 233pp.

McGowan, Amy L. 1996. Diversity and seasonality of Aleiodes and Rogas (Hymenoptera:

Braconidae) in two Panamanian forests. Senior honors thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens,

103pp.

Middleton, Sarah M. 1994. Species richness and abundance of sawflies (Hymenoptera:

Symphyta) in different habitats along a latitudinal gradient from Panama to Canada. Senior

honors thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, 53pp.

Shapiro, Beth A. 1999. Rainfall and parasitic wasp (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonoidea) activity

in successional stages of two Neotropical forests: Barro Colorado Nature Monument, Panama.

and La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. M. S. thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens,

164pp.

Skillen, Elizabeth I. 2002. Diversity of parasitic Hymenoptera (Ichneumonidae:

Campopleginae and Ichneumoninae) in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and eastern North

American forests. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, 178pp.

Wayman, Linda D. 1994. Spatial distribution and sex ratios of parasitic Hymenoptera

(Ichneumonidae: Campopleginae and Ichneumoninae; Braconidae: Aphidius ervi) in a disturbed

Georgia piedmont landscape. M. S. thesis, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, 123pp.

Wright, Lisa M. 1995. Seasonality of the Ichneumonoidea and alate Formicidae in a

tropical moist forest at Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Senior honors thesis, Univ. of

Georgia, Athens, 85pp.

Teaching

University of Georgia (selected courses)

ECOL 3070 -- Environment and Humans, 2009-2011 (x3)

(evaluations: www.discoverlife.org/who/CV/Pickering,_John.3070_evaluations.2009_Fall.pdf

www.discoverlife.org/who/CV/Pickering,_John.3070_evaluations.2010_Fall.html)

ECOL 3500 -- General Ecology, 1986-2009 (x21)

ECOL 4110/6110 -- Insect Diversity, 1998-2009 (x7)

ECOL 4130L -- Ecological Methodology, 2005

ECOL 4950 -- Senior Seminar, 2011

ECOL 8170 -- Natural History of the Hymenoptera, 1999-2005 (x4)

FRES 1020-- Natural History seminar, 2001-2006 (x6)

(complete list: www.discoverlife.org/who/CV/Pickering,_John.teaching.html)

Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil

Ecologia de Insectos (Insect Ecology), 1991, (25 students)

2-week, 60 hour, lecture/field course

South African Agricultural Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa

Discover Life training workshop, 2002, (18 participants)

1-week, 40 hour, computer course

Charles Darwin Research Station, Galapagos Island, Ecuador

Discover Life training workshop, 2004, (12 participants)

1-week, 40 hour, computer course

ASEANET, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Discover Life training workshop, 2005, (18 participants)

2-week, 40 hour, computer course

Taiwan

Discover Life training, 2006

2-weeks of presentations and training workshops at multiple institutions

ASEANET, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Computer training workshop, 2007, (32 participants from 11 countries)

1-week course with Global Invasive Species Information Network

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