Don G. Despain
{{Short description|American botanist (1940–2022)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Don G. Despain
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| birth_date = December 21, 1940
| birth_place = Lovell, Wyoming, US
| death_date = {{death date and age |2022|05|23 |1940|12|21}}
| death_place = Billings, Montana, US
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| fields = Botany
| workplaces = Yellowstone National Park
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| alma_mater = University of Wyoming
Arizona State University
University of Alberta
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| known_for = scientific research understanding the place of wildfires in natural ecology
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Don Gardner Despain (December 21, 1940 – May 23, 2022) was an American botanist, plant ecologist and fire behavior specialist, who specialized in the flora of Yellowstone National Park, and how wildfires affected natural ecology.{{cite news|url=https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/opinion/columnists/the_new_west_todd_wilkinson/yellowstone-fire-guru-ponders-88-and-now/article_2b886c94-6f04-58ea-9eb4-bfc05788a7e6.html|title=Yellowstone fire guru ponders '88 and now|date=April 1, 2015|author=Wilkinson, Todd|work=Jackson Hole News & Guide}} He spent over 20 years carefully investigating the effects of the Yellowstone fires of 1988 and how trees such as aspens were affected.
Biography
Despain was born in 1940 in Lovell, Wyoming, the oldest of five children to Daniel Gordon Despain and Lillian Gardner. He attended Lovell High School and then studied at the University of Wyoming, receiving a B.S. in Botany in 1965. He did graduate work at the University of Arizona, receiving an M.S. in plant ecology in 1967, and then a PhD in Plant Ecology from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1972. His post-doctoral work was done on Devon Island in the Arctic.{{cite web|url=https://smithfuneralchapels.com/book-of-memories/4943669/Despain-Don/index.php?fbclid=IwAR2I2Yt-3FMptSGcIHJPaTXIX-HvQiDO6EnH4tWW7y-SFuUP0lkdXMN-Vh8|publisher=Smith Funeral Chapels|accessdate=June 15, 2022|title=Don Gardner Despain - Obituary}}
In the mid 1980s, he was the President of the Wyoming Native Plant Society, and Vice-president for the Biological Section at the Montana Academy of Science. From 1998 to 1999, he was vice-president of the scientific research society Sigma Xi from 1998 to 1999, and President from 1999 to 2001.
From 1971 to 2006, he was a research biologist with the National Park Service in Yellowstone National Park, and was instrumental in generating the fire management plans in use by the park since 1972.{{cite news|title=Aspen thrive in aftermath of park fires|date=August 10, 1993|work=Billings Gazette|author=Bellinghausen, Pat}} He generated a vegetation map of the park and did extensive research in fire behavior, fire effects and landscape factors in fire spread, especially how the Yellowstone fires of 1988 affected the regrowth of aspens over the next decades.{{cite news|work=Salt Lake Tribune|date=August 21, 1994|title=The new Yellowstone: new life, new look and new lushness. Park is born again after fires of '88|author=Gorrell, Mike}}{{cite news|work=Billings Gazette|date=July 6, 2008|title=20 years after Yellowstone fires, ecosystem has largely recovered|author=French, Brett}} He also worked as an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, testing the utility of remote sensing systems for vegetation and fuels appraisal.
Despain retired in 2006 to Bozeman, Montana, but continued to stay active in research during his retirement. He died after a long illness on May 23, 2022, in Billings.
Selected writing
Despain wrote extensively on ecology in a variety of academic publications. A few are included below.
= As D.G. Despain =
- Field key to the flora of Yellowstone National Park, WY. 1975, Yellowstone National Park: Yellowstone Library and Museum Association.
- Fire as an ecological force in Yellowstone ecosystems (Information paper / Yellowstone National Park)
- Yellowstone vegetation: consequences of environment and history in a natural setting, 1990. Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart, Inc.
- Plants and their environments: Proceedings of the first biennial scientific conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, 1994. Denver, CO: National Park Service.
= With co-authors =
- Mayo, J. M.; Hartgerink, A. P.; Despain, D. G.; Thompson, R. G.; van Zinderen-Bakker, E. M. Jr.; Nelson, S. D. 1977. Gas exchange studies of Carex and Dryas, Truelove Lowland, Devon Island. InIn: Bliss, L. C. Truelove Lowland, Devon Island, Canada: a High Arctic Ecosystem. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: University of Alberta Press; p265-280.
- Despain, D. G.; Houston, D.; Meagher, M.; Schullery, P. 1986. Wildlife in transition, man and nature on Yellowstone's northern range. Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart, Inc.
- Despain, D.; Greenlee, J.; J. Parminter, T.; Sholly T. 1994. A bibliography and directory of the Yellowstone Fires of 1988. Fairfield, Wash: International Association of Wildland Fire.
- Despain, DG; Romme, WH. Historical perspective on the Yellowstone fires of 1988. 1989, BioScience
- Romme, WH; Despain, DG. "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/24987472 The Yellowstone Fires]", Scientific American, 1989
References
{{reflist}}
- Rocky Barker, Scorched Earth : How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed America, 2005, Shearwater Books
External links
- [http://www.sigmaxi.org/meetings/archive/meet.2001.nom.nw.shtml Sigma Xi biography]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110721073552/http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/staff/ddespain USGS biography]
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Category:People from Lovell, Wyoming
Category:21st-century American botanists
Category:Yellowstone National Park
Category:University of Alberta alumni
Category:Writers from Bozeman, Montana
Category:United States Geological Survey personnel
Category:University of Wyoming alumni
Category:University of Arizona alumni
Category:American expatriates in Canada