In Memoriam Professor John Philip Grime, FRS (1935-2021)

Professor John Philip (‘Phil’) Grime FRS, who has died at the age of 85, developed the field of plant functional ecology and was among the most influential scientists to have studied the Earth’s vegetation. During an especially formative period for plant ecology in the 1970s, Phil established the conceptual framework of plant strategy theory that would revolutionize our understanding of plant adaptation by emphasizing function over form: that is, as an economy of resource use (particularly mineral nutrients) that would unite the dynamics of communities and ecosystems. Phil was an early champion of the idea that ecosystems function according to the chemistry and behavior of their dominant plants, which shifted the paradigm from simple environmental determinism to one of species driving ecosystem processes through their functional traits. As human alterations of the global environment would come to increasingly dominate ecological studies in the later stages of Phil’s career, his approach to understanding vegetation structure would become a key component to earth system science and efforts to protect biodiversity globally.