Margaret B. Davis is a distinguished paleoecologist noted for her analysis of ancient pollen to determine trends in plant growth and migration. Her work challenged the prevailing scientific idea that plant and animal communities tend to be stable, moving intact to new locations as the climate changes. By studying pollen from ancient plants (in a discipline known as palynology), she reconstructed past plant communities and showed how they change in response to variations in climate or other environmental influences. She found that associations between plant and animal communities are more fluid than once believed and that change is the order of the day for ecosystems.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 23, 1931, Margaret Bryan Davis grew up in the Boston area and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1953 with an A.B. degree in biology. While at Radcliffe, she took courses from noted paleobotanist Elso Borghoorn and was intrigued by...