Born in Bucyrus, Ohio, Paul Sears obtained bachelor's degrees in zoology and economics, then earned a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Chicago. He spent most of his career as professor or head of various botany departments. In these positions, Sears researched changes in native flora as a result of human activities, conducted pioneering studies of fossil pollen, and studied the relationship between vegetation and climatic change. A respected and influential ecologist, he served as president of the Ecological Society of America (1948) and received the ESA's "Eminent Ecologist Award" in 1965. He spent the last ten years of his academic career as chair of the graduate program in conservation at Yale University and retired in 1960.

Sears was one of the few biological ecologists interested in human ecology, writing cogently and consistently in a...