John Pickering

Institute of Ecology
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-2602

Phone: 706-542-1115
email: pick@discoverlife.org

Updated: 3 October, 2008

Degrees Awarded
  • 1980

 Ph. D., Harvard University
   Biology
  • 1976

 A. M., Harvard University
   Biology
  • 1973

 B. S., University of Illinois
   Honors Biology with high departmental & university honors

Academic Positions
  • 1984-

 Faculty Member
      University of Georgia, Athens
         Department of Entomology (1984-95)
         Institute of Ecology (1994- )
         Institute of Bioinformatics, member (2006- )
  • 1982-84

 Postgraduate Research Entomologist
      Division of Biological Control
      University of California, Berkeley
  • 1981-82

 Research Associate
      Division of Entomology & Parasitology
      University of California, Berkeley
  • 1979-81

 Miller Postdoctoral Fellow
      Department of Entomological Sciences
      University of California, Berkeley

Awards
  • 1996-98

 Mellon Senior Research Fellowship
      Organization for Tropical Studies, Costa Rica;
      Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama
  • 1996

 Outstanding Upper Division Advisor Award
      University of Georgia
  • 1994

 Special Sandy Beaver Award for Teaching Excellence
      University of Georgia
  • 1991

 Outstanding Conference Paper Presentation
      GRASS Users Conference, Berkeley
  • 1979-81

 Postdoctoral Fellowship
      Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science
      University of California, Berkeley
  • 1976-77

 Predoctoral Fellowship
      Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
  • 1974-79

 Richmond Fellow
      Harvard University
  • 1973

 Bronze Tablet
      University of Illinois

Research
My goal is to understand changes in the diversity, abundance, distribution, and dispersal of all living things, across scales, from local to global. Clearly, I cannot accomplish this alone. Hence, the advent of Discover Life -- 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.

My current, almost single-minded passion is to build an on-line encyclopedia to a million species by 2012. Towards this goal, we are establishing a network of international technology centers to collect and share biodiversity information. The first of these centers are hosted at the University of Georgia and at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama. Currently Discover Life and its partner databases provide information on 1.2 million species. In total Discover Life has had 333 million web hits. In September, 2008, it served 14.5 million pages and images to 226,000 IP addresses. Its online tools include a global mapper that enables users to compare the distribution of 250,000 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. 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. 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 and perl scripts 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 500 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. By comparing old-growth and secondary forests in Panama, Costa Rica, and eastern North America, we hope to answer how seasonality, El Niño cycles, fire, 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, 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) to help advance our research and educational goals. PHER is centered at the University of Georgia and has an international team of over 50 associated scientists employed at other institutions.

Organizations
  • All Species Foundation
          Advisor, 2000-2004
  • Biodiversity Science & Education Initiative, Smithsonian Institution
          Executive Committee, 2005-present
  • Discover Life in America
          Board of Directors, 1998-2002;
          Chairman, 1998-1999
  • Encyclopedia of Life, Smithsonian Institution
          Steering Committee, 2004-present
  • E. O. Wilson Foundation
          Technical advisor, 2007-present
  • Georgia ForestWatch
          Board of Directors, 2000-2002
  • The Polistes Corporation
          President, 1999-present
  • The Polistes Foundation
          President, 2002-present

Recent Support
  • Pickering, J. 2006. Web tools to identify, report, and map invasive species in North America -- 3rd year continuation. National Biological Information Infrastructure, U. S. Geological Survey.
  • Pickering, J. 2005. The development and continuing service-support of online systems for the shorefishes of the Tropical Eastern Pacific and the Greater Caribbean. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama.
  • Pickering, J. 2005. Web tools to identify, report, and map invasive species in North America. 2nd year continuation. National Biological Information Infrastructure, U. S. Geological Survey.
  • Pickering, J. 2004. Web tools to identify, report, and map invasive species in North America -- 5-year cooperative agreement. National Biological Information Infrastructure, U. S. Geological Survey.
  • Pickering, J. 2003. Equipment grant in support of Discover Life. Sun Microsystems, Inc.
  • Pickering, J. 2003. Web identification guides & maps of North American Invasive Species. National Biological Information Infrastructure, U. S. Geological Survey.
  • Pickering, J. 2002. Web-based bee identification guide. Biological Resources Division, U. S. Geological Survey.
  • Pickering, J., B. Scholtens, R. Turner, D. Wagner & K. Yatskievych. 2002. Web-based identification guides for common North American butterflies, moths, caterpillars, wildflowers, and invasive species. National Biological Information Infrastructure, U. S. Geological Survey.
  • Pickering, J. & E. L. Skillen. 1997-2002. Diversity of parasitic wasps in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
  • Pickering, J. & M. J. Sharkey. 1996-2001. Diversity and trophic interactions of parasitic wasps (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonoidea) in tropical lowland forests. Mellon Fellowship. Organization for Tropical Studies and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
  • Pickering, J. et al. 1998-1999. A community science, technology, and education partnership to increase minority student participation in the study of natural history in national parks. The National Park Service.
  • Coley, P. D. & J. Pickering. 1998-1999. The regulation of herbivores by the third trophic level: an El Niño experiment. Ecological Studies Program, The National Science Foundation.
  • Pickering J. 1995-1997. Calibration of Malaise traps for studying insect diversity. Biotic Surveys and Inventories Program, The National Science Foundation.

Selected Publications
  • Pickering, J. 1980. Larval competition and brood sex ratios in the gregarious parasitoid Pachysomoides stupidus. Nature 283: 291-292.
  • Getz, W. M., and J. Pickering. 1983. Epidemic models: thresholds and population regulation. American Naturalist 121: 892-898.
  • Wenzel, J. W., and J. Pickering. 1991. Cooperative foraging, productivity, and the central limit theorem. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 88: 36-38.
  • Pickering, J. and A. P. Gutierrez. 1991. Differential impact of the pathogen Pandora neoaphidis (R. & H.) Humber (Zygomycetes: Entomophthorales) on the species composition of Acyrthosiphon aphids in alfalfa. Canadian Entomologist 123: 315-320.
  • Gaasch, C. M., J. Pickering and C. T. Moore. 1998. Flight phenology of parasitic wasps (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) in Georgia's piedmont. Environmental Entomology 27:606-614.
  • Bartlett, R., J. Pickering, I. Gauld and D. Windsor. 1999. Estimating global biodiversity: tropical beetles and wasps send different signals. Ecological Entomology 24: 118-121.
  • Pickering, J., A. F. Read, S. Guerrero and S. A. West. 2000. Sex ratio and virulence in two species of lizard malaria parasites. Evolutionary Ecology Research 2: 171-184.
  • Shapiro, B. A. and J. Pickering. 2000. Rainfall and parasitic wasp (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonoidea) activity in successional forest stages at Barro Colorado Nature Monument, Panama and La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 2:39-47 (see ESA abstract).
  • Skillen, E. L., J. Pickering and M. J. Sharkey. 2000. Species richness of the Campopleginae and Ichneumoninae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) along a latitudinal gradient in eastern North American old-growth forests. Environmental Entomology 29: 460-466.
  • Kaspari, M., J. Pickering and D. Windsor. 2001. The reproductive flight phenology of a Neotropical ant assemblage. Ecological Entomology 26: 245-257.
  • Kaspari, M., J. Pickering, J. T. Longino and D. Windsor. 2001. The phenology of a Neotropical ant assemblage: evidence for continuous and overlapping reproduction. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 50: 382-390.
  • Pickering, J., R. Kays, A. Meier, S. Andrew and K. Yatskievych. 2002. The Appalachians. 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.
  • Pickering, J., K. Smith, G. Cotter, A. Simpson, R. Magill and E. McNierney. 2006. Global Mapper. International Biogeography Society, news report, March, 2006.

Other Publications
  • Pickering, J., L. L. Getz and G. S. Whitt. 1974. An esterase phenotype correlated with dispersal in Microtus. Trans. Illinois State Acad. Sci. 67:471-475.
  • Pickering, J. 1980. Sex ratio, social behavior and ecology in Polistes (Hymenoptera, Vespidae), Pachysomoides (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae) and Plasmodium (Protozoa, Haemosporida). Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 362 pp.
  • Bremermann, H. J. and J. Pickering. 1983. A game-theoretical model of parasite virulence. J. Theoretical Biology 100: 411-426.
  • Guerrero, S. and J. Pickering. 1984. Malaria survey in Anolis lizards of Puerto Rico. J. Parasitology 70: 162-164.
  • Holt, R. D., and J. Pickering. 1985. Infectious disease and species coexistence: a model of Lotka-Volterra form. American Naturalist 126:196-211.
  • Pickering, J., J. A. Wiley, N. S. Padian, L. E. Lieb, D. F. Echenberg and J. Walker. 1986. Modeling the incidence of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. Mathematical Modelling 7: 661-688.
  • Hochberg, M. E., J. Pickering and W. M. Getz. 1986. Evaluation of phenology models using field data: case study for the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, and the blue alfalfa aphid, Acyrthosiphon kondoi (Homoptera: Aphididae). Environmental Entomology 15: 227-231.
  • Padian, N. and J. Pickering. 1986. Female-to-male transmission of AIDS: A reexamination of the African sex ratio of cases. J. American Medical Association 256: 590.
  • Pickering, J., J. D. Dutcher and B. S. Ekbom. 1989. An epizootic caused by Erynia neoaphidis and Erynia radicans (Zygomycetes: Entomophthoraceae) on Acyrthosiphon (Homoptera: Aphididae) on legumes under overhead irrigation. J. Applied Entomology 107: 331-333.
  • Pickering, J., D. W. Ross and W. C. Berisford. 1989. An automated system for timing insecticidal sprays for Nantucket pine tip moth control. Southern J. Applied Forestry 13: 185-187.
  • Ross, D. W., J. Pickering, J. D. Berg and W. C. Berisford. 1989. Mapping Nantucket pine tip moth (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) development in Georgia. J. Entomological Sci. 24: 405-412.
  • Pickering, J., J. D. Dutcher and B. S. Ekbom. 1990. The effect of a fungicide on fungal induced mortality of pecan aphids (Homoptera: Aphididae) in the field. J. Economic Entomology 83: 1801-1805.
  • Pickering, J., W. W. Hargrove, J. D. Dutcher and H C Ellis. 1990. RAIN: A novel approach to computer-aided decision making in agriculture and forestry. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 4: 275-285.
  • van de Laar, M. J. W., J. A. R. van den Hoek, J. Pickering, G. J. P. van Griensven, R. A. Coutinho and H. P. A. van de Water. 1990. Dalende trend van gonorroe in Nederland: betekinis voor de AIDS-epidemic? Nederlands Tijdscrift Geneeskunde 134: 647-652.
  • van de Laar, M. J. W., J. Pickering, J. A. R. van den Hoek, G. J. P. van Griensven, R. A. Coutinho and H. P. A. van de Water. 1990. Declining gonorrhea rates in The Netherlands, 1976-1988; Evidence for the AIDS epidemic? Genitourinary Medicine 66: 148-155.
  • Ekbom, B. S. and J. Pickering. 1990. Pathogenic fungal dynamics in a fall population of the blackmargined aphid (Monellia caryella). Entomol. exp. et appl. 57: 29-37.
  • Hargrove, W. W. and J. Pickering. 1992. Pseudoreplication: a sine qua non for regional ecology. Landscape Ecology 6: 251-258.
  • Holzman, S., M. J. Conroy and J. Pickering. 1992. Home Range, movements, and habitat use of coyotes in southcentral Georgia. J. Wildlife Management 56: 139-146.
  • Pearson, S. M., J. M. Walsh, and J. Pickering. 1992. Wood stork use of wetland habitats around Cumberland Island, Georgia, U.S.A. Colonial Waterbirds 15:33-42.
  • Camann, M. A., A. K. Culbreath, J. Pickering, J. W. Todd and J. W. Demski. 1995. Spatial and temporal patterns of spotted wilt epidemics in peanut. Phytopathology 85: 879-885.
  • Pickering, J. 1999. Discover Life in America & the database needs of the All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Metadiversity - The Call for Community. Pages 51-56 in Proceedings of the U. S. Geological Survey Biological Resources Division & the National Federation of Abstracting & Information Services Symposium, November, 1998, Natural Bridge, Virginia.

Chapters in Books
  • Pickering, J., J. A. Wiley, N. S. Padian, L. E. Lieb, D. F. Echenberg and J. Walker. 1987. Modeling the incidence of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. Pages 661-688 in M. Witten (ed.), Mathematical Models in Medicine, Diseases and Epidemics, Pergamon Press, New York. (Reprinted from Pickering et al., 1986.)
  • Pickering, J. 1988. Epidemiology. Pages 126-129 in S. P. Parker (ed.), McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology 1989. McGraw-Hill, New York.
  • Pickering, J., J. A. Wiley, L. E. Lieb, J. Walker and G. Rutherford. 1988. Modelling the incidence of AIDS in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Pages 38-51 in H. C. Jager and E. J. Ruitenberg (eds.), The Statistical Analysis and Mathematical Modelling of AIDS, Proceedings EC Workshop Bilthoven 1986, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  • Hargrove, W. W., J. Balsdon-Wise and J. Pickering. 1991. Developing a wetness-based fungicide schedule for the control of pecan scab, Cladosporium caryigenum (Ell. Et Lang.) Gottwald at multiple sites using the Remote Automated Intelligence Network, RAIN. Pages 107-120 in B. W. Wood and J. A. Payne (eds.), First National Pecan Workshop. Pecan Husbandry: Challenges and Opportunities. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service, ARS-96.

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., (see 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 3500 -- General Ecology, 1986-1999 (x20)
    • ECOL 4110/6110 -- Insect Diversity, 1998-2007 (x6)
    • ECOL 4130L -- Ecological Methodology, 2005
    • ECOL 8170 -- Natural History of the Hymenoptera, 1999-2005 (x4)
    • FRES 1020-- Natural History seminar, 2001-2006 (x6)
    Complete course list, including enrollment:
       /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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