Richard B. Primack

About

Richard B. Primack is a Professor of Biology at Boston University, with a PhD from Duke University. His research focuses on how climate change affects the timing of biological events such as flowering, leafing out, fruiting, and leaf senescence of plants, as well as the migration and flight times of birds and insects in Massachusetts. He considers the potential for ecological mismatches among species caused by changes in timing, especially the differences in sensitivity to spring warming among trees and wildflowers. His main research area is Concord, Massachusetts, utilizing extensive phenological and species abundance records kept by Henry David Thoreau and later naturalists, and expanding investigations to Eastern North America, Europe, and East Asia through herbarium specimens. Primack's work also involves investigating noise pollution in protected areas and cities, producing conservation biology textbooks, and studying the ecological and conservation impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. He is actively involved in international botanical garden networks and conservation biology education.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Biology
• Environmental science
• Environmental resource management
• Environmental planning
• Geography
• Business
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology

Selected publications

• COVID-19 lockdown allows researchers to quantify the effects of human activity on wildlife

  Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2020 · 649 citations

  DOI

• Long-term thermal sensitivity of Earth’s tropical forests

  Science · 2020 · 355 citations

  The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate controls on forest carbon. Maximum temperature is the most important predictor of aboveground biomass (-9.1 megagrams of carbon per hectare per degree Celsi…

  DOI

• COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown as a “Global Human Confinement Experiment” to investigate biodiversity conservation

  Biological Conservation · 2020 · 265 citations

  DOI

• Global COVID-19 lockdown highlights humans as both threats and custodians of the environment

  Biological Conservation · 2021 · 168 citations

  DOI

• A horizon scan of global biological conservation issues for 2024

  Trends in Ecology & Evolution · 2023-12-18 · 29 citations

  articleOpen access

  We present the results of our 15th horizon scan of novel issues that could influence biological conservation in the future. From an initial list of 96 issues, our international panel of scientists and practitioners identified 15 that we consider important for societies worldwide to track and potentially respond to. Issues are novel within conservation or represent a substantial positive or negative step-change with global or regional extents. For example, new sources of hydrogen fuel and changes…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Spatiotemporal models of phenology: Integrating the effects of climate change on plants and animals

  NSF · $340k · 2009–2013

• Collaborative Research: Phenological mismatch between trees and wildflowers mediated by environmental variability and plant invasions

  NSF · $242k · 2020–2025

• Dissertation Research: Plant Ecology in Changing Climate, Patterns of species loss and spring phenology in Acadia National Park, Maine

  NSF · $13k · 2015–2019

Frequent coauthors

• Abraham J. Miller‐Rushing

  National Park Service

  83 shared

• Hiroyoshi Higuchi

  40 shared

• Elizabeth R. Ellwood

  University of Florida

  36 shared

• Sang-Don Lee

  Ewha Womans University

  32 shared

• Toshio Katsuki

  Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute

  27 shared

• Yukio Ishii

  26 shared

• Vincent Devictor

  Institut de Recherche pour le Développement

  25 shared

• John W. Wilson

  23 shared

Labs

• The Primack LabPI

  Conservation Biology at Boston University

Education

• Ph.D., Systematic Botany

  Harvard University

  1986

• M.S., Systematic Botany

  Harvard University

  1982

• B.A., Botany

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  1978

Awards & honors

• Oboh-Weilke Postdoctoral Travel Award

Similar researchers at Boston University

• David J. Waxmanh-97
• Jerry Chenh-96
• Thomas Gilmoreh-61