David Goodall (botanist)

David William Goodall (4 April 1914 – 10 May 2018) was an English-born Australian botanist and ecologist.

He was influential in the early development of statistical methods in plant communities.

He worked as researcher and professor in England, Australia, Ghana and the United States.

He was editor-in-chief of the 30-volume Ecosystems of the World series of books, and author of over 100 publications.

He was known as Australia's oldest working scientist, still editing ecology papers at age 103.

Long an advocate of voluntary euthanasia legalisation, he ended his own life in Switzerland via physician-assisted suicide at age 104.

Goodall was born in Edmonton, Middlesex (now London), England on 4 April 1914 to parents Isabel Blanche (née Harlow) and Henry William Goodall.

He was educated at Stationers' Company's School and St Paul's School, London, where an interest in chemistry later turned to biology.

Goodall completed his Bachelor of Science degree in 1935 followed by a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1941, both at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, where he was mentored by F. G. Gregory.

His PhD research was conducted at East Malling Research Station in Kent on assimilation in the tomato plant.

Goodall stated that he was not allowed to join the armed forces during World War II while undertaking his doctorate.

He underwent a medical examination for the Royal Navy, but as soon his boss heard of this he refused to release any of his researchers, claiming they were "much more important to the world of agriculture than the war effort".

In 1948, Goodall moved to Australia to become senior lecturer of botany at the University of Melbourne.

With a series of papers in the 1950s and 1960s titled "Objective Methods for the Classification of Vegetation" he helped turn plant ecology from a descriptive, subjective science into one more quantitative and repeatable.

From 1952 to 1954, he served as reader in botany at the then University College of the Gold Coast (now University of Ghana) where he worked in the cocoa industry.

He received a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Melbourne in 1953.

He then returned to England to take a position as professor of agricultural botany at the University of Reading, which he held from 1954 to 1956.

1954 he was the first to apply factor analysis to community ecology, a process he termed ordination, which is now a widely used term in ecological literature.

From 1956 to 1967, he was a research scientist at various Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) divisions in Australia.

In the late 1960s he co-founded and was director of the Desert Biome project of the International Biological Program, where he organised simulation modelling of processes such as desertification and overgrazing on arid lands.

He then moved to the United States, serving as professor of biology at the University of California, Irvine, from 1967 to 1968, and professor of systems ecology at Utah State University from 1968 to 1974.

Goodall served as editor-in-chief of the 30-volume Ecosystems of the World from its inception in 1972, until its completion in 2005.

At age 103, Goodall was still active in his field, editing ecology papers.

He then returned to Australia and was again affiliated with CSIRO until his formal retirement in 1979.

Goodall was promoted to doctor honoris causa at the University of Trieste, Italy, in 1990.

He was a member of 14 learned societies, and received the Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award from the International Association for Ecology in 1994, and the Gold Medal of the Australian Ecological Society in 2008.

In 1997, he was made an Honorary Member of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS), the organisation's highest award.

After retiring, Goodall continued with CSIRO until 1998 as an Honorary Research Fellow in the Division of Wildlife and Ecology, and in 1998 became Honorary Research Associate at the Centre for Ecosystem Management at Edith Cowan University.

Over the course of his career Goodall supervised four doctoral and ten masters students, and even into retirement served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including Vegetatio and Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics.

Goodall was known for his contributions to plant physiology and ecological statistical analysis.

Botanist David Ashton credits him with providing "enormous stimulus" to research in nutritional physiology following World War II.

Goodall turned 100 in 2014, and that year a book of scientific papers organised by the IAVS was dedicated to him.

The following year, Goodall was honoured in a special issue of the journal Plant Ecology.

In 2016, Edith Cowan University declared Goodall, now 102, unfit to travel to his old office on the university's campus, proposed he work from home instead, and allowed him to attend only pre-arranged meetings at the university.

Goodall stated that he enjoyed talking to colleagues in his office corridor and that he had few social contacts elsewhere in Perth.

His daughter warned that the move would have a dramatic impact on his sense of independence and mental well-being and stated "I do not know whether he would survive it".

This decision caused an uproar, and the university compromised by relocating him to a new office at its Mount Lawley campus, significantly closer to his home.

In December 2016, Goodall was still active at Edith Cowan University and editor-in-chief of the series Ecosystems of the World.

At that time, he was thought to be the oldest scientist still working in Australia.

In the 2016 Australia Day Honours list Goodall was made a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to science as an academic, researcher and author in the area of plant ecology and natural resources management."