Douglas Tallamy

Douglas Tallamy, known as Doug Tallamy, is an American entomologist, ecologist and conservationist. He is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture and Natural Resources in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. Tallamy has written and co-authored several popular books. He is also one of the founders of Homegrown National Park, a nonprofit organization promoting habitat restoration and biodiversity on public and private lands through the planting of native plants and removal of invasive species.

Tallamy's research examines how native and introduced plants differ in their ability to support insect herbivores and the animals that feed on them. His books argue that home gardeners can counter biodiversity loss by planting natives. Bringing Nature Home (2007) and Nature's Best Hope (2020) helped popularize native-plant gardening in the United States. He then held a postdoctoral fellowship in entomology at the University of Iowa from 1980 to 1981.

Around 2000, Tallamy and his wife bought a roughly former hayfield in southeastern Pennsylvania, near the University of Delaware campus. The land had been colonized by introduced Asian plants such as autumn olive and Oriental bittersweet, and Tallamy noticed that their foliage was largely uneaten by native caterpillars.

White oak (Quercus alba) acorns. Narango, Tallamy and Shropshire's 2020 study identified oaks as the most productive Lepidoptera host genus across much of North America. A 2018 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-authored with Desirée L. Narango and Peter P. Marra, found that Carolina chickadees in residential yards produced enough young to sustain their populations only where native plants made up at least about 70 percent of the plant biomass. A 2020 paper in Nature Communications by Narango, Tallamy and Shropshire reported that a small number of plant genera, which the authors termed keystone plants, support the majority of local Lepidoptera species, and identified oaks (Quercus) as the most productive host genus across much of North America.

Native-plant advocacy Goldenrod (Solidago), one of the genera Tallamy have identified as a keystone plant supporting native pollinators. Tallamy advocates home gardens and landscaping designed to provide habitat for native species, bridging the gaps between parks and nature preserves.

In a 2011 commentary in Nature, Davis and 18 co-authors argued that conservationists should "assess organisms on environmental impact rather than on whether they are natives"; a reply defending the distinction between native and non-native species was signed by 141 scientists. Peter Del Tredici of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum has argued that the distinction between native and non-native plants has lost much of its relevance in a globalized world. Studies of butterflies have documented use of introduced plants as hosts: a 2003 survey of the California butterfly fauna by Sherri D. Graves and the lepidopterist Arthur Shapiro found that about a third of the state's native butterfly species had been recorded feeding or breeding on non-native plants.

Awards and honors Garden Writers' Association Silver Medal (2008), for Bringing Nature Home Garden Club of America Margaret Douglas Medal for Conservation (2013) Tom Dodd Jr. Award of Excellence (2013) American Horticultural Society B. Y. Morrison Communication Award (2018) Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award (2019)