James A. Drake

James A. Drake (born 1954) is an American ecologist.

Early life and education

Drake was born on August 20, 1954. He went to Wausau West High School and then to the University of Wisconsin in Madison and graduated with a degree in science education. He later graduated from Purdue in 1985 and became an Andrew Mellon Fellow at Stanford working on Biological Invasions with Harold Mooney. In 1986, he began teaching at The University of Tennessee as an assistant professor in zoology and the ecology graduate program. He was a founding member of their Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Career Drake focused on community assembly models and the structure of ecological communities. He helped organize The International Program of the Scientific Committee on Problems with the Environment. This work led to the formation of the scientific study of invasion biology. He was the editor-in-chief of the journal Biological Invasions from 2003 to 2008 and edited two major texts from some of the earliest works regarding community ecology at the time Ecology of Biological Invasions of Hawaii and North America (1986) and Biological Invasions: A Global Perspective (1989). )

Most-cited Peer-reviewed journal articles Drake JA. Community-assembly mechanics and the structure of an experimental species ensemble. The American Naturalist. 1991 Jan 1;137(1):1-26. (Cited 611 times, according to Google Scholar.