Produced by: Spine Films, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Finalist in: Short Program
In the 1960s, Robert Paine changed the face of modern ecology by conducting a new kind of experiment and coining the terms “Keystone Species” and “Trophic Cascade.” His work expanded on the ‘food webs’ concept and introduced the idea that not all organisms in a food web are equal (in terms of their impact on the varieties and numbers of other organisms). Thanks to his seminal work, scientists completely changed the way they approach population restoration projects, and they’ve learned that large predators are generally much more important than previously imagined.
