C. Hart Merriam Award (1983),[1] Distinguished Teaching Award (1991),[2] Joseph Grinnell Award (1998),[3] American Society of Mammalogists Honorary Membership (2001),[4] Berkeley Citation (2001)[5]
James Lloyd Patton (June 21, 1941), is an American
evolutionary biologist and
mammalogist. He is emeritus professor of integrative biology and curator of mammals at the
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology,
UC Berkeley and has made extensive contributions to the systematics and biogeography of several vertebrate taxa, especially small mammals (rodents, marsupials, and bats).[6]
Career
Patton is best known for his pioneering works on the evolutionary cytogenetics and systematics of rodents, especially pocket mice (Perognathus/Chaetodipus)[7] and pocket gophers (Thomomys),[8] the diversification of rainforest faunas,[9] and the impact of climate change on North American mammals.[10] He has authored nearly 200 scientific publications, many of them in collaboration with 36 graduate students and 13 post-doctoral scholars he mentored over four decades. He is one of the most experienced field mammalogists today, having collected extensively in the western United States and in 14 other countries around the world, including Mexico, Ecuador (Galapagos Islands), Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Iran, and Cameroon.[11] As of 2005, he had deposited nearly 20,000 specimens in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, making him the most prolific collector of mammal specimens in that institution’s nearly 100-year history.[6]
The
American Society of Mammalogists established the "James L. Patton Award" in 2015 to promote and support museum-based research by graduate students.[22]
Davis, E. B.; Koo, M. S.; Conroy, C.; Patton, J. L.; Moritz, C. (2008). "The California Hotspots Project: Identifying regions of rapid diversification of mammals". Molecular Ecology. 17 (1): 120–138.
doi:
10.1111/j.1365-294X.2007.03469.x.
PMID17725571.
S2CID36059418.
^Patton, J. L.; Smith, M. F. (1994). "Paraphyly, polyphyly, and the nature of species boundaries in pocket gophers (genus Thomomys)". Systematic Biology. 43: 11–26.
doi:
10.1093/sysbio/43.1.11.
^Woodman, N.; Timm, R. M. (2006). Graves, Gary R. (ed.). "Characters and phylogenetic relationships of nectar-feeding bats, with descriptions of new Lonchophylla from western South America (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae: Lonchophyllini)". Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington. 119 (4): 437–476.
doi:
10.2988/0006-324X(2006)119[437:CAPRON]2.0.CO;2.
hdl:1808/4474.
S2CID84689756.
^Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp.
ISBN978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Patton", p. 201).