Frank Edwin Egler

Dr. Frank Edwin Egler, Ph.D.

Frank Egler was born in New York City in 1911. As early as 1926, he began studies of the vegetation of his family’s summer home in the hills of Norfolk, Connecticut. In 1943, he made it his home, named it Aton Forest (after the Egyptian sun-god of Pharaoh Akh-en-aton), and committed himself to over 50 years of “long-term, low-cost, low-key” studies of natural processes, mostly on his lands in North Norfolk.

In 1968, Frank married Happy Kitchel Hamilton, of Greenwich, a noted photographer and conservationist, who assembled the 950 acre wild land Spaulding Pond Preserve in South Norfolk. They enjoyed a wonderful decade together, spending half the year in North Norfolk and half in South Norfolk until her death in 1978. Frank died at Aton Forest on December 26, 1996, having been incapacitated by a stroke the previous October.

Frank traveled widely, and published five books (three others were completed or in progress at his death, along with a variety of other manuscripts), and some 400 professional papers on vegetation change and right-of-way management. In 1990 he cemented his legacy by transforming the ecological field station Aton Forest into a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational and scientific organization, to ensure the perpetuation of the lands and studies he stewarded and assembled there.

Frank’s academic training included private schools in New York; an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago in 1932 under Henry C. Cowles; a Master’s degree in 1934 under W. S. Cooper at the University of Minnesota; and a Ph. D. in 1936 under C. F. Nichols at Yale. His professors were among the leading ecologists of the early twentieth century.

Frank taught science at several universities, consulted widely, and was active in several science and conservation controversies. Philosophically, Frank followed some of the viewpoints of Henry Allan Gleason of the New York Botanical Garden, and saw plants respond to environmental change according to their own tolerance limits, and with changing and unpredictable distributional patterns over long time spans. This made him a life-long outspoken critic of F. E. Clements’s model of forest change, one that postulated a “climatic climax” end-point for vegetation types, a determinist model that can still be found represented in present-day ecology. Frank, ever the one for academic challenges and debate, even advertised a $10,000 award to anyone who could demonstrate that “plant succession to climax” actually existed. He had no takers.

Frank continued his vigorous defense of his own ideas until the end, but in the meantime his ideas have been finding a home in the New Paradigm in Science: a view of Nature as complex and multidimensional systems. He was truly ahead of his time, as demonstrated by his groundbreaking research on forest succession, invasive species, and conservation easements, placing him among the ranks of the founding fathers of modern ecology and land protection.

Publications and Manuscripts

Below are key books and articles which showcase the philosophy and work of Frank Egler and his creation, Aton Forest. Take a look at these publications and manuscripts, Also, see Archives page.

Forest & Vegetation Succession

Vegetation Science Concepts I. Initial Floristic Composition, a Factor in Old-Field Vegetation Development. Egler. Vegetatio, 1954, Vol. 4, No. 6 (1954), pp. 412-417.

Conversations on Ecology VI. Egler, Frank E. 1963

The Nature of Vegetation: Its Management and Mismanagement. Egler, Frank E. 1970

The Nature of Naturalization II: Studies in Naturalization, 1925-1980 : the Introduced Flora of Aton Forest, Connecticut. Claude E. Phillips Herbarium. Egler, Frank E. 1983.

The Vegetation and Cultural History of Aton Forest. Egler, Frank E. 1990

Right of Way Management

The Plight of the Right of Way Domain: Victim of Vandalism. Egler, Frank E. 1975.

Biographical Information

Dr. Frank Egler was a pioneering ecologist whose work helped shape modern environmental thinking, land management and land protection practices. This section provides an overview of his life, career, and the philosophies that guided his approach to ecology and ecosystems as a whole.

Forget-Me-Not: Frank Egler, “Heretic King” of Aton Forest
A Brief Biographical Sketch by Michael O’Neil. 2024.

Magnificent Failure: Frank Egler and the Greening of American Ecology
William Dritschilo. 2016.

Chrono-Biographical Sketch: Frank Egler
Sketch by Charles Smith. 2005.

5 KEY BOOKS ABOUT OR BY EGLER (OR KENFIELD)
– The Wild Gardener and the Wild Landscape: The Art of Naturalistic Landscaping. Warren G. Kenfield. 1966.
– The Way of Science – A Philosophy of Ecology for the Layman, Egler, Frank E. and Van Deusen, Henry. 1970.
– The Nature of Vegetation: Its Management and Mismanagement. Egler, Frank E. 1970.
– The Plight of the Right of Way Domain: Victim of Vandalism. Egler, Frank E. 1975.
– Magnificent Failure: Frank Egler and the Greening of American Ecology: An Epistolary Biography. William Dritschilo. 2016.

Learn More

Get an overview of Frank Egler and other ecologists, and their work.

More Info

Read more about Dr. Frank Egler’s legacy from his pioneering work to his enduring impact on conservation efforts:

Frank’s book written under his pseudonym, Warren G. Kenfield. (1966).
View PDF of the wild gardener in the wild landscape. The art of naturalistic landscaping

An Epistolary Biography by William Dritschilo
Magnificent Failure: Frank Egler and the Greening of American Ecology

Forget-Me-Not: Frank Egler, “Heretic King” of Aton Forest
A Brief Biographical Sketch by Michael O’Neil

Nature of Vegetation by Frank Egler
View the PDF here

Frank Edwin Egler 1911-1996
Resolution of Respect – Frank Egler

NY Times Obituary
Ecologist Who Created Preserve