Eugene P. Odum, 88; Pioneering Ecologist

Eugene P. Odum, 88, a leading authority on the structure and function of ecosystems, who co-founded three major research institutes at the University of Georgia, died of an apparent heart attack Friday night or Saturday morning at his home in Athens, Ga.

Odum co-founded the University of Georgia’s Marine Institute in 1953. The world-famous research facility, on one of Georgia’s coastal islands, is where much of the modern science of ecology was shaped in the 1950s and ‘60s.

He also established the university’s School of Ecology and the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory: 310 square miles where more than 10,000 studies have been conducted.

At the time of his death, Odum was working on a revised edition of his widely used textbook “Fundamentals of Ecology,” which was first published in 1953 and is considered to have set the agenda for the modern environmental movement.

Born in Chapel Hill, N.C., Odum received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina and his doctorate from the University of Illinois.

He spent most of his professional life at the University of Georgia, where he joined the faculty in 1940 as a professor of zoology.