Tilman is also a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.

Tilman's article looked at data both prior to and following a drought on the grassland plots in 1988, which provided surprising results.

[10] "The level to which the soil solution concentration of a limiting resource is reduced by an equilibrial monoculture of a species is called R*.

[13] In 2014, he received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology category, for scientifically establishing the value of biodiversity, quantifying, for the first time, how it contributes to make ecosystems more productive, more resilient to invasions, and more stable in the face of perturbations such as drought.

[6] In 2000 Tilman was designated the Most Highly Cited Environmental Scientist of the Decade by Essential Science Indicators.