John Ernst Weaver

John Ernst Weaver ( 5 May 1884 – 8 June 1966) was an American botanist, prairie ecologist, and university professor.

According to his biography in Nebraska Authors:[2] Weaver is famous for his studies of the root systems of prairie plants.

He co-authored several important botany textbooks with Clements, but moved beyond Clements' paradigm of plant succession and in recognizing the need to preserve prairies, altered plant ecologists' views of the place of human efforts in preserving the natural world.

In 1929 Weaver and Henry Chandler Cowles published the first American ecology textbook.

He made intensive studies of original prairies before the drought of the 1930's, and recorded the subsequent changes of vegetation during and after the drought.He was also a member of the Botanical Society of America, and the Nebraska Academy of Sciences.