Robert Treat "Bob" Paine III (April 13, 1933 – June 13, 2016) was an American ecologist who spent most of his career at the University of Washington.
[6][8] Upon graduating from the University of Michigan, Paine completed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
[8][11] In a noteworthy[12] 1966 paper, Paine described a rocky intertidal ecosystem in Makah Bay in Washington state, where top predator species help maintain biodiversity.
[17] Paine also coined the term "trophic cascade" to describe the top-down effects that occur in ecosystems when an important species is introduced or removed.
[19] Paine died from acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer, at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, on June 13, 2016.
[1] Ed Yong wrote that "by encouraging independence and prizing fieldwork, Paine mentored an entire generation of superstar ecologists.