Pierre Legendre (ecologist)

Pierre Legendre (born 5 October 1946), is a professor of ecology at Université de Montréal. He is the founder of Numerical Ecology, which is a quantitative subdiscipline of community ecology, with his brother the oceanographer Louis Legendre.

Pierre Legendre obtained an MSc in zoology from McGill University in 1969, and at age 24, he earned a PhD in evolutionary biology from the University of Colorado in 1971. From 1971 to 1972, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Lund University. From 1972 to 1980, he was employed at Université du Québec à Montréal. Since 1980, he is professor in the Département de sciences biologiques of Université de Montréal.

As of October 2021, Legendre had published 12 books and over 340 scientific papers. He has been listed as a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in Ecology/Environment in all lists that have been published to this day: in 2001, then from 2014 to 2021. His Hirsch index (h) is 80 on Web of Knowledge, which does not count the citations of his books, and 114 on Google Scholar, which includes these citations.

By the number of citations, he is the most cited author of ecology journals such as Ecology, Ecological Monographs, Journal of Classification, Plant Ecology.

Scientific prizes

 * 1986 – Michel-Jurdant Prize (with Louis Legendre), Acfas
 * 1994 – Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award, International Congress of Ecology
 * 1995 – Miroslaw Romanowski Medal, Royal Society of Canada
 * 1999 – Twentieth Century Distinguished Service Award, Ninth Lukacs Symposium, Bowling Green State University, USA
 * 2005 – Prix Marie-Victorin, Government of Québec
 * 2013 – President's Award, Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution
 * 2015 – Adrien-Poulliot Award, Acfas
 * 2019 – Alexander von Humboldt Medal, International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS)

Teaching prizes

 * 2011 – Excellence in Teaching Award, Université de Montréal
 * 2011 – Excellence in Teaching Award, Faculty of Arts and Science, Université de Montréal

Other distinctions

 * 1989 – Killam Research Fellow, Canada Council for the Arts
 * 1992 – Elected Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
 * 2007 – Officer of the National Order of Québec, Government of Québec
 * 2016 – Corresponding Member, Academia Mexicana de Ciencias
 * 2019 – Honorary Member, Sociedad Ibérica de Ecología
 * 2001 – ISI Highly Cited Researcher in Ecology/Environment awarded by the Institute for Scientific Information, USA
 * 2014 to 2021 – Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in Environment/Ecology awarded by Thomson Reuters, then by Clarivate Analytics, USA