Richard W. Eppley has established himself as one of the most influential biological oceanographers of this century through his contributions to the field of phytoplankton physiological ecology and his interdisciplinary approach to oceanographic processes. Dick’s ability to generalize and conceptualize, to take separate threads of research and weave them into a cohesive framework, has enabled hint to use established techniques in novel applications, to define new approaches to old oceanographic questions, and to chart new paths. The nature and quality of his work, and particularly the breadth of his interest and expertise, places hint with H.H. Gran, G.A. Riley, J.D.H. Strickland, and others who have given the field of biological oceanography its conceptual structure. Dick’s retirement in December 1989, after thirty-two years of professional service to the oceanographic community, provides an opportunity to reflect on his various accomplishments. In this article, his former Ph.D. students and postdoctoral associates briefly (and incompletely) review his contributions to oceanographic research and the oceanographic community. While Dick built on the work of earlier researchers and many others were contributing to the same topics that Dick was studying, due to space constraints only those papers authored by Dick are cited. Because Dick always strove to place his work in historical context, the papers referred to below provide a key to the groundbreaking work by others.

Weiler, C.S., W.M Balch, S.W. Chisholm, J.J. Cullen, W.G. Harrison, P.A. Matrai, J.J. McCarthy, J.R. Nelson, M.J. Perry, D.G. Radalje, J.H. Sharp, and M.M. Sinclair. 1990. Richard W. Eppley’s contributions to phytoplankton physiology and biological oceanography. Oceanography 3(2):42–46, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.1990.07.

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