Steward T. A. Pickett, a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in Millbrook, New York, is an expert in the ecology of plants, vegetation dynamics, and natural disturbance. His contributions to succession are in the realm of both theory and empirical, mechanistic studies. He also directs the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, Long-Term Ecological Research program. He has edited and authored books on ecological heterogeneity, humans as components of ecosystems, conservation, the linkage of ecology and urban design, the philosophy of ecology, and ecological ethics.

Mary L. Cadenasso is a Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis. She received a National Science Foundation Career award and was recently named a Chancellor's Fellow. Her research interests span landscape, ecosystem, and plant ecology and focus on determining how the spatial heterogeneity of a system is linked to ecosystem functions and change of that system. Her work has been widely published in more than 50 peer reviewed journal articles, 25 book chapters and two books.