Dr Tim King

Dr Tim King is an author with wide-ranging biological interests. In the last thirteen years, he has become an expert on ants, particularly the yellow meadow ant, Lasius flavus. Predominantly a grassland ecologist, he has produced the most complete explanation of any plant community in terms of the population dynamics of its species, that of the CG7 ant-hill community in CG2 grassland. He has also researched on deserts, seed germination, chalk grassland succession, forest dynamics and floodplain meadows. Tim King was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (then the Institute of Biology) in 1989 for his contributions for ecology and teaching. He has an Oxford University MA, D.Phil. and postgraduate statistics qualification, and an MSc from Imperial in Creative Non-fiction writing. He is a Chartered Biologist. As a scientific ecologist he has published 21 papers (>800 citations, h-index 11), mainly on the ant Lasius flavus and plants. He has research sites at Aston Rowant NNR and in Virginia, frequently lectures at conferences and to local natural history societies and does some ecological consultancy.

Tim King has published ten textbooks including the seminal introductory text Ecology (1980, 1989, translated into Icelandic). He has taught part-time for Oxford University and the Open University and has tutored numerous field courses at home and abroad. He was a deputy head at Abingdon School after teaching at Westminster School and Magdalen College School, Oxford, has and has been a chief examiner at O-level and A-level.

Tim King has been a Research Member/ Academic Visitor at Wolfson College, Oxford since 1999 and is currently affiliated to the Oxford University Biology Department.  He has also held schoolteacher fellowships in three Cambridge colleges, for a term at a time. He represented the public as lay on DEFRA’s Committee (COMEAP) on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution from 2005-2012, and in 2010 was commissioned to write the National Air Pollution Handbook. Very involved in local planning issues in North Oxford over 45 years, he has been chair of the St Margaret’s Area Society for six years and its secretary for twelve. He plays Chess for Oxford City

He is a dedicated member of the British Ecological Society, a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London, a Member of the Royal Entomological Society and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (MCIEEM).  Tim attends numerous symposia and research talks. He has an Oxford University Undergraduate Certificate in Computing and In 2013 made a five-minute appearance on ‘The One Show’, helping George MacGavin to explain the ecology of ant-hills on the Porton ranges.