Peter Francis Timothy Zika (b. November 16, 1957 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American botanist and naturalist.

Biography

Zika was born the oldest of four children to Vaclav Jan Zika from the Czech Republic, an MIT engineer, and Countess Krystyna Helena Dunin from Poland. Two of his great-grandfathers were Rodryg Dunin, Polish agriculturalist, and Edward Werner, Polish vice-Finance Minister.

He received his undergraduate degree in botany at the University of Vermont in 1983, where he began documenting and improving collections of the Vermont flora. His original interest was in the alpine flora -- according to the University of Vermont website, he was the first person since Cyrus Pringle in the 19th century to certify the occurrence of many of the rarer species at high altitudes in Vermont, and there are several thousand sheets of mounted Zika material in the "Peter F. Zika Collection" at the Pringle Herbarium.[1]

Zika is currently a botanist at the University of Washington in Seattle, conducting research on how plants lure animals into dispersing their seeds. In the Pacific Northwest he conducts botanical inventories of National Parks and Nature Conservancy preserves, studies interactions between noxious weeds and native wildlife, and teaches wetland plant identification. He also often serves as a ship.s naturalist on various expeditions, which has enabled him to study the plantlife of other regions from Antarctica to the Amazon basin.

Selected works

Zika has published more than 80 scientific notes, articles and books, including:

• Zika, Peter and Jenkins, Jerry. The Waterfalls, Cascades and Gorges of Vermont, 1988, Agency of Natural Resources. ASIN B00071FAWA
• Zika, Peter F., ed. 1990. New York rare plant status list. Latham, NY: New York Natural Heritage Program. 30 p.
• Zika, Peter F. and Jenkins, Jerry C. Purple Mountain Saxifrage - New to New York State, March 1992, New York Flora Association Newsletter. [2]
• Jenkins, J. & Zika, P. F. 1995. Contributions to the flora of Vermont. Rhodora 97: 291-327.
• Zika, P. F. and E. R. Alverson. 1996. Ferns new to the Wallowa Mountains, Oregon. American Fern Journal 86:61-64.
• Kaye, T. N., R. J. Meinke, J. Kagan, S. Vrilakas, K. L. Chambers, P. F. Zika and J. K. Nelson. 1997. Patterns of rarity in the Oregon flora: implications for conservation and management. pp. 1-10 in Kaye, T. N., A. Liston, R. M. Love, D. L. Luoma, R. J. Meinke, and M. V. Wilson, editors. Conservation and Management of Native Flora and Fungi. Native Plant Society of Oregon, Corvallis, OR.
• Zika, P. F. 1997. Spirodella polyrhiza. p. 196 in Cooke, S. S., editor. A Field Guide to the Common Wetland Plants of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon. Seattle Audubon Society and Washington Native Plant Society, Seattle.
• Zika, P. F., K. Kuykendall, and B. Wilson. 1998. Carex serpenticola (Cyperaceae), a new species from the Klamath Mountains of Oregon and California. MadroZo 45: 261-270.
• Zika, Peter F. The native subspecies of Juncus effusus (Juncaceae) in western North America, April 2003, Brittonia pages 150.156. [3]
• A Checklist of Vascular Plants of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, 2003, National Park Service, [4]

Notable relatives

• Zika is the great-great-grandnephew of Eduard Strasburger, the 19th century Polish-German botanist

References

• Botany Department, University of Vermont
• Research report at Washington University, 2004
• Botanical Society of America, August 1982 bulletin
• List of articles by "Zika, P.F." at Google Scholar
• "Engagement of Countess Revealed", Detroit Times, April 23, 1957 - article about Zika's parents

External links

• Roberta G. Poland collections

For any questions about the information on this page, please contact Elonka Dunin

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