For Frederick Clements, trained in botany as a plant physiologist, ecology became "the dominant theme in the study of plants, indeed...the central and vital part of botany." He became a leader in the new science, still described as "the leading plant ecologist of the day."

Clements was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and earned all of his degrees in botany from the University of Nebraska, attaining his Ph.D. under Charles Bessey in 1989. As a student, he participated in Bessey's famous "Botanical Seminar" and helped carry out an ambitious survey of the vegetation of Nebraska, publishing the results—co-authored with a class-mate—in an internationally recognized volume titled The Phytogeography of Nebraska, out in print the same year (1898) that he received his doctorate. He then accepted a faculty position at the university in Lincoln.

Clements married Edith Schwartz...