World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!

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Environmental Sciences

D-Index
38
Citations
6781
World Ranking
8564
National Ranking
3064

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2005 - Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
  • 1963 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Overview

David A. Burney is affiliated with the National Tropical Botanical Garden in the United States. Their research spans multiple fields including Environmental Science, Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Social Sciences. They have contributed to subfields such as Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Atmospheric Science, Geography, Planning and Development, and Anthropology.

Their work covers a range of topics with a focus on Geology and Paleoclimatology Research, Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies, Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management. Additional areas of study include Geological formations and processes, Global Maritime and Colonial Histories, Anthropological Studies and Insights, and Fire effects on ecosystems.

David A. Burney's recent publications include:

  • "Relationships between climate change, human environmental impact, and megafaunal extinction inferred from a 4000-year multi-proxy record from a stalagmite from northwestern Madagascar," 2020, Quaternary Science Reviews
  • "Rock art from Andriamamelo Cave in the Beanka Protected Area of western Madagascar," 2020, The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology
  • "Monitoring native, non-native, and restored tropical dry forest with Landsat: A case study from the Hawaiian Islands," 2024, Ecological Informatics
  • "Chemical, isotopic (O, He, U), and petrological characteristics of a slowly cooled enriched gabbroic shergottite, Northwest Africa 13134," 2025, Meteoritics and Planetary Science
  • "The Scientific Benefits of a Statewide, Standardized, Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program in Hawaiʻi," 2025, Ecology and Evolution

Frequent collaborators in their research include:

  • Tanambelo Rasolondrainy
  • Laurie R. Godfrey
  • L. Bruce Railsback
  • Laura A. Dupont
  • Fuyuan Liang

David A. Burney's work has appeared in publication venues such as:

  • Quaternary Science Reviews
  • The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology
  • Ecological Informatics
  • Meteoritics and Planetary Science
  • Ecology and Evolution

The scientist has been recognized with fellowships including:

  • Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2005
  • Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1963

Best Publications

  • A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar.

    David A Burney;Lida Pigott Burney;Laurie R Godfrey;William L Jungers

  • Pleistocene rewilding: an optimistic agenda for twenty-first century conservation.

    C. Josh Donlan;Joel Berger;Carl E. Bock;Jane H. Bock

  • Fifty millennia of catastrophic extinctions after human contact.

    David A. Burney;Tim Fridtjof Flannery

  • Sporormiella and the late Holocene extinctions in Madagascar

    David A. Burney;Guy S. Robinson;Lida Pigott Burney

  • Biome reconstruction from pollen and plant macrofossil data for Africa and the Arabian peninsula at 0 and 6000 years

    Dominique Jolly;I. Colin Prentice;Raymonde Bonnefille;Aziz Ballouche

  • FOSSIL EVIDENCE FOR A DIVERSE BIOTA FROM KAUA‘I AND ITS TRANSFORMATION SINCE HUMAN ARRIVAL

    David A. Burney;Helen F. James;Lida Pigott Burney;Storrs L. Olson

  • Conservation Paleobiology: Leveraging Knowledge of the Past to Inform Conservation and Restoration

    Gregory P. Dietl;Gregory P. Dietl;Susan M. Kidwell;Mark Brenner;David A. Burney

  • Late Holocene Environmental Changes in Arid Southwestern Madagascar

    David A. Burney

  • Late Quaternary Stratigraphic Charcoal Records from Madagascar

    Unknown

  • LANDSCAPE PALEOECOLOGY AND MEGAFAUNAL EXTINCTION IN SOUTHEASTERN NEW YORK STATE

    Guy S. Robinson;Lida Pigott Burney;David A. Burney

  • Late Holocene Vegetational Change in Central Madagascar

    Unknown

  • Dating of modified femora of extinct dwarf Hippopotamus from Southern Madagascar: Implications for constraining human colonization and vertebrate extinction events

    R.D.E. MacPhee;David A. Burney

  • Holocene Charcoal Stratigraphy from Laguna Tortuguero, Puerto Rico, and the Timing of Human Arrival on the Island

    David A. Burney;Lida Pigott Burney;R.D.E. MacPhee

  • Using ancient DNA to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens across the Pacific

    Vicki A Thomson;Ophelie Lebrasseur;Jeremy J. Austin;Jeremy J. Austin;Terry L Hunt;Terry L Hunt

  • Rates, Patterns, and Processes of Landscape Transformation and Extinction in Madagascar

    David A. Burney

  • Environmental change, extinction and human activity: evidence from caves in NW Madagascar

    David A. Burney;Helen F. James;Frederick V. Grady;Jean Gervais Rafamantanantsoa

  • Evidence of early butchery of giant lemurs in Madagascar.

    Ventura R. Perez;Laurie R. Godfrey;Malgosia Nowak-Kemp;David A. Burney

  • Evidence disputing deforestation as the cause for the collapse of the ancient Maya polity of Copan, Honduras

    Cameron L. McNeil;David A. Burney;Lida Pigott Burney

  • The diet and ecology of Hawaii's extinct flightless waterfowl: evidence from coprolites

    Helen F. James;David A. Burney

  • Paleoecology and “inter‐situ” restoration on Kaua'i, Hawai'i

    David A. Burney;Lida Pigott Burney

  • Desert paleoenvironmental data from cave speleothems with examples from the Chihuahuan, Somali-Chalbi, and Kalahari deserts

    George A. Brook;David A. Burney;James B. Cowart

  • Tropical Islands as Paleoecological Laboratories: Gauging the Consequences of Human Arrival

    David A. Burney

Frequent Co-Authors

William L. Jungers
William L. Jungers Stony Brook University
Jeremy J. Austin
Jeremy J. Austin University of Adelaide
George A. Brook
George A. Brook University of Georgia
Elwyn L. Simons
Elwyn L. Simons Duke University
Hai Cheng
Hai Cheng Xi'an Jiaotong University
Greger Larson
Greger Larson University of Oxford
Alan Cooper
Alan Cooper Charles Sturt University
Keith Dobney
Keith Dobney University of Sydney
Ross D. E. MacPhee
Ross D. E. MacPhee American Museum of Natural History
David A. Walsh
David A. Walsh Concordia University

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