Ken Thompson

11.2k total citations · 4 hit papers
54 papers, 6.5k citations indexed

About

Ken Thompson is a scholar working on Nature and Landscape Conservation, Plant Science and Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics. According to data from OpenAlex, Ken Thompson has authored 54 papers receiving a total of 6.5k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 21 papers in Nature and Landscape Conservation, 15 papers in Plant Science and 12 papers in Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics. Recurrent topics in Ken Thompson's work include Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies (21 papers), Species Distribution and Climate Change (9 papers) and Plant and animal studies (9 papers). Ken Thompson is often cited by papers focused on Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies (21 papers), Species Distribution and Climate Change (9 papers) and Plant and animal studies (9 papers). Ken Thompson collaborates with scholars based in United Kingdom, United States and Australia. Ken Thompson's co-authors include Dennis M. Ritchie, Robert Morris, John Hodgson, Siti N. Hidayati, Peter Poschlod, Jeffrey L. Walck, Kingsley W. Dixon, J. Philip Grime, Michael A. McCarthy and Renée M. Bekker and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

In The Last Decade

Ken Thompson

53 papers receiving 5.8k citations

Hit Papers

align trajectories

What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

Climate change and plant regeneration from seed

2010 774 citations Ken Thompson et al. profile →
Don't judge species on their origins

2011 717 citations Mark A. Davis, Matthew K. Chew et al. Nature profile →
Password security

1979 560 citations Robert Morris, Ken Thompson Communications of the ACM profile →
The UNIX time-sharing system

1974 537 citations Ken Thompson et al. Communications of the ACM profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name	h						Papers	Cites
Ken Thompson United Kingdom	28	2.5k	1.6k	1.4k	1.4k	1.2k	54	6.5k
Andrew Martin United Kingdom	47	1.5k 0.6×	813 0.5×	1.5k 1.0×	1.7k 1.2×	1.1k 0.9×	221	8.2k
Paul M. Rich United States	32	2.3k 0.9×	1.1k 0.7×	2.8k 2.0×	638 0.5×	3.9k 3.2×	68	7.1k
Lars Arge Denmark	31	691 0.3×	271 0.2×	481 0.3×	365 0.3×	550 0.5×	109	3.8k
Lee White United States	40	1.4k 0.6×	137 0.1×	2.3k 1.6×	844 0.6×	1.6k 1.3×	137	6.5k
Yongguang Zhang China	60	362 0.1×	1.9k 1.2×	5.1k 3.5×	446 0.3×	6.2k 5.1×	220	15.0k
Michael T. Burrows United Kingdom	58	2.1k 0.8×	271 0.2×	9.2k 6.3×	1.3k 0.9×	9.0k 7.5×	205	23.9k
Sang-Don Lee South Korea	17	288 0.1×	239 0.1×	547 0.4×	329 0.2×	522 0.4×	115	3.4k
William K. Michener United States	35	899 0.4×	178 0.1×	1.7k 1.2×	267 0.2×	1.1k 0.9×	86	4.5k
William W. Hargrove United States	36	1.9k 0.8×	428 0.3×	2.5k 1.7×	559 0.4×	2.7k 2.2×	102	5.5k

Countries citing papers authored by Ken Thompson

Since Specialization

Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Ken Thompson's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Ken Thompson with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Ken Thompson more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Ken Thompson

Since Specialization

Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Ken Thompson. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Ken Thompson. The network helps show where Ken Thompson may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Ken Thompson

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Ken Thompson. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Ken Thompson based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Ken Thompson. Ken Thompson is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

Sort: Min cites: Since: Top N: Style:

20 of 20 papers shown

1.

Simpson, Kimberley J., Christopher Bennett, Emily J. Mockford, et al.. (2020). C₄ photosynthesis and the economic spectra of leaf and root traits independently influence growth rates in grasses. Journal of Ecology. 108(5). 1899–1909. 34 indexed citations

2.

Wade, Ruth N., Patrick C. Seed, Pascal‐Antoine Christin, et al.. (2020). The morphogenesis of fast growth in plants. New Phytologist. 228(4). 1306–1315. 8 indexed citations

3.

Thompson, Ken, et al.. (2020). Medication Adherence Barriers: Development and Retrospective Pilot Test of an Evidence-Based Screening Instrument. Clinical journal of oncology nursing. 24(2). E13–E20. 1 indexed citations

4.

Basto, Sofía, Ken Thompson, J. Philip Grime, et al.. (2018). Severe effects of long-term drought on calcareous grassland seed banks. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. 1(1). 65 indexed citations

5.

Thompson, Ken. (2014). Where Do Camels Belong. 2 indexed citations

6.

Irschick, Duncan J., et al.. (2013). Functional ecology: integrative research in the modern age of ecology. Functional Ecology. 27(1). 1–4. 10 indexed citations

7.

Davis, Mark A., Matthew K. Chew, Richard J. Hobbs, et al.. (2011). Don't judge species on their origins. Nature. 474(7350). 153–154. 717 indexed citations breakdown →

8.

Plue, Jan, Kris Verheyen, Hans Van Calster, et al.. (2010). Seed banks of temperate deciduous forests during secondary succession. Journal of Vegetation Science. 21(5). 965–978. 26 indexed citations

9.

Grime, J. P., et al.. (2008). Long-term resistance to simulated climate change in an infertile grassland. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105(29). 10028–10032. 260 indexed citations

10.

Gurnell, Angela M., Ken Thompson, J. M. Goodson, & Helen L. Moggridge. (2008). Propagule deposition along river margins: linking hydrology and ecology. Journal of Ecology. 96(3). 553–565. 135 indexed citations

11.

Neilson, Ronald P., Louis F. Pitelka, Allen M. Solomon, et al.. (2005). Forecasting Regional to Global Plant Migration in Response to Climate Change. BioScience. 55(9). 749–749. 271 indexed citations

12.

Davis, Mark A., Ken Thompson, & J. Philip Grime. (2001). Charles S. Elton and the dissociation of invasion ecology from the rest of ecology. Diversity and Distributions. 7(1-2). 97–102. 105 indexed citations

13.

Thompson, Ken, John Hodgson, & Kevin J. Gaston. (1998). Abundance–range size relationships in the herbaceous flora of central England. Journal of Ecology. 86(3). 439–448. 88 indexed citations

14.

Grime, J. Philip, Johannes H. C. Cornelissen, Ken Thompson, & John Hodgson. (1996). Evidence of a Causal Connection between Anti-Herbivore Defence and the Decomposition Rate of Leaves. Oikos. 77(3). 489–489. 254 indexed citations

15.

Thompson, Ken, et al.. (1992). Antifungal activity in seed coat extracts of woodland plants. Oecologia. 92(2). 296–298. 17 indexed citations

16.

Thompson, Ken. (1992). Chess Endgames Vol. 2. ICGA Journal. 15(3). 149–149. 2 indexed citations

17.

Thompson, Ken. (1991). Reflections on trusting trust. 97–104. 7 indexed citations

18.

Thompson, Ken. (1991). Chess Endgames Vol. 1. ICGA Journal. 14(1). 22–22. 3 indexed citations

19.

Thompson, Ken. (1986). Retrograde Analysis of Certain Endgames. ICGA Journal. 9(3). 131–139. 79 indexed citations

20.

Morris, Robert & Ken Thompson. (1979). Password security. Communications of the ACM. 22(11). 594–597. 560 indexed citations breakdown →

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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