Colin Clark is a mathematical biologist who has contributed to the conceptual foundations of biological resource management and (more recently) behavioural ecology. His influential book, Mathematical Bioeconomics, wove together economics and population biology to illuminate the distinction between ‘renewable’ resources whose maximum sustainable yield is greater than economic ‘discount rates’, and those for which it is not (in the latter case, economic and conservation interests, ineluctably conflict, even with an effective ‘sole owner’).

Other important studies by Colin include analyses of the dynamic properties, and consequent efficacies, of different kinds of regulatory instruments (tariffs, quotas and licences, for example). His pioneering work on stochastic dynamic optimisation as a tool for analysing problems in animal behaviour is finding an increasing range of important applications.