Georgy Frantsevich Gause (; December 27, 1910 – May 2, 1986), was a Soviet and Russian biologist and evolutionist, who proposed the competitive exclusion principle, fundamental to the science of ecology. Classic of ecology, he would devote most of his later life to the research of antibiotics. Early life Gause was born December 27, 1910, in Moscow, Russia to parents Frants Gustavovich Gause, a professor of architecture at Moscow State University, and Galina Gause, an industrial worker at an automotive steel plant. As a boy and into his teenage years, Gause and his extended family took summer vacations to the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia for months at a time. Although his family was not wealthy, they were allowed these respites because his father, being a government architect, helped to build many structures at the university. It was during these trips to the Caucasus Mountains that Gause grew fond of nature, often chronicling the lives and behavior of several organisms including the Siberian grasshopper (Aeropus sibiricus). He became interested in zoology, particularly the animal variability. At university In 1927 he was admitted to the Biological Division of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University. The Russian university system requires a faculty advisor for all undergraduate and graduate students. His chosen advisor for his undergraduate career was professor Vladimir Alpatov, who worked at the Zoological Museum of Moscow University. Alpatov, in the mid-1920s, was very impressed by the work of Raymond Pearl, a U.S. demographer who became well-known through his advocacy of the logistic curve. Alpatov brings back a fascination for American science that is very influential on Gause. Gause argued that field work, with too many variables, could never adequately explain this relationship and only in the simplified laboratory environment, where variables could be controlled, would it be possible to determine precisely how a specific ecological factor influences a population. Eager to pursue this mechanistic direction of study and influenced by his advisor, Gause contacted Pearl to see if the American would take on another Russian student. He applied for a fellowship through the Rockefeller Foundation but was denied, perhaps because he was only 22 years old. He then published a monograph The Struggle for Existence in 1934 to improve his chances but he was still denied. The monograph had several editions, and it was also translated in French and Japanese languages. During Alpatov's stay in the US,