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NEWS & VIEWS NATURE|Vol 438|15 December 2005 OBITUARY Richard Southwood (1931–2005) Entomologist, ecologist and science policy adviser. Modern ecology emerged in the 1960s and dispersal strategies. He summarized this 1970s as a fusion of scientific natural history, approach in 1977, in a major review article, applied biology and more rigorous “Habitat, the templet for ecological approaches from population biology and strategies?”, which became a citation classic. mathematics. Richard (Dick) Southwood, This work was notable for linking the who died on 26 October, was a major figure traditional informal approach to studying life in forging the new subject. He was influential histories with the growing mathematical both for his own research and for the research theory based on optimality arguments and groups that he built and fostered. trade-offs between different demands on an Southwood’s background was as an organism’s limiting resources. entomologist, in particular as an expert on Southwood remained at Imperial until the Heteroptera or true bugs, a group that 1979, building a strong group in pure and contains many pest species. His PhD on their applied ecology. For the rest of his career systematics and ecology, undertaken at he was based at the University of Oxford, Rothamsted Experimental Station in initially as head of the Department of Hertfordshire, UK, was very much in the Zoology, where he continued to apply his similar aetiology to BSE, had never been a mould of classical entomology; likewise the talents as a scientific leader and group problem for human health. To Southwood’s first research he did when, in 1955, he moved builder. He eventually became vice- dismay, his report was used by government UPPA.CO.UK to Imperial College London to study the chancellor of the university, a post that, without equivocation to persuade people of cereal pest Oscinella, the frit (not fruit) fly. particularly at Oxford, requires the wisdom the near impossibility of human infection. Although he continued to study applied of Solomon. He also became increasingly When human infections did occur, and when problems, for example mosquito dynamics involved in scientific policy, and was an it was unclear how many people would and improving the habitat for partridges, adviser to the UK government on many become infected, Southwood’s group was Southwood increasingly turned to the more issues involving the environment and health. criticized for not warning more strongly of fundamental issues in ecology for which he In the early 1980s, he chaired the Royal the possible dangers. The episode highlights is best known. Here his work was invariably Commission on Environmental Pollution the great difficulties in providing scientific motivated by his encyclopaedic knowledge that produced a report on the consequences advice in the face of uncertainty, and the of insect faunas. In the early 1960s he began of lead in petrol. It was this report that led to dangers of nuanced scientific arguments studying why different species of tree the adoption of lead-free petrol in the United being reinterpreted in the political arena. support remarkably different numbers of Kingdom, as well as in many other countries. Dick Southwood was a man of immense herbivorous insect species. Using many In 1988, Southwood was asked to chair the charm who will be remembered with great sources, he compiled a database for insects on working group set up to advise on control fondness, and some awe, by generations of trees in different regions, which indicated the measures and the risks of bovine spongiform ecologists. He never lost the love of natural roles of history, biochemistry and whether a encephalopathy (BSE), which was ravaging history that filled his summer holidays as tree species has few or many close relatives in UK cattle herds. This was a highly sensitive a schoolboy in Kent, and which informed Britain. Today, this method would be called issue, with obvious risks for public health if so much of his scientific research. The macroecology, but then it was an unusual the disease could jump the species barrier handbook for the identification of British and new approach. to humans, but also with serious economic Heteroptera that he wrote in 1959 with Over the next 20 years, studies of insect consequences for British farming if the risks Dennis Leston, Land and Water Bugs herbivore communities by Southwood and were overstated. Southwood’s group strongly of the British Isles, is still the standard the many others he inspired became test criticized the changes in rendering practices work on the group. cases in community ecology. They were that had led to cattle and sheep products He was also an inspired teacher, and wrote used, for example, to explore the degree to being fed to cattle, and recommended that an influential textbook on ecological which the theories of island biogeography certain parts of the cow should not enter methods. Students found his exuberance could be applied to non-overlapping the human food chain. Most of these for science and natural history infectious. resource types and the extent to which recommendations were implemented, Mischievously, when teaching sampling terrestrial insect communities are structured although with less urgency than Southwood techniques on Imperial College field courses, by interactions with their environment, wanted; he was particularly critical of the he would contrive that ‘randomly’ placed as opposed to being mere assemblages decision to compensate farmers for only quadrats would include the most interesting of species drawn at random from those half of the economic value of infected plants or insects in the site — to this day, we that can survive in a particular habitat. cows, a clear disincentive for farmers to teach our students the difference between Heteropteran bugs vary greatly in their report the disease. randomized, stratified and southwoodian dispersal capabilities, with many being The working group also considered that sampling! ■ strong fliers and others completely wingless. the risk of BSE jumping to humans was most Charles Godfray and Michael Hassell Ever since his PhD, Southwood had been unlikely, although it stressed the importance Charles Godfray and Michael Hassell are in the interested in the evolution of life histories, of reducing that risk further. This opinion Division of Biology, Silwood Park Campus, and in particular how the scale and spatial was shared by the vast majority of scientists at Imperial College London, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK. structure of the habitat of different species the time, and was particularly influenced by e-mails: [email protected]; led to selection for varying reproductive and the fact that scrapie in sheep, a disease with a [email protected] 928 © 2005 Nature Publishing Group.

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