Colin Groves (1942–2017) Evolutionary Biologist Who Brought Taxonomy to Life
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obituary Colin Groves (1942–2017) Evolutionary biologist who brought taxonomy to life. axonomy allows us to manage and of a new species, Homo ergaster. More investigate the bewildering complexity recently he worked tirelessly to debunk Tof the living world. Most of us take a the more irrational interpretations sound taxonomy for granted, but thankfully of Homo floresiensis from Flores that have a few generous souls work to make sure been doing the rounds. the taxonomic house is kept in good order. Although primates, and especially Colin Groves was an old-school whole- apes, were the focus of Groves’ research, animal biologist who gave taxonomy, and its his interests were unusually, and perhaps implications for conservation, the attention even uniquely, eclectic. Asses, bandicoots, it deserves. In doing so he furthered not deer, elephants, gazelles, horses, pigs and only his own research agenda, but also the rhinoceroses attracted his attention at one research agendas of many others. time or another. Groves was particularly Groves, who died on 30 November respected for his thoughtful and scholarly 2017, conducted much of his fieldwork in Credit: Australian National University reviews of ape taxonomy, and just a few museums poring over seldom-accessed weeks before he died he was a co-author on skeletal collections. His method was to a paper that presented cogent evidence for assemble as large and as geographically more than 700 gorilla crania. After the a second species of orangutan on the island diverse a sample as possible of a mammalian award of his PhD in 1966, Groves taught at of Sumatra. His wide interests made his taxon in order to critically evaluate the case the University of California, Berkeley, then opinions especially valuable. for lumping or splitting a particular species. at the London branch of the Smithsonian Groves was a scholar who wore his Groves’ taxonomic and geographic Institution’s Primate Biology Program, encyclopaedic erudition lightly. He was scope was broad, and the list of groups which Napier opened in 1969, and after particularly helpful to students and he investigated reads like the inventory of that at Cambridge University. seemingly never tired of answering the a major zoo — he contributed to major Groves was appointed to his first, and hundreds of enquiries that came his way. revisions of the taxonomies of primates only, faculty position at the Australian When I was editing an encyclopaedia of and ungulates, and he worked on mammals National University (ANU) in 1973. The human evolution, he was my go-to source from Asia, Africa and Australia. He also following year he moved to Canberra to for any question involving nomenclature. made influential, and characteristically join ANU’s School of General Studies. As it If I sent him a question during the evening, iconoclastic, contributions to several debates turned out, Australia and the ANU suited a considered and helpful reply would about human evolutionary history. Groves to a tee. In an interview not long nearly always be waiting in my inbox the Groves was born on 24 June 1942 in before his death, he said that, at the ANU, next morning. Enfield, an outer suburb of London. As a “I can work on what I want, I can dress Groves was particularly interested in teenager, he would visit what is now the how I want and I can teach what I want. endangered species, and in many ways he Natural History Museum. His father was a I thought I’d come over for three or four was one himself. In an era when universities travel agent, so even as a youngster Groves years and see how I like it, and I’m still here.” are ever more ‘corporate’, I cannot imagine a was no stranger to overseas travel. He went He rose through the academic ranks, and department hiring a taxonomist, especially to a boarding school, Lancing College, where while doing so he found the time and one whose interests are metaphorically, his interests in natural history and art were space to write seminal books and papers and literally, all over the map. His many encouraged. Groves wanted to study zoology on pure and applied taxonomy, as well colleagues miss him already, and biology at university, but his father pushed for a as making important contributions to will lament the eventual extinction of degree in linguistics; they compromised on taxonomic theory. researchers and scholars with the breadth anthropology at University College London. His 1989 book A Theory of Primate of interest that Groves displayed. ❐ Groves focused on biological and Human Evolution tackled many of the anthropology and for his postgraduate thorniest issues in palaeoanthropology, Bernard Wood research he decided to work with and offered solutions that were far CASHP, George Washington University, John Napier, then the doyen of British from mainstream. Groves argued that Washington DC, USA. He frst met Colin Groves primatology and human evolution research, heterochrony and centrifugal speciation in 1966 as an undergraduate attending a course in the Unit of Primatology and Human played major roles in the evolutionary given by John Napier. Groves spoke to the class Evolution at the Royal Free Hospital Medical change he observed within what we now about his gorilla research. School in London. Napier suggested that call the hominin clade. He was an early e-mail: [email protected] gorilla taxonomy was in need of care and and ardent advocate for cladistic methods, attention, so Groves used multivariate and together with Czech colleague Published online: 16 April 2018 methods to characterize variation among Vratislav Mazák, proposed the recognition https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0554-y 922 NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION | VOL 2 | JUNE 2018 | 922 | www.nature.com/natecolevol © 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved. © 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved..