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NEWS & VIEWS NATURE|Vol 451|3 January 2008 OBITUARY Alan J. Southward (1928–2007) G. BRAASCH Marine biologist: a pioneer of marine ecosystem time series. Alan Southward’s many contributions set the events leading to the 1930s collapse of him among the most influential figures of the herring fishery and the replacement of twentieth-century marine science. Much herring by pilchards. Their seminal paper, of his career was spent at Plymouth, in published in 1971, linked changes in water Devon, an ideal location for studying how mass and water chemistry to changes in environmental changes affect marine plankton species and abundance. Subsequent ecosystems: the western English Channel studies on cyclical and long-term changes in and its approaches form a boundary between the marine ecosystem led to an understanding oceanic and coastal waters, as well as between of the causes of these changes, and to two biogeographical provinces. predictions of the consequences of rising sea In the 1890s, plankton surveys were started temperatures. in this region by the Marine Biological The Southwards first used Sarsia for deep- Association of the United Kingdom (MBA). sea studies in 1956, dredging the continental bacteria and dissolved organic matter. Several time series were established, including slope for barnacles, which involved long hours In retirement, Southward turned to the those of zooplankton by Frederick Russell in of noisy winch work. The scientists’ cabins study of hydrothermal-vent ecosystems. the 1930s. Southward started baseline surveys were directly under the winch, making sleep This was aided by an invitation to become an of intertidal organisms around the British difficult — except for Southward, whose adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, and Irish coasts in the 1950s, and later took deafness proved a boon (likewise his immunity Canada, to study vents in the Pacific. He was over the Plymouth zooplankton time series. to seasickness, although he was, once, reported an early user of stable-isotope data to follow Using old records, he demonstrated how to have felt uncomfortable in a force 12). nutritional pathways in such ecosystems in the distribution of organisms changed with Looking through dredge sievings, the the Atlantic, Mediterranean and the Pacific. changing sea temperatures. This was long Southwards noticed hair-like organisms that Southward was an excellent writer and before the advent of concern about global had probably been ignored previously because stimulating speaker. For 20 years he was a warming; his work laid the foundations for they resembled the fibres of the dredge nets. meticulous editor of Advances in Marine subsequent studies of climatic effects on They became fascinated by these small, Biology, with an uncanny eye even for marine ecosystems. mouthless, gutless tubeworms, known as the missing comma in a reference list. He Southward was born in Liverpool, the son pogonophores, and investigated whether they encouraged scientists from the Soviet Union of a Cunard engineering fitter. He contracted could obtain nutrition from dissolved organic to publish reviews in English to gain a meningitis at 15, with the result that he lost compounds in the sediment. Following wider audience. This led to a heavy editing his hearing and sense of balance, and had to the 1977 discovery of hydrothermal vents workload, not least in coping with the authors’ learn to balance by eye. An interest in shore and giant pogonophores (vestimentifera) ‘Russish’, but Southward justifiably obtained organisms led him to study zoology at the on the Galapagos Rift, Colleen Cavanaugh great satisfaction from seeing their work in University of Liverpool, graduating in 1948. showed that sulphur-oxidizing bacteria living print. Following the break-up of the Soviet Doctoral studies followed, on the ecology symbiotically within the vestimentiferans Union, there was little funding for Russian of intertidal animals, at Port Erin Marine supplied them with their nutrition by marine biologists, and Southward worked Laboratory on the Isle of Man. It was there chemosynthesis. It soon emerged that the hard to find Western sources of money to that he met, and later married, his lifetime small pogonophores of the continental slope keep them in post. scientific partner, Eve Judges. also contained such bacteria. Alan Southward was an innovative, In 1953, the year the MBA acquired the Several cruises to the slope were spent multi-disciplinary scientist, one measure side-trawler Sarsia for offshore studies, looking for the bacterial energy source of his encyclopaedic knowledge being Southward moved to Plymouth as a because, unlike the vents, hydrogen sulphide the impression he left on postgraduates at postdoctoral fellow. He was on the MBA and methane were almost absent there. Victoria by his ability to advise them on any staff from 1956 until his retirement in 1988, Finally, Southward negotiated funding research project. He published prolifically, and continued working there until his death to study a shallow pogonophore habitat with 11 papers stemming from his doctoral on 27 October 2007. He initially followed near Bergen, Norway. Two bivalve species studies alone; overall, he published 200 in the steps of Charles Darwin, the most were found, also with chemosynthetic papers, along with two books (Life on the famous student of barnacles, in showing how bacteria, living alongside the pogonophores. Seashore and British Barnacles). He could studies on barnacle distribution could allow Eventually, it was deduced that all these be impatient, especially with administrators inferences to be made about biogeographical organisms ‘mined’ sedimentary iron who took a short-term view, but devoted barriers. His early intertidal surveys were sulphides to obtain energy for bacterial much time to encouraging young scientists. used to quantify the damage caused by the carbon dioxide fixation. In this way, Southward was one of the greatest marine detergent used to disperse the Torrey Canyon chemosynthetic ecosystems were shown to be biologists of his generation, and leaves an oil spill in 1967; more notably, he showed how widespread in reducing sediments, from the internationally regarded legacy of dedication long it took for the ecosystem to recover. intertidal regions to the deep sea. and achievement. From the early 1950s onwards, Southward Southward continued studying Paul R. Dando showed how minor changes in environmental pogonophores throughout his life, a final Paul R. Dando, of the Marine Biological conditions, especially temperature, correlated paper being completed just before his death. Association of the United Kingdom, is at the with changing geographical ranges of Research came full circle with the conclusion School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, intertidal and planktonic organisms. He that many pogonophores are ‘mixotrophic’, Menai Bridge LL59 5AB, UK. worked with Russell, and others, describing depending on both endosymbiotic e-mail: [email protected] 28.

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