RETROSPECTIVE Charles Duncan Michener, 1918–2015 RETROSPECTIVE Berry J. Brosia,1 and Paul R. Ehrlichb Paul was just 15 when he met Michener (Mich), who contributed to both was curator of Lepidoptera at the American Museum sociobiology and also of Natural History. He seemed to be very old to Paul to chemical ecology, (Mich was 29) and Paul thought even then that Mich given the central role was a great scientist (he was right). Mich was doing of cuticular hydrocar- research on the taxonomy of butterflies and moths bons and macrocy- because he couldn’t find employment working with clic lactones in kin bees, his first and last love. recognition. Mich’s Berry only met Mich once, when Berry came to the work on bee behav- University of Kansas in October 2005 to identify bees ior, and in particular he had collected in Costa Rica as part of his doctoral sociality, was crystal- dissertation at Stanford. Mich had already shown lized in his 1974 book generosity by arranging for two graduate students in The Social Behavior bee systematics to join Berry in Costa Rica to help of the Bees (2), which teach him bee sampling and identification. Mich was a was foundational towering figure in Berry’s imagination, for his contri- to later work on so- butions to bee systematics and the biology of social- ciobiology and the ity. Berry used his copy (given to him by Paul) of Mich’s evolution of social- sweeping magnum opus on bee systematics and tax- ity, by E. O. Wilson onomy, The Bees of the World (1), every day in Costa and others. Rica to key out bees to subgenus. Mich was consid- It was typical of ered the central figure in bee systematics globally, Mich’s mentoring with the bulk of his more than 500 publications (span- that he did not try ning more than 80 years!) related to that topic. Mich to convert Paul to was apparently teased by colleagues upon the publica- hymenopteran tax- tion of The Bees of the World that he had only just onomy, but instead finished his doctoral dissertation, which was focused on encouraged his in- Charles Duncan Michener. Image courtesy of the Kenneth the morphology, phylogeny, and classification of bees. terest in butterfly sys- Spencer Research Library (University of Kansas Libraries, But Mich’s curiosity extended beyond systematics, tematics and allowing Lawrence, KS). and he made central contributions to our understand- him to do volunteer ing of bee behavior, and in particular sociality. Mich work on them at the American Museum and steering him particularly exploited the fact that the bee lineage con- toward science, suggesting that he join the then-forming tains a striking diversity of sociality—in contrast to Lepidopterists’ Society. In 1952 Paul was accepted by groups like ants that have only highly social forms— Mich as a graduate student at the University of Kansas, and many of his contributions were based on obser- where Mich had moved so he could return to his bee vations of “transitional” taxa that are neither solitary research. Mich arranged for Paul to have an assistantship nor eusocial, but instead weakly social. Mich put these with his new colleague, Bob Sokal, and the Michener– studies in a phylogenetic context, in particular exam- Sokal combination would soon transform the ancient ining taxa that, for example, had reverted from weakly field of taxonomy. Paul and two fellow graduate stu- social to solitary. Often the taxa he used in studies of dents, Jim Chilcott and Earl Cross (now both gone), were behavior and sociality also became the focus of sys- fortunate enough to be in a small seminar where the tematic investigations as well. theory of taxonomy was being critically examined. Bob One component of this work was on kin recogni- argued against the rest of the group that statistical tech- tion (in particular with David Fletcher), research that niques could be used to make taxonomy much more aDepartment of Environmental Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322; and bDepartment of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 Author contributions: B.J.B. and P.R.E. wrote the paper. The authors declare no conflict of interest. 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: [email protected]. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1600285113 PNAS Early Edition | 1of2 Downloaded by guest on October 1, 2021 objective and repeatable. Michener and Sokal decided the bees that Berry had collected in Costa Rica, and the debate had to be settled by experiment, and that led particularly interested to see three specimens of Mydro- to the famous test on Mich’s bees and the publication of soma, a beautiful, relatively large bee genus from the a paper that showed Sokal to be correct (and Mich and Western Hemisphere tropics and subtropics. Mich had Paul dead wrong) and transformed a major area of evo- revised the genus in 1986 (3) and in 2002 (4) wrote a lutionary biology. It was a measure of Mich’s interest in note describing the first specimen recorded from bees that, whereas Sokal and others worked very hard to Costa Rica. pursue the transformation of the entire discipline of tax- Mich was released from the hospital and was in the onomy, Mich’s main efforts quickly returned to his pri- office the next day, the day before Berry left Kansas, mary interest in bee evolution and systematics. and Mich was anxious to see the Mydrosoma speci- When Berry arrived in Lawrence to work on bee mens. After examining and discussing the Mydrosoma identifications, Mich was in the hospital with pneumo- specimens that day, Berry and Mich continued to cor- nia. Upon hearing the news, Berry didn’texpectto respond about them, with Mich eventually deciding meet Mich in person during his eight-day visit, but Mich that although they probably represented a new emailed Berry asking him to come by the hospital. Ar- species, without male specimens there wasn’t quite riving in the hospital room, there was barely room to enough to go on to write them up. Two years later, stand, as Mich was completely surrounded by dozens Laurence Packer described a new Mydrosoma from and dozens of balloons, flowers, and cards from well- Brazil, naming it, fittingly, Mydrosoma michneri (5). wishers. It was immediately apparent that this was a Paul and Mich remained in touch until Mich’s person who had built up a community of friends, family, death, and despite their different taxonomic orienta- and colleagues who cared tremendously for him. De- tions ended up finally coauthoring a study in 2005 (6). spite being ill and in a hospital gown, Mich sat up It showed that leaving part of a coffee plantation in straight and emanated an aura of dignity, curiosity, forest increased coffee production by supplying hab- and empathy. Before the visit, and multiple times since, itat for pollinators. They both enjoyed having Paul fi- Berry has heard bee researchers talk about how Mich’s nally struggle with bee taxonomy, the results being a integrity and high personal and professional expecta- paper with Taylor Ricketts as the first author, his major tions have shaped the unusually positive research professor Gretchen Daily the next author, her major climate in bee systematics and pollination biology re- professor Paul, next, and Paul’s major professor, Mich, search. When Berry arrived in that hospital room in the senior author. Lawrence, Mich brushed questions about his health Mich died peacefully in his sleep of heart failure when aside and immediately began to ask about Berry’s visit he was 97. He was, to the end, a soft-spoken gentleman, and how things had gone. He was very curious about a true friend to many, and a brilliant scientist. 1 Michener CD (2000) Bees of the World (Johns Hopkins Univ Press, Baltimore, MD). 2 Michener CD (1974) The Social Behavior of Bees (Harvard Univ Press, Boston, MD). 3 Michener CD (1986) A review of the tribes Diphagiossini and Dissogiottini (Hymenoptera, Colletidae). Univ Kans Sci Bull 53:183–214. 4 Michener CD (2002) The bee genus Mydrosoma in Costa Rica (Hymenoptera: Colletidae). Entomol News 114:54. 5 Packer L (2007) Mydrosoma micheneri Packer, new species, a new diphaglossine bee from Brazil (Hymenoptera: Colletidae). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 16(2):277–280. 6 Ricketts TH, Daily GC, Ehrlich PR, Michener CD (2004) Economic value of tropical forest to coffee production. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101(34):12579–12582. 2of2 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1600285113 Brosi and Ehrlich Downloaded by guest on October 1, 2021.