Blumea 65, 2020: i–ix www.ingentaconnect.com/content/nhn/blumea OBITUARY https://doi.org/10.3767/blumea.2020.65.02.00-1 In memoriam Willem F. Prud’homme van Reine (3 April 1941 – 21 March 2020) P. Baas1, S.G.A. Draisma2, J.L. Olsen3, W.T. Stam3, B.W. Hoeksema1,3 Citation: Baas P, Draisma SGA, Olsen JL, et al. 2020. In memoriam Willem F. Prud’homme van Reine (3 April 1941 – 21 March 2020). Blumea 65 (2): i–ix. https://doi.org/10.3767/blumea.2020.65.02.00-1. Effectively published online: 9 October 2020. Fig. 1 Willem in his office in the Rijksherbarium (2012, then in the Van Steenis building). Photo by Jiska Bootsma-Wolthaus. Willem Frederik Prud’homme van Reine passed away on 21 In 1961, he obtained his Bachelor’s degree. For his Master’s March 2020, following a prolonged illness, which did not prevent programme, he completed four research projects: him from continuing his research until a few weeks before his 1. on marine fungi in The Netherlands (under ADJ Meeuse); death. With him we lose a great phycologist and marine biolo- 2. on foot rot disease in grafted cucumber (under LCP Kerling); gist, who was a dedicated teacher and supervisor, as well as 3. on shell disease in oysters (under P Korringa, and in col- a good friend and colleague. laboration with his later PhD supervisor and colleague, Willem was born on 3 April 1941 in Zaandam, North Holland. phycologist Chris van den Hoek); and His father was a high school teacher of biology and known for 4. on the biogeography of marine gastropods his field guides on coastal and aquatic life. Willem enrolled (under HJ Engel). in the University of Amsterdam for his biology study in 1958. He obtained his Master’s – cum laude in 1965 and spent the following year teaching various botanical courses at the Hugo 1 Naturalis Biodiversity Center, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Nether- de Vries Laboratory, University of Amsterdam. lands; corresponding author e-mail: [email protected]. In 1966 a vacancy arose for a phycologist at the Rijksherbarium 2 Seaweed and Seagrass Research Unit, Excellence Center for Biodiversity of Leiden University. Chris van den Hoek had held the position of Peninsular Thailand, Faculty of Science, Prince of Songkla University, Hatyai, Songkhla 90110, Thailand. previously, but was moving on to a professorship at the Univer- 3 Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, sity of Groningen. Willem applied and was appointed. His remit P.O. Box 11103, 9700 CC Groningen, The Netherlands. included research, teaching and curation of the extensive algal © 2020 Naturalis Biodiversity Center You are free to share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work, under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non-commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No derivative works: You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work, which can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights. ii Blumea – Volume 65 / 2, 2020 herbarium collections. Willem would fulfill these three tasks crucially underpin his understanding of seaweed biodiversity. with equal passion and dedication. Even after his retirement as Knowing ‘how to look’ and ‘where to look’ were skills he passed regular staff member in 2006, he carried on as honorary staff on to his many students and are beautifully reflected in his at Naturalis Biodiversity Center, which nowadays, incorporates many publications. the former Rijksherbarium. Following international conferences and congresses, he and his Willem’s PhD thesis on the brown algal family Sphacelariaceae wife, Hilda, would often combine their vacation with botanizing (1982) remains a model of modern taxonomic revision, based along the shore of wherever they ended up. He was hosted on on both herbarium material and cultivated specimens, the sabbaticals to Japan, Australia and New Zealand; there would latter providing critical details of vegetative and reproductive, have been more, had time permitted. In the Naturalis Bioportal developmental morphology. Successfully cultivating marine (https://bioportal.naturalis.nl/) 4 719 specimens are listed with algae was an enormous challenge in the early 1970s and Prud’homme van Reine as first collector; under the umbrella of Willem became a master. His PhD thesis was reputedly the first the multilateral expeditions, sabbatical visits to other herbaria systematic study in phycology to apply the, then new, cladistic and conferences, that number more than doubles. analysis methods to morphological and developmental data. Willem’s teaching duties were substantial, and he carried them Later in his career, Willem’s interest in the phylogeny of brown out with enthusiasm. He taught regular courses in phycology algae would be further pursued by one of his PhD students, and cryptogamic botany throughout his career, in addition to Stefano Draisma, adding robust DNA sequence data analyses being coordinator and principal lecturer in the plant biodiversity to the toolbox. curriculum at Leiden University for many years. He was also an enthusiastic leader of marine field courses in Normandy and Over the years Willem’s research broadened into four themes: Brittany. In the 1990s he taught courses on Applied Marine 1. Taxonomy, phylogenetic systematics and biogeography of Ecology in Brussels at the International FAME College, followed selected algal groups. by field excursions to Wimereux. He also supervised five PhD The brown algal order, Sphacelariales; the green algal students and numerous MSc research projects. genus, Caulerpa J.V.Lamour. (also studied by his PhD student Willem easily collaborated with colleagues and junior demon- Lisette de Sénerpont Domis); the taxonomy and distribution strators, making friends for life among them all. Very close of tropical seaweeds, especially calcareous reds, in South collaboration existed with colleagues in The Netherlands (es- Sulawesi (also studied by PhD student Erik Verheij); and pecially with the University of Groningen group) and abroad phylogeny and biogeography of selected genera of red and in Belgium, Germany, the UK, Spain, Macaronesia, Eritrea, brown algae in the mid-Atlantic islands (studied by PhD South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, student, Yde de Jong) were the most important. Indonesia and The Philippines. It is no wonder, that Willem was 2. Marine algal biogeography and floristics in selected re- asked to serve on or lead numerous committees, within the gions. Rijksherbarium (later National Herbarium of The Netherlands), Macaronesia was a favourite for many years within the the Science Faculty of Leiden University, and several national framework of the CANCAP project. There was also the and international bodies. In 1985/86 he presided over a com- Indo-Malayan region, including the Philippines and Papua mittee to draft a new research strategy for biological research New Guinea. These ongoing projects resulted in the dis- in The Netherlands. For many years he served as phycological covery of new species, assorted checklists, and biogeo- editor of the journal Nova Hedwigia. He organized the Dutch graphical analyses, that led to further cooperative projects phycological community at home and worked to gain support for with regional phycologists. Over the years this resulted in research funding through the Dutch National Science Founda- significant contributions to the seaweed floras of Indone- tion (NWO). Moreover, he had an important role as co-organizer sia, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, of the 5th Symposium on Fauna and Flora of the Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Eritrea and the Dutch Carib- Islands (4–7 October 1989) and the 6th International Phyco- bean islands. And last but not least, there was Western logical Congress (9–16 August 1997), both hosted in Leiden. Europe. For the Dutch province of Zeeland he assembled Public outreach was also a major activity. For many years he a special herbarium Algae Zeelandica. lead the Leiden chapter of The Netherlands Society for Field 3. Nomenclature of algae. Biology (KNNV), numbering many amateur naturalists among For many years Willem was an active member of the its members. Permanent Committee of Algal Nomenclature and of the As a marine field biologist more generally, Willem also col- Special Committee for the harmonization of codes of the laborated with marine zoologists from the Rijksmuseum van International Association of Plant Taxonomists (IAPT). He Natuurlijke Historie (Leiden) and the Zoological Museum of also painstakingly located the numerous holotypes of the Amsterdam – taxonomic institutes that later became part of Pacific seaweed species described by FT Kützing in the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. This was most obvious during Rijksherbarium. His interest in nomenclature went hand large-scale marine expeditions (with zoologists Jaap van der in hand with a passion for biohistory, leading for instance Land and Bert Hoeksema). Again, he brought his keen obser- to an elegant study of the work and collections of Anna vational skills to good use whether collecting benthic algae Weber-van Bosse and her contemporaries. or invertebrates. Some of these expeditions were ship-based 4. Applied phycology. (e.g., CANCAP – Mauritania in the East Atlantic 1977–1988, This was an early interest, which culminated in Willem’s Snellius-II in Indonesia, 1984), whereas the later ones were editorship and co-authorship of the authoritative volume based in field stations on land with emphasis on sampling by entitled, Cryptogams: Algae in the Plant Resources of diving, snorkelling and beach combing.