The life and times of Robert Smith

Summary

Robert Smith (1874–1900) is credited with having made the first systematic ecological studies to be carried out in Britain. His childhood in Dundee is described and consideration is given to the possible influence of his brother William and of the countryside of Angus and Ayrshire in forming his early interest in field botany and vegetation science. His pioneering studies were encouraged by Patrick Geddes and D'Arcy Thompson, and later by Charles Flahault in Montpellier, so that Smith became an outstanding teacher and researcher at a time of momentous developments in the natural sciences.     

The characterization of restriction endonucleases: the work of Hamilton Smith

Purification of the HhaII Restriction Endonuclease from an Overproducer Escherichia coli Clone(Kelly, S., Kaddurah-Daouk, R., and Smith, H. O. (1985) J. Biol. Chem. 260, 15339–15344)Catalytic Properties of the HhaII Restriction Endonuclease(Kaddurah-Daouk, R., Cho, P., and Smith, H. O. (1985) J. Biol. Chem. 260, 15345–15351)Hamilton Othanel Smith was born in 1931 in New York City. In 1937, he and his family moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, because his father had joined the faculty of the department of education at the University of Illinois. As a boy, Smith was interested in chemistry, electricity, and electronics, and he spent many hours with his brother in their basement laboratory, which was stocked with supplies purchased from their paper route earnings. Smith attended a small college preparatory school called the University Laboratory High School and graduated in 3 years largely due to his science teacher who allowed him to complete chemistry and physics during the summer.Open in a separate windowHamilton O. SmithAfter finishing high school, Smith enrolled at the University of Illinois, majoring in mathematics. During his sophomore year, his brother showed him a book on mathematical modeling of central nervous system circuits by Nicolas Rashevsky. This caught his interest, and after transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, Smith immersed himself in courses in cell physiology, biochemistry, and biology. A guest lecture by Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) Classic author George Wald (1) describing his studies of retinal biochemistry soon converted Smith into a devoted student of visual physiology and eventually motivated him to apply to medical school.In 1952, Smith began his studies at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. He received his M.D. 4 years later and went to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis for a medical internship. However, in 1957, Smith was called up in the Doctor Draft and joined the U.S. Navy. He finished his Navy service in 1959 and moved to Detroit to begin a medical residency training at the Henry Ford Hospital. There he became interested in bacteriophage and decided that this would be the focus of his research.So, in 1962, Smith began his research career with Myron Levine in the department of human genetics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He and Levine carried out a series of studies demonstrating the sequential action of the phage P22 C-genes, which controlled lysogenization. They also discovered the gene controlling prophage attachment, now known as the int gene, and carried out a study of defective transducing particles formed after induction of int mutant prophage.In 1967, Smith joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University as an assistant professor of microbiology and continued his bacteriophage research. A year later, working with Thomas J. Kelly, Jr. and Kent W. Wilcox, Smith isolated and characterized the first Type II restriction endonuclease (HindII) from Haemophilus influenzae and determined the sequence of its cleavage site (2, 3). In recognition of this discovery, he was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Werner Arber and Daniel Nathans.These studies led to Smith''s subsequent research on DNA methylases and nucleases in H. influenzae. The two JBC Classics reprinted here detail Smith''s efforts to discover the rules governing sequence recognition in the Type II restriction endonuclease HhaII via x-ray crystallography. To facilitate these studies, Smith and his colleagues engineered a two-plasmid system in Escherichia coli that overproduced HhaII on induction with isopropylthiogalactoside (IPTG). The first paper describes the induction characteristics of the two-plasmid overproducer clone and purification of the endonuclease. The second paper, published back-to-back with the first, details the catalytic properties of the endonuclease. Smith used two methods to follow the reactions: 1) gel electrophoretic analysis of nicked circular and linear DNA products, and 2) release of ³²P-labeled inorganic phosphate from specifically labeled HhaII sites in a reaction coupled with bacterial alkaline phosphatase. Smith''s two-plasmid system eventually allowed him to obtain crystals of the HhaII endonuclease with a heptanucleotide DNA duplex (4).Smith served on the faculty at Johns Hopkins for 30 years before retiring as American Cancer Society Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biology and Genetics in 1998. In 1993, he accepted an appointment to the scientific advisory council of The Institute for Genomic Research, which led to his collaboration with J. Craig Venter in the sequencing of H. influenzae by whole genome shotgun sequencing and assembly. Five years later, Smith joined Celera Genomics, where he was senior director of DNA Resources and aided in the sequencing of the Drosophila and human genomes. In 2005, he co-founded Synthetic Genomics, an off-shoot of Celera. He also serves as scientific director of the Synthetic Biology & Biological Energy Groups at the J. Craig Venter Institute. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Smith has received several honors including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1980.¹     

From Survey to Ecology: The Role of the British Vegetation Committee, 1904–1913

This article focuses on early British vegetation science, in particular on the British Vegetation Committee. In earlier histories of (plant) ecology, the period of the Committee's life, 1904–1913, renowned for its surveys and its maps, was depicted as a brief prelude to British plant ecology. This article traces the course of ``survey' and ``ecology' within the Committee, demonstrating that survey and ecology were both distinct and intertwined within the Committee.The Committee adhered to two lines of research, one analyzing relatively large areas of vegetation on a small scale (few details), and the other, relatively small areas on a large scale (great detail). When the Committee was founded, vegetation research of relatively large areas dominated, but the balance gradually swung towards research on small areas. Two prominent Committee members, Smith and Tansley, furthermore advocated two research plans, a national survey plan and an ecological research plan. These diverging ideals however co‐existed peacefully and uncontroversially, in contrast to a survey and ecology dichotomy suggested in earlier accounts.An analysis demonstrates the intertwinement of survey and ecology in the period of the Committee's existence. The ``ecological expeditions' also mapped vegetation, and the scale of the ``survey work' moreover increased in the Committee's early years. Only by acknowledging their intertwinement can the fate of a particular kind of ``survey-research' be understood. My analysis shows that this kind of vegetation research did not survive the Committee because of its ecological orientation. This conclusion contradicts the impression prevailing from earlier historical accounts, viz. that British survey work failed because it was insufficiently ecological. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

From Formation to Ecosystem: Tansley’s Response to Clements’ Climax

Arthur G. Tansley never accepted Frederic E. Clements’ view that succession is a developmental process whose final stage, the climax formation, is determined primarily by regional climate and that all other types of vegetation are some kind of successional stage or arrested successional stage. Tansley was convinced that in a given region a variety of environmental factors could produce different kinds of climax formations. At the heart of their dispute was Clements’ organicist view of succession, i.e., the formation was a complex organism with an ontogeny and phylogeny. As early as 1905, Tansley offered an alternative to Clements’ complex organism, the quasi-organism, but Clements in private and public rejected this compromise. Tansley and other plant ecologists continued to criticize Clements’ theories for the next 20 years, but with no impact on Clements. John Phillips, a South African plant ecologist who was a follower of Clements, published a series of papers in 1934 and 1935 defending Clementsian ecology. These papers were triggered by the publication of a letter by another ecologist working in Africa who claimed that there was a strong correlation between soils and various kinds of climax vegetation, which was contrary to what was predicted by Phillips and Clements. In 1935, Tansley published an attack on Phillips and Clements and their developmental theory of succession. In it, he proposed the concept of the ecosystem as a way to get around Clements’ monoclimax theory by making the physical environment (e.g., soil chemistry, soil texture, soil moisture) as important a factor as climate, plants and other organisms in determining the composition and characteristics of ecological entities, i.e., ecosystems. Tansley’s ecosystem concept quickly replaced Clements’ monoclimax theory as a dominant paradigm in ecology.     

Philip Cohen

Philip Cohen trained at University College London and, after postdoctoral research at the University of Washington, joined the University of Dundee Scotland, in 1971, where he has worked ever since. He is a Royal Society Research Professor and Director of the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit. His main contributions have been in the area of protein phosphorylation and its role in cell regulation and human disease. In 1998, he was knighted for his contributions to biochemistry and the development of Life Sciences at Dundee.     

Ethnonationalism,ethnic nationalism,and mini‐nationalism: A comparison of Connor,Smith and Snyder

Some terms have been coined to highlight the important relation between nationalism and ethnicity. However, there has been much confusion as to the meaning of such concepts as ‘ethnonationalism’, ‘ethnic nationalism’ and ‘mini‐nationalism’. This article compares the three terms, as used respectively in the works of Walker Connor, Anthony Smith and Louis Snyder. These scholars are selected not only because of their well‐respected position in the study of nationalism but also because their works are representative of each of the three concepts. The comparison finds that since both Connor and Smith emphasized the ethnic dimension of nationalism, their ideas can be presented in one analytical framework. In fact, Connor's ‘ethnonationalism’ and Smith's ‘ethnic nationalism’ overlap with each other. However, Smith's theory of nationalism is comprehensive enough to take care of the fact that the nationalisms of many new states of today's world have no ethnic base at all, whereas Connor's analysis makes no mention of this. In this respect, Smith's model is preferred to that of Connor. Finally, Snyder's ‘mini‐nationalism’ is seen as the least useful concept, since the use of size rather than ethnicity to classify nationalisms does not increase our understanding of the concept.     

Structure and composition of grassland habitats used by wintering Smith's Longspurs: the importance of native grasses

ABSTRACT Smith's Longspurs (Calcarius pictus) are a species of concern in North America because of their limited range and apparent low population size. To better understand winter habitat needs and guide management of this species, we examined habitat associations of Smith's Longspurs in eastern Arkansas by comparing grassland patches where Smith's Longspurs flushed to randomly located patches in the same area. Smith's Longspurs were found in sparse grassland patches of relatively low height adjacent to airport runways where the native grass prairie three‐awn (Aristida oligantha) dominated ground cover and vertical structure. Smith's Longspurs were not found in vegetation plots dominated by non‐native Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon). Prairie three‐awn grass may provide concealment from predators and their seeds may be an important food source. Occurrence of Smith's Longspurs was also correlated with less litter, perhaps because deeper litter could make walking and searching for seeds more difficult. Availability of suitable habitat for Smith's Longspurs along airport runways may be declining due to natural succession of grassland habitat in the absence of disturbance and recent changes in management that favor Bermuda grass. Conversion and degradation of native prairie has resulted in the decline in abundance and distribution of Chestnut‐collared Longspurs (C. ornatus) and McCown's Longspurs (Rhynchophanes mccownii). Our findings suggest that conversion of native grasslands to non‐native grasslands results in loss and degradation of habitat for wintering populations of Smith's Longspurs.     

Translocal Ecologies: The Norfolk Broads,the “Natural,” and the International Phytogeographical Excursion, 1911

What we consider “nature” is always historical and relational, shaped in contingent configurations of representational and social practices. In the early twentieth century, the English ecologist A.G. Tansley lamented the pervasive problem of international misunderstandings concerning the nature of “nature.” In order to create some consensus on the concepts and language of ecological plant geography, Tansley founded the International Phytogeographical Excursion, which brought together leading plant geographers and botanists from North America and Europe. The first IPE in August 1911 started with the Norfolk Broads. It was led by Marietta Pallis, Tansley’s former student at Cambridge. This trip and the work of Pallis, neglected in other accounts of this early period of the history of ecology, influenced the relations between Tansley and important American ecologists H.C. Cowles and F.E. Clements. Understanding “place” as a network of relations, our regional focus shows how taking international dialogue, travel and interchange into account enriches understanding of ecological practice.     

Dr. Max King: the sad life and early death of Mackenzie King's physician brother

While researching her best-selling biography, Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King, CMAJ contributing editor Charlotte Gray discovered a wealth of information about Dr. Dougal Macdougall (Max) King. Although he never became as famous as his older brother Mackenzie, Gray presents a convincing argument that Dr. Max King''s life and early death speak volumes about medicine and the medical profession at the turn of the century. She also argues that Mackenzie King''s own life would have been much different had his brother not died at the too young age of 42. Gray''s book was nominated for the Viacom Award, which honours the best nonfiction book published annually in Canada.     

Plant biodiversity in Scottish alpine vegetation: a review and research needs

Summary

Ecological research in Scotland during the four decades since the publication of Burnett's (1964) volume has characterized the diversity of alpine vegetation in Scotland. There has been less progress in understanding the structural and functional roles of plant species in Scottish alpine ecosystems. Areas for future research in Scottish alpine vegetation are discussed in terms of the causes of patterns in biodiversity and the factors likely to influence these. The potential role of Scottish alpine vegetation as a biogeographic extreme for comparison in larger scale studies is outlined.     

ALTRUISM IN MENDELIAN POPULATIONS DERIVED FROM SIBLING GROUPS: THE HAYSTACK MODEL REVISITED

A group-selection model is presented in which each group is initiated by a single fertilized female and persists for several generations before dispersal. Maynard Smith (1964) concluded that altruism could not plausibly evolve under these circumstances. I show that his conclusion is an artifact of a simplifying assumption that amounts to a worst-case scenario for group selection. When the standard donor-recipient equations for altruistic behavior are used in Maynard Smith's model, Mendelian populations derived from sibling groups are often more favorable for the evolution of altruism than are the sibling groups themselves. In general, long-term and large-scale aspects of population structure may at times be important in the evolution of altruistic and other group-advantageous behaviors.     

地表反照率不同计算方法对干旱区流域蒸散反演结果的影响——以新疆三工河流域为例

地表蒸散是维持地球表面水量平衡和热量平衡的重要环节,SEBAL模型作为一种快速且有效的反演地表蒸散的遥感物理模型方法,在地表蒸散研究中得到广泛应用。地表反照率作为影响地表能量平衡的重要因素,同时也是SEBAL模型的重要输入参数,因此不同的地表反照率计算方法对SEBAL模型的反演结果有重要影响。以新疆三工河流域为研究区,利用Landsat8 OLI/TIRS数据,以应用最为广泛的Smith地表反照率计算法和Liang地表反照率计算法两种方法计算地表反照率,并输入SEBAL模型中反演日蒸散量,比较分析两种地表反照率计算方法对蒸散反演结果的影响,得出以下结论:(1)两种地表反照率计算方法下经SEBAL模型得到的日蒸散量与实测值拟合程度均较高,不同年份下线性拟合决定系数大于0.75,但是使用Smith方法计算出的地表反照率结合SEBAL模型得到的日蒸散量与实测值拟合程度更高;(2)通过RMSE等精度指标比较两种地表反照率计算方法下基于SEBAL模型反演的日蒸散量,结果显示,Smith地表反照率计算方法下反演的日蒸散量精度略高;(3)Smith地表反照率计算方法下最终得到的区域日均蒸散量高于使用Liang地表反照率计算方法最终得到的区域日均蒸散量,夏季差异最大,差异为0.64 mm/d,其他季节差异较小,差异约为0.2 mm/d。(4)进一步比较研究日内两种地表反照率计算方法得到的地表反照率,结果显示,Smith地表反照率计算法得到的地表反照率均值均小于同时期Liang地表反照率计算法得到的地表反照率均值。     

Wallace’s Other Line: Human Biogeography and Field Practice in the Eastern Colonial Tropics

This paper examines how the 19th-century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace used biogeographical mapping practices to draw a boundary line between Malay and Papuan groups in the colonial East Indies in the 1850s. Instead of looking for a continuous gradient of variation between Malays and Papuans, Wallace chose to look for a sharp discontinuity between them. While Wallace’s “human biogeography” paralleled his similar project to map plant and animal distributions in the same region, he invoked distinctive “mental and moral” features as more decisive than physical ones. By following Wallace in the field, we can see his field mapping practices in action – how he conquered the problem of local particularity in the case of human variation. His experiences on the periphery of expanding European empires, far from metropolitan centers, shaped Wallace’s observations in the field. Taking his cues from colonial racial categories and his experiences collaborating with local people in the field, Wallace constructed the boundary line between the Malay and Papuan races during several years of work in the field criss-crossing the archipelago as a scientific collector. This effort to map a boundary line in the field was a bold example of using the practices of survey science to raise the status of field work by combining fact gathering with higher-level generalizing, although the response back in the metropole was less than enthusiastic. Upon his return to Britain in the 1860s, Wallace found that appreciation for observational facts he had gathered in the field was not accompanied by agreement with his theoretical interpretations and methods for doing human biogeography.     

Joseph Hooker Takes a “Fixed Post”: Transmutation and the “Present Unsatisfactory State of Systematic Botany”, 1844–1860

Joseph Hooker first learned that Charles Darwin believed in the transmutation of species in 1844. For the next 14 years, Hooker remained a “nonconsenter” to Darwin’s views, resolving to keep the question of species origin “subservient to Botany instead of Botany to it, as must be the true relation”. Hooker placed particular emphasis on the need for any theory of species origin to support the broad taxonomic delimitation of species, a highly contentious issue. His always provisional support for special creation waned during the 1850s as he lost faith in its expediency for coordinating the study of plant geography, systematics and physiology. In 1858, Hooker embraced Darwin’s “considerable revolution in natural history,” but only after Darwin had carefully molded his transmutationism to meet Hooker’s exacting specifications.     

McMaster's pioneer in evidence-based medicine now spreading his message in England.

Dr. David Sackett, formerly of McMaster University and now at Oxford University in England, is considered one of the pioneers of the evidence-based medicine movement. This article looks at his colleagues'' assessment of Sackett''s contributions to medicine and at Sackett''s own views on his lengthy career.     

Re-reading Ronald Berndt: Exploring the Depths of his Yolngu Ethnography

The title of this essay sets its dialogic structure. Ronald Berndt's writing at times obscured the core insights that he had about Yolngu society, and partly as a consequence Australian anthropology has not yet made the best use of the immense richness of his ethnographic legacy. In retrospect, in many areas of their research the Berndts were pioneers addressing themes and topics that had been for too long ignored. They opened up new fields of study and redressed some of the imbalances associated with functionalism, the dominant paradigm of their early years as anthropologists. In this essay I examine two areas of Ronald Berndt's writings in which he had insights that were not fully appreciated at the time: the analysis of Yolngu social organisation and the analysis of Yolngu sexual symbolism. In both cases, his absorption in Yolngu ethnography made him aware that his predecessors had overlooked important themes of Yolngu society, yet in both cases his analysis was less convincing than it might have been.     

Postcolonial Ecologies of Parasite and Host: Making Parasitism Cosmopolitan

The interest of F. Macfarlane Burnet in host–parasite interactions grew through the 1920s and 1930s, culminating in his book, Biological Aspects of Infectious Disease (1940), often regarded as the founding text of disease ecology. Our knowledge of the influences on Burnet’s ecological thinking is still incomplete. Burnet later attributed much of his conceptual development to his reading of British theoretical biology, especially the work of Julian Huxley and Charles Elton, and regretted he did not study Theobald Smith’s Parasitism and Disease (1934) until after he had formulated his ideas. Scholars also have adduced Burnet’s fascination with natural history and the clinical and public health demands on his research effort, among other influences. I want to consider here additional contributions to Burnet’s ecological thinking, focusing on his intellectual milieu, placing his research in a settler society with exceptional expertise in environmental studies and pest management. In part, an ‘‘ecological turn’’ in Australian science in the 1930s, derived to a degree from British colonial scientific investments, shaped Burnet’s conceptual development. This raises the question of whether we might characterize, in postcolonial fashion, disease ecology, and other studies of parasitism, as successful settler colonial or dominion science.     

Henry Allan Gleason and the individualistic hypothesis: The structure of a botanist’s career

This paper provides a detailed account of Henry Allan Gleason’s career in ecology, paying particular attention to the development of his controversial individualistic hypothesis of the plant community. It is noted that Gleason developed and maintained a high level of skill in floristic botany. The argument is advanced that the individualistic hypothesis embodies a floristic perspective on vegetation. His pioneering papers on the quantitative analysis of vegetation are carefully examined and it is argued that they too reflect floristic and individualistic concerns. The overall shape of Gleason’s career is interpreted in terms of acquired skills, pedagogical inputs, institutional contexts, and professional and social interests. It is suggested that the characteristics of the work of many of his ecological colleagues may likewise be explained in terms of skills and interests, particularly those gained in other fields, such as physiography and physiology. The reasons for the generally hostile initial reaction to Gleason’s individualistic concept are examined. As well as providing historical background to the long and continuing debate over the nature of the plant community, an examination of Gleason’s career sheds important light on the cognitive development of American plant ecology during a formative period for the discipline. Other historians have not fully realised the extent of Gleason’s involvement in ecology during this time.