GOOGLE profile June 09

Pictures from top to bottom:
The larva of a pool dwelling midge species. An adult male midge with two mite parasites. AJM in laboratory.


Name: Dr Athol John McLachlan PhD DSc.


Universities:
Wits University South Africa, 1959-1963
Univerity College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1963-1969
Chancellor College, University of Malawi, 1966-1969
Newcastle Univeristy UK, 1970-2004

Academic affiliation: Newcastle University (retired 2004).


Teaching:

For about fifty years I taught at first, second and final stages with an emphasis on invertebrate biology, ecology, freshwater biology and the evolution of behaviour, the last being my special interest subject taught at advanced level.


Research:

My primary research interest is the ecology and evolutionary biology of holometabolous insects, particularly those such as chironomid midges with a may-fly like life cycle. Early work in tropical Africa provides a background to the ecology of these midges and illustrates the range of habitats in which these animals are found; some of them extreme.
Among chironomid midges the larva is the feeding/energy acquisition stage. Larvae are characteristically detritus feeders which present some interesting question about co-evolution with decomposer micro-organisms. The adult male is concerned virtually exclusively with mating. Hence that part of the life-cycle falls into the realm of sexual selection. Males form mating swarms numbering thousands of individual through with patrolling females fly to acquire a mate. Success for the male appears to hinge on aerobatic ability, which favours the smaller male.

Phenotypic flexibility in mating behaviour, in the face of a large burden of parasites, has been the focus of my interest in the mating system.

Some key references are listed below.

Selected Publications:

1) McLachlan, A. J. (1974). Development of some lake ecosystems in Tropical Africa with special reference to the invertebrates. Biological Reviews, 49: 365-97.

2) McLachlan, A. J. and Ladle, R. (2001). Life in the puddle: behavioural and life-cycle adaptations in the Diptera of tropical rain pools. Biological Reviews. 76: 377-388.

3) McLachlan, A. J. and Ladle, R. (2009). The evolutionary ecology of detritus feeding in the larvae of freshwater Diptera. Biological Reviews, 84: 133-141.

4) McLachlan, A. J. and Ladle, R. J. (2011). Barriers to Adaptive Reasoning in Community Ecology. Biological Reviews. 86: 543-548.