The academic life of Athol John McLachlan

 ATHOL JOHN McLACHLAN 1939 - ?

Here I attempt to pick up on what, in hindsight, were important events in my life as a zoologist. In preparing this essay I started out to do something but ended up with what turns out to be a second version of my Autobiography (A. J.  McLachlan, 2009). Here I make some different points and illustrated with photographs. Because they are better considered elsewhere, I have not included much of the experiences of wild Africa as a Nuffield PhD student at Lake Kariba (Fig. 1), the privilege of working with the visionary Professor Margaret Kalk on Lake Chilwa (Fig. 2), or the fulfilling years at Newcastle University.

Fig. 1. Elephants grazing at Sengwa on the shores of Lake Kariba in mid 1960. 

Fig. 2. Kachulu jetty on Lake Chilwa in the late 1960s.

School days and after  (1950-2004).

My school was what was called a private school located far off in the Transvaal veld. I did not excel there, either academically or, except for athletics, in sport. The academic failing was partly mine but also, it must be said, the fault of the teaching which was essentially non-existent. On the positive side, the headmaster, Evelyn Cloete, did recognise and encourage an interest as a naturalist which I and my younger brother Ian had developed together long before high school. Because of this background in natural history I was allowed free reign to study zoology for matric and to do field work in the surrounding veld, all on my own initiative. No other boy or girl was allowed to break bounds at will in this way. For much of this time my interest was taken by the termite mounds which abound on the Transvaal high veld (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Digging in a termite mound, perhaps looking for snakes? (from the internet).

In the natural course of events many of these mounds are abandoned by the termites and provided a habitat for a variety of animals including burrowing snakes (Typhlops and Leptoyphlops) and the black headed snake Aparallactus capensis, Fig. 4). Among mammals dwarf shrews (Suncus infintesimilus?), were common. Captured specimens were sometimes brought back to school for observation and study. The teaching staff were tolerant of this activity even when a large spitting cobra or rinkhals, Hemachatus haemachatus, Fig. 5, escaped and terrorised the school for days.

During school holidays these activities continued with observation and collecting. Reptiles were sometimes kept alive or carefully preserving in formaldehyde. Preserved material was added to the museum in the bedroom shared with my brother. At this time I was much influenced by reading the  expeditions of Gerald Durrell (Durrell, 1954) and of John Steinbeck  (Steinbeck, 1945), among others. It was the expeditions of Durrell to the Cameroons that filled me with wonder and a determination to get  to tropical Africa. My interest in tropical Africa eventually lead to my spending  some eight years there. Looking back I believe  it was the freedom  to pursue my own interests that launched me into a deeply rewarding life as a university lecturer and researcher. An Honours degree in zoology under the formidable Professor B. I. Balinsky was followed by an appointment as Nuffield Research Fellow at the University College of Rhodesia an Nyasaland. After obtaining a PhD degree there from the University of London, I gained  a lectureship at Chancellor College in Malawi and then at Newcastle University where I stayed until retirement in 2004.

Fig. 4. Some snakes that inhabit old termite mounds in South Africa. From the top,  Aparallactus capensis, and the blind burrowers Leptopyphlops and Typhlops spp.

Fig. 5. The common spitting cobra of the South African high veld.

The main line of my research over 45 years or so, stretches from Africa to the UK. For convenience I divide this period according to the life cycle of my principal subject of study -  the chironomid midge. To have devoted ones life to a single, seemingly obscure taxon, would seem narrow at best and contradicts the advice of the famous E. B. Ford (1964),p. 9...."don't be a slave to your material". By contrast,  John Tyler Bonner (Bonner, 1993), devoted his life's to a single taxon, those strange creatures, the slime moulds.

The larval stages of an aquatic insect

To continue in Africa, sometime in the 1980s I read a series of  papers by Howard Hinton on the larval stages of an extraordinary insect, the chironomid midge. The larvae of this midge inhabit very ephemeral rain pools on large rock expanses in tropical Africa. These pools typically last just a few hours after rain and the larval inhabitants of at least one species appear able to survive desiccation of their habitat indefinitely (Hinton, 1968; A. J. McLachlan and Ladle, 2001). I had been working on the fauna or Lake Chilwa in Malawi for some years (Kalk et al. 1979), and on one visit to Malawi. prompted by reading Hinton, I sought rain pools on rock.  With stunning luck a series of pools of the right type  (Fig. 6.), was found early one Sunday morning, close to my laboratory at Chancellor College (University of Malawi).

 

Fig. 6. Some typical rain pools on rock surfaces in Africa. 

The discovery of  these pools lead to some 30 years further work on rain pool dwellers (McLachlan and Ladle, 2001). Supported by Royal Society and Linnaen Society and with the  encouragement of Chancellor College, this was a good time. I was looking for adaptations to the ephemeral nature of rain pools, which, to slightly stretch a point, can be considered a major selective pressure of the fresh water habitat in general. Taking this as given, rain pools provide a good example of the essential adaptations required of freshwater dwelling organisms to a habitat which may last less that the minimum duration of the larval stages. To meet this difficulty two strategies have been identified. First, the evolution of desiccation resistance. Desiccation resistance has been achieved by creating a microhabitat as in Dasyhelia, the larval stages of biting midges. An alternative method of surviving desiccation in situ has been the  evolution of desiccation tolerance in the tissues of  the larvae of   Polypedilum vanderplanki. This species leads to interesting conjecture about panspermia, (Crick and Ogle, 1980), and the colonisation of space (Hinton, 1968)(see also the essay posted in April 2019). Second, there is the adaptive adjustment of the duration of larval stages by manipulation of growth rate. Growth rate depends on cues from the pool about evaporative extinction which in turn involves the adaptive ability to hasten the onset of metamorphosis.

The adult stages of aquatic insects

The adults of chironomids, like those of mayflies, are an essentially non-feeding stage of the life cycle with the sole functions of mating and dispersal. It is mating that has been my principal focus. We know that this takes place in a mating swarm, where the latest evidence suggests that there are at least two size related mating strategies (Crompton, Thomason, and McLachlan, 2003)(see also the essay posted on 24 October 2019). Both depend fundamentally on biomechanics rather than the more familiar visual displays of animals (Andersson, 1994; Darwin, 1871). Small males appear to depend on aerobatics to capture fleeing females (Crompton et al., 2003). Larger males, by contrast, appear to mimic their own predator, an empid fly, to achieve the same end (A. J. McLachlan, 2014, 2015).

A switch from the study of larval forms to that of the adult involves a bigger change of interest than might at first appear. Indeed, it required a move in subject matter from the ecology of fresh water animals to the world of evolution - specifically that of sexual selection. Furthermore, no one with an interest in sexual selection would choose chironomid midges as a case study. Accessibility to the secrets of their mating system is not easy. There is good reason for careful choice of study species. An example is the seminal work of Geoffrey Parker promoted by the readily observed and manipulated mating behaviour of dung  flies (Parker, 1978). However, my motivation was not primarily the study of mating systems. Rather my wish was to achieve a better understanding of the behavioural ecology of chironomid midges; particularly those inhabiting temporary rain pools. This seems a worth while aim. As elegantly pointed out by John Tyler Bonner (1993), p15. ...." Organisms are not just adults - they are life cycles". Indeed, a change from ecology to evolutionary thinking requires breaking away from entrenched attitudes among ecologist, expressed in such influential text books  as those of Allee and of Emerson (Allee, 1949) (Emerson, 1960), quoted by Cronin (Cronin, 1991), p278. These attitudes to adaptation set the tone for evolutionary thinking among many ecologists which persist to this day. I refer to the seductive allure of group selection of Whynne - Edwards (Wynne-Edwards, 1986), comprehensively now replaced  by Williams (Williams, 1966), individual level and Dawkins gene centred thinking (reviewed by Cronin (Cronin, 1991) pp 267-310). For ecologists this transition has been a struggle. George Williams typifies the frustration with ecologists. After a meeting at which  Emmerson presented a paper, Williams was moved to remark to his wife ..."if  Emmerson's presentation was acceptable biology, I would prefer another calling. "

References

Allee, W. C., Emerson, A. E. , Park, O., Park, T. and Schmidt, K. P. . (1949). Principles of Animal Ecology. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders.

Andersson, M. (1994). Sexual Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Bonner, J. T. (1993). Life Cycles. Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Crick, F., and Ogle, L. (1980). Directed Panspermia. In D. Goldsmith (Ed.), The Quest for Extraterrestrial Life. Mill Valley, C..A.: University of Science Books.

Crompton, B., Thomason, J., and McLachlan, A. J. (2003). Mating in a viscous universe: the race is to the agile, not to the swift. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London (B). 270, 1991-1995.

Cronin, H. (1991). The Ant and the Peacock (1993 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. (2 ed.). New York, 1959: The Modern Library, Random House.

Durrell, G. (1954). The Bafut Beagles.: Harmandsworth, Pengine

Emerson, A. E. (1960). The Evolution of Adaptation in Population Systems. In I. Tax (Ed.), The Evolution of Life: It's Origin, History and Future.
Ford, E. B. (1964). Ecological Genetics, Methuen and Co Ltd, London.

Hinton, H. E. (1968). Reversible suspension of metabolism and the origin of life. . Proceedings of the Royal Society, London (B). 171, 43-47.
Kalk, M., McLachlan, A. J. and Howard-Williams, C. (1979). Lake Chilwa. Studies of change in a tropical ecosystem. Monographiae Biologicae, 35. 

McLachlan, A. J. (2009). Autobiography Athol John McLachlan 1939 -?

McLachlan, A. J. (2014). Phenotype limited male mating tactics among some non-biting midges. (pp. http://www.co.uk/atholmclachlan.blogspot.co.uk): Google.

McLachlan, A. J. (2015). The midge in the mating system - A sheep in wolf's clothing?, http://www.google.co.uk/atholmclachlan.blogspot.co.uk.

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.

Parker, G. A. (1978). Searching for Mates. In J. R. K. N. B. Davies (Ed.), Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach. (First ed.). Oxford: Blachwell Scientific Publications.

Steinbeck, J. (1945). Cannery Row.: Viking Press.

Williams, G. C. (1966). Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wynne-Edwards, V. C. (1986). Evolution Through Group Selection. . Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.