Geoffrey Boxshall

Last updated

Geoffrey Boxshall

FRS
Born (1950-06-13) 13 June 1950 (age 73)
NationalityBritish
Alma mater University of Leeds
Scientific career
Fields Zoology
Institutions Zoological Society of London

Geoffrey Allan Boxshall FRS (born 13 June 1950 [1] ) is a British zoologist, and Merit researcher at the Natural History Museum, working primarily on copepods. [2]

Contents

Early life

Son of Jack Boxshall a Canadian bank manager and Sybil Boxshall (née Baker), a civil servant in the procurement department of the Ministry of Defence. He was educated at Churcher's College, Petersfield from 1961 to 1968. [3] He was Vice Captain of College 1967–1968 and Captain of the Hockey XI 1968. He played rugby (open-side flanker) for Hampshire County in both the 1966–1967 and 1967–1968 seasons.

Career

Field

Boxshall is a whole organism biologist with a particular interest in copepod crustaceans. These are ubiquitous in aquatic systems but all radiated from a hyperbenthic origin in shallow marine waters. Multiple lineages of copepods colonised the open pelagic, fresh and subterranean waters, and colonised almost all other metazoan phyla as hosts as they adopted parasitism as a mode of life. The overarching aim of his research is to identify and understand the drivers generating the patterns of copepod biodiversity on the largest scales. His current focus is primarily on parasites: the repeated evolution of parasitism in copepods provides opportunities to examine the usage of different host taxa and to explore speciation patterns around major host colonisation or host switching events. [4]

Academic achievements

He earned a First Class BSc in Zoology in 1971, and PhD in 1974, from the University of Leeds.

Awards

In 1994 he became a Fellow of The Royal Society [5] and in 1998, he was awarded the Crustacean Society's Award for Excellence in Research. [6] [7]

Appointments

In 1974 he joined the Natural History Museum's Department of Zoology, and joined Life Sciences in 2014. [8]

Boxshall was the Secretary of the Zoological Society of London [9] from 2011-2021 and was Vice-President of the Linnean Society Council from 2012–2013. [10]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copepod</span> Subclass of crustaceans

Copepods are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat. Some species are planktonic, some are benthic, a number of species have parasitic phases, and some continental species may live in limnoterrestrial habitats and other wet terrestrial places, such as swamps, under leaf fall in wet forests, bogs, springs, ephemeral ponds, puddles, damp moss, or water-filled recesses of plants (phytotelmata) such as bromeliads and pitcher plants. Many live underground in marine and freshwater caves, sinkholes, or stream beds. Copepods are sometimes used as biodiversity indicators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tantulocarida</span> Subclass of crustaceans

Tantulocarida is a highly specialised group of parasitic crustaceans that consists of about 33 species, treated as a class in superclass Multicrustacea. They are typically ectoparasites that infest copepods, isopods, tanaids, amphipods and ostracods.

Churcher's College is an independent, fee-charging day school for girls and boys, founded in 1722. Churcher’s College is regarded as a leading private school in the south of England. The Senior School is in the market town of Petersfield, Hampshire with the Junior School and Nursery in nearby Liphook. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waldo L. Schmitt</span> American biologist (1887-1977)

Waldo LaSalle Schmitt was an American biologist born in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. from George Washington University in 1922. In 1948, he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Southern California. Schmitt's primary field of zoological investigation was carcinology, with special emphasis on the decapod crustaceans. His bibliography consists of more than seventy titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argulidae</span> Family of crustaceans

The family Argulidae, whose members are commonly known as carp lice or fish lice, are parasitic crustaceans in the class Ichthyostraca. It is the only family in the monotypic subclass Branchiura and the order Arguloida, although a second family, Dipteropeltidae, has been proposed. Although they are thought to be primitive forms, they have no fossil record.

<i>Cancer</i> (genus) Genus of crabs

Cancer is a genus of marine crabs in the family Cancridae. It includes eight extant species and three extinct species, including familiar crabs of the littoral zone, such as the European edible crab, the Jonah crab and the red rock crab. It is thought to have evolved from related genera in the Pacific Ocean in the Miocene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyclopoida</span> Order of crustaceans

The Cyclopoida are an order of small crustaceans from the subclass Copepoda. Like many other copepods, members of Cyclopoida are small, planktonic animals living both in the sea and in freshwater habitats. They are capable of rapid movement. Their larval development is metamorphic, and the embryos are carried in paired or single sacs attached to first abdominal somite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Association of Copepodologists</span>

The World Association of Copepodologists (WAC) is a non-profit organization created to promote research on copepods by facilitating communication among interested specialists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poecilostomatoida</span> Suborder of crustaceans

Poecilostomatoida is a suborder of copepods. Although it was previously considered a separate order, recent research showed it to be nested within the Cyclopoida.

Bomolochidae is a family of copepods parasitic on marine fishes. Most species parasitize the gills of fish, but some species live in the nostrils or on the eyes of their hosts. The family contains just over 150 species from the following genera:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crustacean larva</span> Crustacean larval and immature stages between hatching and adult form

Crustaceans may pass through a number of larval and immature stages between hatching from their eggs and reaching their adult form. Each of the stages is separated by a moult, in which the hard exoskeleton is shed to allow the animal to grow. The larvae of crustaceans often bear little resemblance to the adult, and there are still cases where it is not known what larvae will grow into what adults. This is especially true of crustaceans which live as benthic adults, more-so than where the larvae are planktonic, and thereby easily caught.

<i>Lernaeocera branchialis</i> Species of crustacean

Lernaeocera branchialis, sometimes called cod worm, is a parasite of marine fish, found mainly in the North Atlantic. It is a marine copepod which starts life as a small pelagic crustacean larva. It is among the largest of copepods, ranging in size from 2 to 3 millimetres when it matures as a copepodid larva to more than 40 mm as a sessile adult.

Hirsutiidae is a family of crustaceans, classified either as a separate order, Bochusacea, or as part of a wider Mictacea. It comprises five species in three genera:

Alejandro "Alex" Kacelnik, FRS is an Argentine-British zoologist, professor of behavioural ecology at Oxford University and E.P. Abraham Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. Kacelnik heads the Behavioural Ecology Research Group at Oxford. The author of more than 200 peer reviewed publications, his research focuses on the evolution of behaviour and mathematical modelling. His work uses an interdisciplinary approach, combining data and methods from zoology, psychology and economic theory. In 2011 Kacelnik was honoured by the Comparative Cognition Society for his contributions to the field of animal cognition. He has also received the Cogito Prize for interdisciplinary research linking the natural and social sciences, shared with Professor Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich, the de Robertis Medal of the Argentinian Society of Neurosciences, and the Raíces ("Roots") Prize for contributions to international collaborations between Argentinian and other scientists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crustacean</span> Subphylum of arthropods

Crustaceans are invertebrate animals of the subphylum Crustacea, a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthropods including decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, opossum shrimps, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can be treated as a subphylum under the clade Mandibulata. It is now well accepted that the hexapods emerged deep in the Crustacean group, with the completed group referred to as Pancrustacea. The three classes Cephalocarida, Branchiopoda and Remipedia are more closely related to the hexapods than they are to any of the other crustaceans.

MarBEF Data System was a project of the European Union's Network of Excellence which served as a platform to integrate and disseminate knowledge and expertise on marine biodiversity, with informative links to researchers, industry, stakeholders and the general public. The program was funded by the EU and formally ended in 2009. The data system's online Register of Resources (RoR) includes the details of over 1,000 European marine biology experts and their affiliated institutions and publications.

<i>Lepeophtheirus pectoralis</i> Species of crustacean

Lepeophtheirus pectoralis is a species of parasitic copepod from the northeast Atlantic Ocean, and the type species of the genus Lepeophtheirus. It is a parasite of flatfish, with the European flounder, the plaice, and the dab as the most frequent hosts. It feeds on the mucus, skin, and blood of the fish, with egg-producing females infecting the pectoral and pelvic fins of the host, while immature individuals and males are found on the rest of the body.

Mildred Stratton Wilson was an American zoologist, whose work on copepods was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955.

Cardiodectes bellottii is a species of copepods in the family Pennellidae. It is a parasite of fish. It is found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea; specimens from the Pacific were formerly treated as a separate species, Cardiodectes medusaeus.

References

  1. 'BOXSHALL, Dr Geoffrey Allan', Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012 ; online edn, Nov 2012 accessed 8 July 2013
  2. Geoff Boxshall | Natural History Museum
  3. 'BOXSHALL, Dr Geoffrey Allan', Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012 ; online edn, Nov 2012 accessed 8 July 2013
  4. "Prof Geoff Boxshall | Natural History Museum".
  5. "Prof Geoff Boxshall | Natural History Museum".
  6. Arthur G. Humes (1999). "Geoffrey Allan Boxshall: recipient of Award for Excellence in Research". Journal of Crustacean Biology . 19 (2): 432–433. doi: 10.1163/193724099x00231 . JSTOR   1549249.
  7. "The Crustacean Society Excellence in Research Award" (PDF). The Crustacean Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  8. "Prof Geoff Boxshall | Natural History Museum".
  9. "Council members".
  10. "Prof Geoff Boxshall | Natural History Museum".
  11. An Introduction to Copepod Diversity – 0903874318 9780903874311: NHBS: Geoffrey A Boxshall and Sheila H Halsey
Professional and academic associations
Preceded by Secretary of the
Zoological Society of London

2011-Present
Incumbent