John Albert Raven

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John Raven
Born
John Albert Raven

(1941-06-25) 25 June 1941 (age 82) [1]
Nationality British
Alma mater University of Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD)
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Website

John Albert Raven FRS [3] [4] FRSE (born 25 June 1941) [1] is a British botanist, and emeritus professor at University of Dundee and the University of Technology Sydney. [5] His primary research interests lie in the ecophysiology and biochemistry of marine and terrestrial primary producers such as plants and algae. [6]

Contents

Early life and education

Raven was brought up on a farm in northwest Essex and educated at the Friends' School, Saffron Walden [7] [1] and St John's College, Cambridge, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Botany in 1963. [8] He remained at Cambridge to complete a PhD in Botany (plant biophysics) in 1967, under the supervision of Enid MacRobbie, and specialising in the membrane transport processes and bioenergetics of giant-celled algae. [9] [10]

Career

After a period as a lecturer at Cambridge, Raven moved to the University of Dundee in 1971, and he remained at Dundee until his formal retirement in 2008. He was appointed there to a personal chair in 1980, and was the John Boyd Baxter Professor of Biology from 1995 until 2008. [11] In 1978, Raven was a co-founding editor of the influential peer reviewed scientific journal Plant, Cell & Environment with Paul Jarvis, [12] David Jennings, Harry Smith [13] [14] and Bob Campbell. [15]

Research

Raven's research investigates algal life forms in the upper levels of the ocean, which underpin marine ecosystems and recycle carbon. He has explored how carbon dioxide, light and trace minerals interact to limit primary productivity in algae. [4] Raven has research interests that range [11] from organism-level bioenegetics, [16] biochemistry [17] and ecophysiology, [18] through to wider-scale biogeochemistry, [19] palaeoecology [20] and even astrobiology. [21] To date, he has published more than 300 refereed research papers, [22] over 50 book chapters, the book Energetics and Transport in Aquatic Plants (1984), [23] and, together with Paul Falkowski, the influential textbook Aquatic Photosynthesis (1997, 2007). [24] In 2005, Raven led a Royal Society review of the state and implications of ongoing ocean acidification. [25] As of 2016, Raven is active in both research [26] and teaching, despite officially retiring in 2008 when he warned:

Life has survived many rapid and large amplitude environmental changes over billions of years, but we should not be complacent about the biological effects of current anthropogenic influences on the environment. At the most selfish level, we depend on the continued provision of 'ecosystem services' for our quality of life. [11]

Awards and honours

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 1981. [11]

He was elected President of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh for 1986–88. [27]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1990, [4] for which his certificate of election reads:

Raven has made important theoretical and experimental contributions at the plant cell and whole plant levels. His work on H+ transport has helped to produce an integrated view of pH regulation in plants and on the transport of weak electrolytes such as plant growth substances and certain nutrients into plants. He has carried out important work on chemiosmotic mechanisms. His work on photosynthesis and respiration has provided quantitative clarification of the role of dark respiration in plants. He has also provided important information on the suppression of photorespiration by HCO₃ transport in aquatic plants and on the possible phylogeny of vascular land plants. [3]

He was also a recipient of the Award of Excellence from Phycological Society of America in 2002 [28] and made an Honorary Life Member of the British Phycological Society in 2006. [29]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mycorrhiza</span> Fungus-plant symbiotic association

A mycorrhiza is a symbiotic association between a fungus and a plant. The term mycorrhiza refers to the role of the fungus in the plant's rhizosphere, its root system. Mycorrhizae play important roles in plant nutrition, soil biology, and soil chemistry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aquatic plant</span> Plant that has adapted to living in an aquatic environment

Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments. They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes to distinguish them from algae and other microphytes. A macrophyte is a plant that grows in or near water and is either emergent, submergent, or floating. In lakes and rivers macrophytes provide cover for fish, substrate for aquatic invertebrates, produce oxygen, and act as food for some fish and wildlife.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embryophyte</span> Subclade of green plants, also known as land plants

The Embryophyta, or land plants, are the most familiar group of green plants that comprise vegetation on Earth. Embryophytes have a common ancestor with green algae, having emerged within the Phragmoplastophyta clade of green algae as sister of the Zygnematophyceae. The Embryophyta consist of the bryophytes plus the polysporangiophytes. Living embryophytes therefore include hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants. The land plants have diplobiontic life cycles and it is accepted now that they emerged from freshwater, multi-celled algae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tendril</span> Specialisation of plant parts used to climb or bind

In botany, a tendril is a specialized stem, leaf or petiole with a threadlike shape used by climbing plants for support and attachment, as well as cellular invasion by parasitic plants such as Cuscuta. There are many plants that have tendrils; including sweet peas, passionflower, grapes and the Chilean glory-flower. Tendrils respond to touch and to chemical factors by curling, twining, or adhering to suitable structures or hosts. Tendrils vary greatly in size from a few centimeters up to 27 inches for Nepenthes harryana The chestnut vine can have tendrils up to 20.5 inches in length. Normally there is only one simple or branched tendril at each node, but the aardvark cucumber can have as many as eight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crassulacean acid metabolism</span> Metabolic process

Crassulacean acid metabolism, also known as CAM photosynthesis, is a carbon fixation pathway that evolved in some plants as an adaptation to arid conditions that allows a plant to photosynthesize during the day, but only exchange gases at night. In a plant using full CAM, the stomata in the leaves remain shut during the day to reduce evapotranspiration, but they open at night to collect carbon dioxide and allow it to diffuse into the mesophyll cells. The CO2 is stored as four-carbon malic acid in vacuoles at night, and then in the daytime, the malate is transported to chloroplasts where it is converted back to CO2, which is then used during photosynthesis. The pre-collected CO2 is concentrated around the enzyme RuBisCO, increasing photosynthetic efficiency. This mechanism of acid metabolism was first discovered in plants of the family Crassulaceae.

A tracheid is a long and tapered lignified cell in the xylem of vascular plants. It is a type of conductive cell called a tracheary element. Angiosperms use another type of conductive cell, called vessel elements, to transport water through the xylem. The main functions of tracheid cells are to transport water and inorganic salts, and to provide structural support for trees. There are often pits on the cell walls of tracheids, which allows for water flow between cells. Tracheids are dead at functional maturity and do not have a protoplast. The wood (softwood) of gymnosperms such as pines and other conifers is mainly composed of tracheids. Tracheids are also the main conductive cells in the primary xylem of ferns.

C<sub>4</sub> carbon fixation Photosynthetic process in some plants

C4 carbon fixation or the Hatch–Slack pathway is one of three known photosynthetic processes of carbon fixation in plants. It owes the names to the 1960s discovery by Marshall Davidson Hatch and Charles Roger Slack that some plants, when supplied with 14CO2, incorporate the 14C label into four-carbon molecules first.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apoplast</span> Extracellular space, outside the cell membranes of plants

The apoplast is the extracellular space outside of plant cell membranes, especially the fluid-filled cell walls of adjacent cells where water and dissolved material can flow and diffuse freely. Fluid and material flows occurring in any extracellular space are called apoplastic flow or apoplastic transport. The apoplastic pathway is one route by which water and solutes are transported and distributed to different places through tissues and organs, contrasting with the symplastic pathway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fructan</span> Fructose polymer

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myco-heterotrophy</span> Symbiotism between certain parasitic plants and fungi

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "RAVEN, Prof. John Albert" . Who's Who . Vol. 2016 (online Oxford University Press  ed.). Oxford: A & C Black.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ↑ "Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows as of 2016-05-13" (PDF). Edinburgh: Royal Society of Edinburgh. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 March 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 "Certificate of election EC/1990/28: Raven, John Albert". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 31 March 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Professor John Raven FRS". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” -- "Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. ↑ "Professor John Raven". University of Technology Sydney. Archived from the original on 4 September 2014.
  6. ↑ Lüttge, Ulrich; Beyschlag, Wolfram; Francis, Dennis (2013). Progress in Botany. ISBN   9783642309670.
  7. ↑ "Profile John A. Raven", New Phytologist, vol. 215, pp. 514–515, 2017, retrieved 19 September 2023
  8. ↑ "Bioenergetics and the major evolutionary transitions". The Royal Society. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  9. ↑ "Keynote Presentations at the GREENCYCLES II Summer School". Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  10. ↑ "Professor John Raven FRS FRSE: Interactions among resources in the growth of phytoplankton". dundee.ac.uk. 30 August 2013. Archived from the original on 10 September 2015.
  11. 1 2 3 4 "Symposium to mark retiral of Professor John Raven". University of Dundee. 11 September 2008. Archived from the original on 31 March 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  12. ↑ Smith, Harry (2013). "Paul Gordon Jarvis, FRS: co-founding editor ofPlant, Cell & Environment". Plant, Cell & Environment. 36 (5): 907–908. doi: 10.1111/pce.12080 . ISSN   0140-7791. PMID   23421651.
  13. ↑ Smith, Harry (1978). "Editorial". Plant, Cell and Environment. 1 (1): 1. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3040.1978.tb00738.x. ISSN   0140-7791.
  14. ↑ Raven, John A. (2015). "Harry Smith, FRS: co-founding editor and first Chief Editor ofPlant, Cell & Environment". Plant, Cell & Environment. 38 (8): 1453–1454. doi: 10.1111/pce.12567 . ISSN   0140-7791. PMID   25991437.
  15. ↑ "Wiley-Blackwell Announces Retirement of Bob Campbell". wiley.com. 28 February 2013. Archived from the original on 30 March 2016.
  16. ↑ Raven, J.A. (1970). "Exogenous inorganic carbon sources in plant photosynthesis". Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 45 (2): 167–220. doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.1970.tb01629.x. S2CID   86332656.
  17. ↑ Raven, J.A. (2000). "Land plant biochemistry". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. 355 (1398): 833–846. doi:10.1098/rstb.2000.0618. PMC   1692786 . PMID   10905612.
  18. ↑ Raven, J.A.; Hurd, C.L. (2012). "Ecophysiology of photosynthesis in macroalgae". Photosynthesis Research. 113 (1–3): 105–125. doi:10.1007/s11120-012-9768-z. PMID   22843100. S2CID   5744231.
  19. ↑ Raven, J.A.; Wollenweber, B.; Handley, L.L. (1992). "Ammonia and ammonium fluxes between photolithotrophs and the environment in relation to the global nitrogen-cycle". New Phytologist. 121 (1): 5–18. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.1992.tb01087.x .
  20. ↑ Raven, J.A.; Yin, Z.H. (1998). "The past, present and future of nitrogenous compounds in the atmosphere, and their interactions with plants". New Phytologist. 139 (1): 205–219. doi: 10.1046/j.1469-8137.1998.00168.x .
  21. ↑ O'Malley-James, J. T.; Raven, J. A.; Cockell, C. S.; et al. (2012). "Life and Light: Exotic Photosynthesis in Binary and Multiple-Star Systems". Astrobiology. 12 (2): 115–124. arXiv: 1110.3728 . Bibcode:2012AsBio..12..115O. doi:10.1089/ast.2011.0678. PMID   22283409. S2CID   43997271.
  22. ↑ John Albert Raven's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  23. ↑ Raven, J.A. (1984). Energetics and Transport in Aquatic Plants (1 ed.). Krieger Publishing Company. ISBN   0-8451-2203-7.
  24. ↑ Falkowski, P.G.; Raven, J.A. (2007). Aquatic Photosynthesis (2 ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-632-06139-6.
  25. ↑ Raven, J. A. et al. (2005). Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Royal Society, London, UK.
  26. ↑ Raven, John A.; Beardall, John (2016). "The ins and outs of CO2". Journal of Experimental Botany. 67 (1): 1–13. doi:10.1093/jxb/erv451. PMC   4682431 . PMID   26466660.
  27. ↑ "Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh". 45 (2). 1987: 163–165. doi:10.1080/03746608708685428.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  28. ↑ "Award of Excellence". Phycological Society of America. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  29. ↑ "Honorary Life Member of the British Phycological Society". University of Dundee. 20 August 2013. Retrieved 1 April 2016.

Bibliography

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