Peter G. Kevan
Peter G. Kevan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | June 17, 1944 |
| Nationality | British, Canadian |
| Alma mater | McGill University (BSc), University of Alberta (PhD) |
| Known for | Arctic Pollination Insect colour perception and flower colours Insect and plant thermoregulation Effect of pesticides on pollinators NSERC-CANPOLIN (The Canadian Pollination Initiative) Pollinator and pollination biodiversity and conservation Crop pollination Apiculture |
| Spouse | Sherrene Kevan |
| Children | Colin Douglas Kevan and Grafton Kale Kevan |
| Awards | Gold Medalist, Entomological Society of Canada (2005) (twice – 1983, 1990) Alumni Honour Award, University of Alberta (2003) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Entomology, botany, apiculture, pollination ecology |
| Institutions | University of Alberta, Canadian Wildlife Service (Western Region), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, University of Colorado, University of Guelph, NSERC-CANPOLIN |
| Thesis | High Arctic Insect-Flower Relations: The Inter-relationships of Arthropods and Flowers at Lake Hazen, Ellesmere Island, N.W.T., Canada (1970) |
| Doctoral advisor | Professor Brian Hocking |
Peter G. Kevan (/kĕvːăn/; born June 17, 1944) is a British-Canadian entomologist, applied ecologist and pollination biologist.
His research covers Arctic pollination, insect colour perception and floral colours, bee biology, thermoregulation in plants and insects; arctic, alpine, tropical and temperate zone forest and Carolinian ecology; paleontology, beekeeping, agricultural pollination, effects of pesticides on pollinators, and biodiversity.
Kevan was co-founder and scientific director of the Canadian Pollination Initiative (CANPOLIN), a national network of Canadian pollination researchers funded by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).
He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Sciences, the Linnean Society and the Royal Entomological Society of London.
He has been involved with issues around the conservation of pollinators and pollination through the International Commission for Plant-Pollinator Relations (ICPPR), the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
He is currently a Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph.
Biography
[edit]Early life
[edit]Peter Graham Kevan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on June 17, 1944, to parents Douglas Keith McEwan Kevan and Kathleen Edith Kevan (née Luckin).
Kevan's brother, Martin Keith Kevan (1947-2013) was an actor and writer. His brother, Simon Michael Kevan (1949-1994) was a professor of geography at John Abbott College.
The Kevan family relocated to Montreal in 1958 when Douglas Kevan was appointed head, and later chair, of McGill University's Department of Entomology.
Marriage and family
[edit]Kevan met Sherrene Kent in Colorado Springs, in 1979.
The couple married in 1982.
He has two children from a previous marriage, Colin Douglas Kevan (born in Ottawa, 1972) and Grafton Kale Kevan (born in St. Johns, Newfoundland, 1975).
Scientific career
[edit]Peter Kevan began his scientific education at McGill University, where he studied zoology, receiving an Honours BSc in 1965. He followed with graduate studies in entomology at the University of Alberta, completing his PhD in 1970.
During graduate studies, he developed an interest in botany and pollination science. He went on to study plant reproduction and pollination in the Ottawa Valley Region between 1971 and 1972, at Canada Agriculture's Central Experimental Farm, with a National Research Council Postdoctorate Fellowship through the Plant Research Institute.
Kevan was a contract biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service (Western Region) in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, researching Arctic ecology and environmental impacts of oil exploration and vehicular traffic on tundra ecosystems,[1] between 1970 and 1976.
During that period, he was project manager for the Memorial University of Newfoundland's Research Unit on Vector Pathology (RUVP) researching biological control of blackflies as vectors of human disease[2] (Onchocerciasis in West Africa) and blackfly ecology in Canada.
In 1975 he became a professor of biology at the University of Colorado, in Colorado Springs and research associate for the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
In 1982, he returned to Canada as Associate Professor in the University of Guelph's Department of Environmental Biology (later School of Environmental Science). He was made Full Professor in 1991. Since 1988, Kevan has been Adjunct Professor in the university's department of botany and is a research associate at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis and the Royal Botanical Gardens (Ontario). He has served as adjunct professor at various universities around the world, primarily on graduate student advisory committees. Kevan was Program Coordinator for the university's Apiculture and Pollination program between 1984 and 1987 and contributed extensively to apicultural research at the University of Guelph.
In 2009, Kevan retired, becoming University Professor Emeritus. That year, with a $5 million grant from NSERC, Kevan co-founded the Canadian Pollination Initiative (NSERC-CANPOLIN), a network of more than 50 scientists and 29 institutions across Canada. NSERC-CANPOLIN's participants studied biological, ecological and economic aspects of pollination, between 2009 and 2014. At its conclusion, the effort had produced more than 130 scientific publications, advancing Canadian leadership in pollination research.
In 2009, Kevan was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, as well as the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Entomological Society of London. In 2015 he became Fellow of the Linnean Society, London.
Kevan remains an active researcher of pollination, arctic ecology and plant biology.
Arctic research
[edit]Kevan's doctoral research demonstrated the importance of insect-mediated pollination of Arctic plants,[3] especially by flies, but also other Northern arthropods including springtails, moths, butterflies and Northern bees. Insect pollination was previously thought unimportant because Arctic insect numbers were considered too low and the summer season too cool and short to allow for reliable pollination interactions.
During his doctoral studies, Kevan also studied thermoregulation in flowers,[4] butterflies,[5] caterpillars and cocoons. This work has been cited by scholars of Arctic and Alpine biology and been applied to tropical ecology.
As contract biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service, Kevan investigated effects of oil exploration on tundra ecosystems.[6] With encouragement from eminent ecologist J.B. Cragg, he studied effects of vehicle tracks on high arctic terrain.[7] He analyzed impacts of such vehicles on Arctic plants, soil chemistry and structure, diversity of soil-dwelling mites and mechanics of soil compression. Kevan also conducted systematic surveys of muskox and caribou on Banks Island in the Northwest Territories.
In 2007, Kevan took part in the International Polar Year. He documented Arctic insects in a collaborative project[8] with Dr. Robert Roughly (University of Manitoba), Paul Hebert and Tom Woodcock (University of Guelph). Their work made early use of genetic barcoding.
Since then, Kevan has worked with Jack Trevors, Alison Derry, Ling Tam and others to study microbiological diversity in Arctic soils, freshwater, marine water, and anthropogenically altered soil environments.
Insect perception, learning and cognition
[edit]During Kevan's doctoral research, he devised a novel system to measure floral colours as insects see them.[9] That research precedes the Colour Opponency Coding System for insects developed by German zoologists Randolf Menzel, Lars Chittka and Werner Backhaus in the 1990s. Kevan has since published with these scholars about colour perception in bees through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
In 1985, Kevan and botanical collaborator Meredith Lane discovered bees can recognize micro-textural features ('micro-brail') on flower petals. These findings have been referenced in studies of insect cognition and learning, and plant taxonomy.
As a professor, Kevan supervised the research of then-graduate student Hamida Merwan (currently at the University of Tripoli) around operant learning and problem-solving of bumblebees. This work resulted in a series of papers about sequential learning, conditional learning, recognition of motion, recognition of colour, recognition of position and social learning.
Palaeoecology
[edit]In 1975, Kevan conducted a palaeontological analysis of interactions between plants, fungus and insects during the Devonian Period[10] with evolutionary biologist Doug Savile and plant fossil expert William Gilbert Chaloner. This study linked Devonian mites and springtails with spore dispersal and reproduction of early terrestrial plants.
He has since published on explosive pollen release in the fossil species Ekrixanthera ehecatli[11]with American evolutionary biologist George Poinar.
Apiculture and crop pollination
[edit]Kevan has taught and published widely concerning apiculture and honeybees, including pollination efficiency, biophysics of beehive ventilation and ectoparasitic honeybee pests, such as Varroa destructor mites and tracheal mites (Acarapis woodi).
From 1984 to 2009, Kevan taught the University of Guelph's long-running apiculture course, which has over a century of history. As part of the course's development, he wrote and published Bees, Biology and Management,[12] a reference book about beekeeping and honeybee biology, in 2007. He shared his apiculture knowledge through an internationally recognized course in pollination ecology which he taught in several countries, notably in North, South and Central America.
Kevan has published extensively about Apis cerana, the Asiatic hive bee. In 1995, he edited a book-length collection of scientific essays on the species, from an international workshop held in Malaysia.
He holds a number of patents for honeybee treatments and helped develop FeedBee, a pollen substitute for commercial honeybees.
Kevan has also done work on apiculture and applied pollination in Asia, Africa and Latin America for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (PORIM), Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
In 2001, he was part of a panel for the US-based National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) when it produced one of the first comprehensive reviews of supply and demand in pollination, agriculture, and conservation.
In 2014, Kevan presented briefing materials on the status of honeybees in Canada to the Canadian government's Senate committee on Forestry & Agriculture[13] and in 2016 to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture on Honeybee Health.[14]
He has researched pollination behaviour and effectiveness of honeybees, along with other managed species, such as bumblebees and alfalfa leafcutter bees. Notably, he studied bumblebees as pollinators of greenhouse crops, like tomatoes.
Pesticide impacts
[edit]Between 1975 and 1989, Kevan published a series of controversial papers demonstrating adverse and lethal effects of the organophosphate pesticide Fenitrothion[15] on pollinators, causing lower blueberry yields[16] and economic losses in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
He was invited to publish on pesticide effects by a number of scientific and agricultural journals. In 1980, as a result of the far-reaching implications of those studies, Kevan was appointed to a National Research Council panel on pesticides and pollination.
Kevan's expert scientific testimony helped obtain a ruling on behalf of blueberry growers in a 1976 lawsuit before the Supreme Court of New Brunswick against the province's forest protection agency. The case is considered precedent-setting in Canadian and international environmental law
Bio-control with bees
[edit]Kevan has also studied methods of non-chemical pest control.
In a joint project with University of Guelph professors John Sutton and Les Shipp, Kevan experimented with honeybees to disseminate a naturally-occurring fungal endophyte, Clonostachys rosea, to suppress grey mold in strawberries. Later, Kevan, Sutton and others tested bumblebees as vectors for Beauveria bassiana, a microbial fungus lethal to pests such as lygus and thrips, but harmless to bees.
Work with this technique led to start-up of the company, Bee Vectoring Technology (BVT Inc.), which is listed on the Toronto Venture Stock Exchange, with the stock symbol, BEE.
Kevan and his colleagues have lectured and published internationally on apivectoring technology.[17] In 2019, Kevan and others co-presented an international course in Belgrade on using managed pollinators to disseminate biological control agents, presented in partnership with the International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC), the International Commission for Plant-Pollinator Relations (ICPPR) and the International Union for Biological Sciences (IUBS).
Biodiversity and pollination ecology
[edit]Between 2005 and 2007 Kevan served on the Committee on the Status of Pollinators in North America (US National Academy of Sciences), which documented population declines in wild and managed pollinators in Canada, the United States and Mexico. The committee's influential report recommended strategies to conserve pollinators.
He has been part of other important initiatives, such as the Forgotten Pollinators Campaign, the São Paulo Declaration on Pollinators, the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC), the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) International Pollinators Initiative, the Council of the International Commission on Plant-Bee Relations, the Canadian Pollinator Protection Initiative (2007 and 2008), the International Commission for Plant Pollinator Relations (ICPPR) and the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC).
In 2007 Kevan was invited to join the NSERC Strategic Network team, working with genetic barcoding technology to identify Canadian biota. He collaborated with Paul Hebert at the University of Guelph, Professor Laurence Packer at York University and Corey Sheffield (currently curator of insect collection at Royal Saskatchewan Museum) to track pollinator biodiversity with barcoding techniques. This project demonstrated the potential of genetic barcoding to make known the diversity of the world's biota.
Kevan was Chief Lead Author and Editor for the Pollination Expert Group's contribution to the Global Assessment Report for the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) between 2014 and 2017.
Urban pollination
[edit]Kevan played an early and important part in developing urban pollinator preserves.
He had a founding and research role in the conservation group, Pollination Guelph, which is focused on creating city-based pollinator habitats and raising public awareness of pollination and pollinator conservation issues.
Kevan took part in converting the decommissioned Eastview Landfill in Guelph to a pollinator park through landscaping and strategic flower plantings. Kevan also worked with colleague Tom Woodcock, who monitored pollinator effectiveness and abundance at the site, which was renamed the Eastview Pollinator Park. It is one of the first and largest pollinator parks in Canada and worldwide.
Kevan's influence has been credited in similar initiatives that followed, like the Cambridge Pollinator Preserve in Cambridge, Ontario and Bee City initiatives in Kitchener and Waterloo, Ontario.
Plant stem temperatures
[edit]Presently, Kevan has returned to his early roots in plant micrometeorology.[18] His current research measures internal temperatures inside solid and hollow plant stems.[19] His work examines micrometeorology of stems, reasons for different temperature regimes and possible implications of such findings around plant survival during climate change.[20]
Notes and references
[edit]- ^ Kevan, P.G.; Forbes, B. C.; Kevan, S.M.; Behan-Pelletier, V.M.; et al. (Aug 1995). "Vehicle Tracks on High Arctic Tundra: Their Effects on the Soil, Vegetation, and Soil Arthropods". pp. 32(3):655-667.
- ^ Laird, M. (1978). "The Status of Biocontrol Investigations Concerning Simuliidae". Environmental Conservation. 5 (2) (Vol. 5, No. 2 ed.): 133–142. Bibcode:1978EnvCo...5..133L. doi:10.1017/S0376892900005609. JSTOR 44516854.
- ^ Kevan, P.G. (Dec 1972). "Insect Pollination of High Arctic Flowers". Ecology. pp. 60(3):831-847.
- ^ Kevan, P.G. (Jan 1972). "Heliotropism in Some Arctic Flowers". Canadian Field-Naturalist. pp. 86:41–44.
- ^ Kevan, P.G.; Shorthouse, J.D. (Dec 1970). "Behavioural Thermoregulation by High Arctic Butterflies". Arctic. pp. 23(4):268 - 279.
- ^ Kevan, P.G. (Apr 1971). "Oil Under the Tundra in the Mackenzie Delta Region". Canadian Field-Naturalist. pp. 85(2):99-122.
- ^ Kevan, P.G. (Sep 1971). "Vehicle Tracks on High Arctic Tundra: An 11 Year Case History Around Hazen Camp Ellesmere Island, N.W.T."
- ^ Woodcock, T.S.; Boyle, E.E.; Roughley, R.; Kevan, P.G.; et al. (Oct 2013). "The diversity and biogeography of the Coleoptera of Churchill: insights from DNA barcoding". BMC Ecology. 13 (1): 40. Bibcode:2013BMCE...13...40W. doi:10.1186/1472-6785-13-40. PMC 3819705. PMID 24164967.
- ^ Kevan, P.G. (Nov 1972). "Floral colors in the high arctic with reference to insect-flower relations and pollination". Canadian Journal of Botany. pp. 50(11):2289-2316.
- ^ Kevan, P.G.; Chaloner, W.G.; Savile, D.B.O. (Jan 1975). "Interrelationships of Early Terrestrial Arthropods and Plants". Palaeontology. pp. 18:391–417.
- ^ Poinar, G.; Kevan, P.G.; Jackes, B.R. (Aug 2016). "Fossil species in Boehmerieae (Urticaceae) in Dominican and Mexican amber: a new genus ( Ekrixanthera ) and two new species with anemophilous pollination by explosive pollen release, and possible lepidopteran herbivory 1". Botany. pp. 94(8):599-606.
- ^ Kevan, Peter (2010). Bees, Biology and Management. Enviroquest Ltd. ISBN 978-0-9680123-4-5.
- ^ "Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry" (Issue 3, Minutes of Proceedings, Meeting of January 28, 2014 ed.). Jan 2014.
- ^ "CHC presents on Bee Health to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture". Jun 2016.
- ^ Kevan, P.G. (June 1975). "Forest application of the insecticide fenitrothion and its effect on wild bee pollinators (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) of lowbush blueberries (Vaccinium SPP.) in Southern New Brunswick, Canada" (Volume 7, Issue 4 ed.). Biological Conservation. pp. 301–309.
- ^ Kevan, P.G. (Feb 1977). "Blueberry crops in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick – pesticides and crop reductions". Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics. pp. 25(1).
- ^ Smagghe, G.; Boecking, O.; Maccagnani, B.; Mänd, M.; Kevan, P.H (2019). Entomovectoring for Precision Biocontrol and Enhanced Pollination of Crops. Springer Verlag, Germany. Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-18916-7.
- ^ Kevan, P.G. (Sep 1975). "Sun-Tracking Solar Furnaces in High Arctic Flowers: Significance for Pollination and Insects". Science. 189 (4204): 189(4204):723-6. Bibcode:1975Sci...189..723K. doi:10.1126/science.189.4204.723. PMID 17792542.
- ^ Kevan, P.G.; Nunes-Silva, P.; Sudarsan, S. (Sep 2018). "Short communication: thermal regimes in hollow stems of herbaceous plants—concepts and models". International Journal of Biometeorology. 62 (11): 62(11). Bibcode:2018IJBm...62.2057K. doi:10.1007/s00484-018-1602-7. PMID 30209613.
- ^ Kevan, P.G.; Coates, C.; Tikhmenev, E.A.; Nunes-Silva, P. "Understanding plant thermoregulation in the face of climate change".