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John Tyler Bonner (1920–2019)
It seems strange to feel surprised by the news that someone has died just short of his 99th birthday, but that is the sort of person John Bonner was. One of the leading biologists of the 20th century, he remained active until the end. So much so, that he was eagerly awaiting a special issue of the Journal of Experimental Zoology being brought out in his honour1. Fittingly, the finding that made his name had appeared in the same journal in 1947.
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- It is due to appear later this year with articles by Bonner and admirers.
- He named it after a witch who enticed men. Bonner, J. T. and Savage, L. J., J. Exp Zool., 1947, 106(1), 1–26; Savage supplied the diffusion theory in an Appendix. An earlier paper on the same organism, his first, was published in 1944 in the American Journal of Botany.
- https://reflectionsonpaperspast.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/revisiting-bonner-1947/
- A part of the film can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkVhLJLG7ug. Bonner said he spent the rest of his life trying to answer the questions Einstein had put to him. Years later a BBC TV film, “Professor Bonner and the slime moulds” made him known to the wider public.
- And, it is said, the person who coined the term ‘developmental biology’.
- Bonner acknowledged as much in his first book. It may operate later in the life cycle; see Umeda, T. and Inouye, K., J. Theor. Biol., 2002, 219, 301–308; Fujimori, T. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2019, 116, 4291–4296.
- Bonner, J. T. and Slifkin, M. K., Am. J. Bot., 1949, 36, 727–734; Bonner, J. T., The Cellular Slime Molds, Princeton University Press, USA, 1967, 2nd edn.
- Bonner, J. T., Joyner, B. D., Moore, A. A. Suthers, H. B. and Swanson, J. A., J. Cell Sci., 1985, 77, 19–26.
- Together with T. M. Konijn, J. G. C. van de Meene, D. S. Barkley and Y. Y. Chang.
- Bonner, J. T., Clarke, W. W., Neely, C. L. and Slifkin, M. K., J. Cell Physiol., 1950, 36(2), 149–158. Astonishingly, a temperature difference of 0.0005°C between left and right – i.e. across about 0.1 mm – is sufficient to orient the slug.
- Cox, E. C., Nanjundiah, V. and Wurster, B., Foreword to Researches on Cellular Slime Moulds, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru, 1991.
- Bonner, J. T., Compton, Cox, E. C., Fey, P. and Gregg, K. Y., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1995, 92, 8249–8253.
- Bonner, J. T., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1998, 95(16), 9355–9359.
- Bonner, J. T., The Cellular Slime Molds, 1967, Princeton University Press, USA, 2nd edn.
- Introduction to Researches on Cellular Slime Moulds (IAS, Bengaluru, 1991). Okada says the same thing in an essay on the biology of eye lens regeneration and supports it with the following quote from Gardiner, D. M. and Bryant, S. V. (Int. J. Dev. Biol., 40, 797–805): ‘..comparative studies are necessary to observe the full range of developmental potential: investigating only one “ideal model” system is self-limiting if that system is derived, specialized or developmentally restricted’ (Okada, T. S., J. Biosci., 2000, 25(2), 133–141).
- Bonner, J. T., J. Biosci., 1999, 24(1), 7–12.
- Among the papers, the mathematical modelling in a paper on slug movement (Odell, G. M. and Bonner, J. T., Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London, Ser. B, 1986, 312, 487–525) was by Odell. For another exception see footnote 2.
- There were 18 books, of which two do not deal with science: Lives of a Biologist (Princeton University Press, 2002), a delightful autobiography with many stories about scientists, and a memoir of summers spent in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where Bonner went every year to write his books.
- Even so, small organisms remained at the centre of attention. Bonner was a signatory on the powerful ‘Biologists’ Statement on Teaching Evolution’ drafted by H. J. Muller (Bull. At. Sci., 1967, 23(2), 39–40), which was issued when the teaching of evolution was illegal in some states of the USA.
- Theoretical, not mathematical. Nonmathematical theories have played a significant role in biology and are likely to continue doing so, something that is not always appreciated.
- New Biol., 1953, 15, 118.
- He put together his thinking on the subject in several books, in particular Life Cycles: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist (Princeton University Press, 1993). The four dimensions are not to be confused with those referred to in the book Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life by Jablonka, E. and Lamb, M. J. (MIT Press, USA, 2005).
- The ischolar_main of the idea goes back to Haeckel (Hall, B. K., Int. J. Dev. Biol., 2003, 47, 491–495). Heterochrony and mechanical constraints are at the centre of Bonner’s analysis of variant morphologies in the cellular slime moulds (Bonner, J. T., Am. Nat., 1982, 119(4), 530–552).
- This was not a re-statement of Cope’s rule in new language, but incorporated scaling and took into account the importance of intricacies that allowed for lineages in which the trend was size decrease – which was based on natural selection too. See Bonner, J. T., Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales (Princeton University Press, 2006).
- These ideas were explored in Cells and Societies (1956), The Evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection (1988) and First Signals (2000). Bonner’s paper ‘The origins of multicellularity’ (Int. Biol., 1998, 1(1), 27–36) made an immediate mark. His favourites, the cellular slime moulds, were ideal, because they were at the same time multicellular organisms and social groups; Bonner, J. T., The Social Amoebae: The Biology of Cellular Slime Molds (Princeton University Press, 2008). A paper with R. Gadagkar highlighted parallels between social amoebae and social insects (J. Biosci., 1994, 19(2), 219–245).
- Bonner, J. T., The Evolution of Culture in Animals, Princeton University Press, 1980.
- An Honorary Fellow of IAS, he was in Bengaluru as Raman Professor of the Academy. Bonner, J. T., Curr. Sci., 1993, 64(7), 459–466.
- He called it range variation. Bonner, J. T., Size and Cycle, Princeton University Press, 1965.
- To his delight, he found that even here Darwin had anticipated him. Bonner, J. T., Randomness in Evolution, Princeton University Press, 2013.
- Cambridge University Press brought out an abridged edition edited by Bonner in 1969. Unlike the original, it can be read in bed.
- Today we see D’Arcy Thompson (1860– 1948) as an advocate of the importance of mechanics and physical principles for understanding changes of form in evolution, a precursor of S. A. Newman and others. Medawar rates On Growth and Form very highly, yet falls short of appreciating its full importance (Perspect. Biol, Med., 1962, 5(2), 220–232).
- Newman, S. A. and Comper, W. D., Development, 1990, 110, 1–18; Newman, S. A., J. Biosci., 1992, 17(3), 193–215. In Bonner’s way of putting it, ‘...[genes] seem to seep in unavoidably, a bit like my old chemistry teacher at school who used to wear both a belt and a pair of suspenders’. (Life Cycles, p. 89).
- Evo-devo stands for evolutionary developmental biology. Hall, B., Int. J. Dev. Biol., 2003, 47, 491-495. Hall dates the origin of the field to studies on comparative embryology fuelled by the publication of The Origin of Species.
- Bonner was Department Chairman at the time. Cox, E., Nanjundiah, V. and Wurster, B., Foreword to Researches on Cellular Slime Moulds, IAS, Bengaluru, 1991.
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