Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T12:23:24.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

20 - Only Connect – and Make Records

from Part II - Essays: Inspiring Fieldwork

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2020

Tim Burt
Affiliation:
Durham University
Des Thompson
Affiliation:
Scottish Natural Heritage
Get access

Summary

I did my PhD under the supervision of Tony Bradshaw, a truly remarkable (and delightful) man who bridged the pure/applied divide in science with enthusiasm and aplomb (Fitter, 2010). He was an evolutionary ecologist who wrote an immensely influential review on phenotypic plasticity (Bradshaw, 1965), at a time when the subject was viewed as being in the province of taxonomists rather than evolutionary biologists. His early work on the evolution of resistance to heavy metals in grasses (e.g. Gregory and Bradshaw, 1965) – still one of the best demonstrations of evolution in action, even if largely ignored because the organisms in question are uncharismatic – led directly to his major contributions to the scientific approach to the reclamation of derelict land. He took me on to work on reclaiming old coal tips in the Lancashire coalfield, north-west England, which already by the late 1960s was largely abandoned.

Type
Chapter
Information
Curious about Nature
A Passion for Fieldwork
, pp. 199 - 202
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bradshaw, A. D. (1965). Evolutionary significance of phenotypic plasticity in plants. Advances in Genetics 13, 115155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitter, A. H. (2010). Anthony Bradshaw. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 56, 4161.Google Scholar
Fitter, A. H. and Fitter, R. S. R. (2002). Rapid changes in flowering time in British plants. Science 296, 16891691.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gregory, R. P. G. and Bradshaw, A. D. (1965). Heavy metal tolerance in populations of Agrostis tenuis Sibth. and other grasses. New Phytologist 64, 131143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×