The Echinoderm Newsletter - Obituaries of Echinoderm Researchers

Vladimir I. Kasianov
Valery S. Levin
Georges Ubaghs

Zoya Ivanovna Baranova passed away on 22 April 2010 at the age of 88.

Cynthia (Cindy) Ahearn, echinoderm collection manager at the Smithsonian institution has passed away on 31st August 2008, long before her time.

Professor John David Gage DSc FRSE 1939 – 2005: a personal tribute

Professor John Gage died on the 18th July 2005 after a short illness. To those of us in the deep-sea scientific community we lost not only an esteemed scientific colleague but a mentor and personal friend.
John Gage was born on November 14th 1939, a native of Salisbury, Wiltshire UK.His early interest in marine biology stemmed from diving along the south coast of England. When I moved to Fordingbridge in the 1980s he would regale me with stories of stopping in The George by Fordingbridge bridge and having a ‘few beers’.
John went to the University of Southampton to study Zoology in 1958 and on graduating elected to pursue a PhD on the integrative behaviours and life history of marine commensal associations. Thus started John’s interest in echinoderms, particularly the echinoids. On completion of his PhD he took a post-doc under the great Howard Sanders at Woods Hole returning to the UK to take up a Post-doc at the MBA, Plymouth.
In 1967 he was appointed to the Scottish Marine Biological Association, then in the process of moving from Millport to new premises at Dunstaffnage. Thus began the long association with SMBA, and latterly SAMS, that was to continue throughout his working career. During this long and industrious career he gained individual merit promotion in NERC, a DSc from the University of Southampton, became a FRSE and held Honorary Chairs at the Universities of Southampton and Aberdeen.
John’s early years at SMBA were spent looking at the ecology and population biology of invertebrates in sea lochs. However, by the early 1970s his interest had been drawn to deep-sea biology in the Rockall Trough area of the NE Atlantic. In a brave, and ultimately successful, decision he determined to look at temporal studies in the deep sea to determine if there was any annual variation. To do this John established the ‘Permanent Station’ at 2900m depth in the southern Rockall Trough, which was supplemented later by a megabenthos-rich station (Station ‘M’) at 2200m at the base of the Hebridean Slope by which time I was working regularly with John. In conjunction with the Physics group at SMBA a series of cruises were made to these stations until the mid 1980s. The population analyses of invertebrates, particularly the echinoderms, from these cruises demonstrated unequivocally for the first time that there were seasonal (annual) variations in growth in the deep sea. John became deeply involved in the modelling of these populations, especially the ophiuroids and echinoids, starting with vintage BBC computers (and writing his own programs) and later switching to faster machines as they came on line. Overnight model runs became a few minutes! This aspect of John’s interest continued until his retirement.
John also painted on a broader canvas. He maintained his interest in the NE Atlantic being involved a series of EU-funded programmes. In addition he developed interests in oxygen minimum environments and conducted cruises to the Oman margin and later was involved in studies off the Pakistan Margin.
These are all scientific facts evidenced by publications culminating in the first text on deep-sea biology for over 20 years. A less well known attribute of John’s was his ability to bring young people into deep-sea biology. I was possibly one of the first to benefit from his scientific generosity in that he invited me to sea, shared samples and showed me how to run cruises. Subsequently, many of my own graduate students benefited from participating on John’s cruises and there are a number of young (an maybe not so young!) whose first experience of deep-sea biology has been with John. Lastly, John had an international outlook. He worked with some of the best in the world, and was the first among equals.
On the 18th July, I lost a scientific colleague, a close personal friend and one of the great guides to my career. Although we worked 500 miles apart I always felt he was in the lab next door ready for discussion or advice should I need them. He will be sorely missed by all his scientific colleagues and friends.

Paul Tyler

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VLADIMIR l. KASIANOV  

1940-2005

He had many titles and duties in addition to his main goal - to be a very good person. Vladimir Leonidovich Kasianov for many years was head of the Institute of Marine Biology in Vladivostok. He also was head of the Laboratory of Embryology and the Academy of Ecology, Marine Biology and Biotechnology of the Far Eastern State University, deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Far East Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences and member of the Council on Science, Technology and Education for the President of the Russian Federation. He had many friends. Colleagues liked him. He was respected as a talented, skillful, warm-hearted and highly principled person.

Vladimir Leonidovich Kasianov was born January 4, 1940 in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) and tragically lost his life on October 1, 2005 in a traffic accident while traveling to the Marine Biological Station in Troitsa Bay of the Gulf of Posiet. His father, Leonid Pavlovich Kasianov, was a First Rank Captain and a lecturer at the Naval Academy. His parents knew each other as children in a small town in Byelorussia and later met in Leningrad. His mother and elder sister died while Vladimir was a young student. Vladimir graduated first in his class in the Biology-Soil Department of the Leningrad State University in 1962. He entered the post graduate program and received the PhD degree in 1969.

Vladimir went to Vladivostok in 1971 to work at the Institute of Marine Biology of the Far East Center (from 1986, Division) of the Russian Academy of Sciences because sea urchins, mollusks, crustaceans and annelids were important for his embryological studies. In 1973 he organized the Laboratory of Embryology where he remained head until his death. For many years he was deputy director for science and in 1989 became director of the Institute.

In 1986 he was awarded a Doctor of Sciences in Biology and in 1989 became a Professor of Zoology. Professor Kasianov was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the General Meeting in 1994. He became a full member of the Academy in 2001.

By this time Kasianov was head of the leading scientific school of Russia concerning biology of reproduction and development of marine invertebrates. He was chief editor of the journal Biologya Morya, member of the editorial boards of the journals Ontogenez and Marine Ecology Progress Series, chairman of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Marine Biology, Expert Council of Far East Marine Foundation, Coordination Board of the Far Eastern Scientific Education Center of Marine Biology, East-Asian Committee of the International Progam of Global Changing of the Environment, and the Otto Kinne Foundation. He was a member of the Scientific Councils of the Ministry of Science and Education and the Bureau of the Section of General Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the A.O. Kovalevsky Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the International A.P. Karlinsky Prize.

Anatoly Drozdov

Leading Scientist, Laboratory of Embryology
Institute of Marine Biology, Far East Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences Professor, Far Eastern State University
Translated by Vladimir Kalinin

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VALERY S. LEVIN

1938 - 2005

Dr. Valery S. Levin died on July 24, 2005 after a severe illness. He was a professor, Doctor of Biological Science and a leading scientist at the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Far East Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was an outstanding scientist and a brilliant erudite person, simultaneously being a biologist-researcher, engineer-technologist and a high class professional scuba diver. Dr Levin was author of about 150 scientific articles and 14 patents. He participated in several tropical expeditions on research vessels of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For many months he worked in Cuba and in Vietnam with Cuban and Vietnamese biologists and skin-divers. At different stages of his life he made significant efforts to the development of marine biology and marine bioorganic chemistry in two institutes of the Far East Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry and the Institute of Marine Biology.

Valery S. Levin was born on May, 13, 1938 in Lepel (now Byelorussia) in the family of a military medical doctor. In 1961 he was graduated from Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgy Institute and received the diploma of engineer-chemist. But his real calling was the investigation of marine fauna. Already in 1964 he had entered the Biological-Soil Department of Chernovietsky University and later completed his biological education in Vladivostok at the Far East State University.

In 1965 he started his work in the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry where he founded and headed the Scuba Diving Service of the Marine Experimental Station and coached many high class scuba divers who provided the basis for intensive biochemical studies on marine organisms in the Institute. In this period he became an independent researcher able to resolve complicated multidisciplinary problems at the interface of marine biology and bioorganic chemistry and started his classical investigations concerning chemotaxonomy of sea cucumbers based on the structures of triterpene glycosides. After completing the first stage of the investigation he presented a thesis and received the PhD degree in biology in 1977. Since 1975 he worked as a senior scientist of the Pacific Institute of Fishery and Oceanography (TINRO) where he carried out classic studies on the biology of Apostichopus japonicus that became the basis of his monograph "Far-eastern trepang".

In 1978 he became a senior scientist of the Institute of Marine Biology where he successfully presented a thesis on echinoderm trophoecology and received the degree of Doctor of Biological Sciences. From 1989 to 1998 he worked at the Kamchatka Research Institute of Fishery and Oceanography where headed the Department of Marine Biotechnology. He was a founder of systematic investigations of harvesting marine invertebrates in Kamchatka waters.

In 2000 he returned to Vladivostok where he worked as a leading scientist of the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry. Here he carried out a series of studies on taxonomy and chemotaxonomy of the genus Cucumaria that had major applied significance.

Valery Levin was author of ten books that were very significant in the development of biological studies in Russia. Along with the above-mentioned "Far-eastern trepang", which has gone through several editions, he contributed a chapter to the well-known book "Animals and plants of the Peter the Great Gulf" (Leningrad, Nauka, 1976), monographs "Harvesting biology of marine bottom invertebrates and algae" (Saint Petersburg, PKF OU-92, 1994), "King crab Paralithodes camtschaticus. Biology, harvesting, reproduction" (Saint Petersburg, Izchiza, 2001), "Sea urchins of Russia, biology, harvesting, utilization" (Saint Petersburg, Dorn, 2003), and others.

His untimely death disrupted his numerous creative plans to continue his studies.

Valentin A. Stonik

Dr. Sc., Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Director of the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Far East Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Vladimir I. Kalinin

Dr. Sc., Leading Scientist of the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Georges Ubaghs

1916-2005

Georges Jean Charles Ubaghs was born in Angleur (Liège, Belgium) on 29th February 1916. After brilliant studies at the University of Liège, Georges Ubaghs obtained a PhD in Zoological Sciences in 1939. He had not yet performed his national service when World War II began. For this reason, he was not mobilized and did not participate in the dramatic battles, that took place in Belgium in May 1940. His very first scientific contribution dealt with dendroid graptolites from the Lower Carboniferous of Belgium. However, his centre of interest rapidly moved onto echinoderms, and especially Palaeozoic crinoids. During war time, he produced his first echinoderm paper (devoted to the anatomy and systematics of Mespilocrinus, a Lower Carboniferous crinoid of Belgium), but he was also involved in several contributions dealing with regional geology and Famennian outcrops of the Liège area.

Immediately after the end of the war, Georges Ubaghs was nominated as Professor of Palaeontology at Liège University (1945). This extremely rapid promotion was largely the consequence of the arrest of Charles Fraipont, former Professor of Palaeontology in Liège, for "incivic behaviour" (collaboration) during the war. From 1945 to the late 1950s, Georges Ubaghs was involved in two main projects. The first one concerned Palaeozoic crinoids, with several key papers devoted to the description of various forms from the Devonian of Belgium, France, Germany and Bohemia, and from the Silurian of Gotland and Germany. These contributions (as well as later ones) are remarkable by the quality and accuracy of both observations and hand-drawings. Very rapidly, Georges Ubaghs became one of the best specialists of Palaeozoic crinoids, and it was wholly logically that he was asked by Jean Piveteau to write the chapter dealing with crinoids in the third volume of the French Traité de Paléontologie (1953). However, the contribution of Georges Ubaghs to the Traité is not limited to crinoids, as he was also in charge of two other chapters devoted to "stelleroids" (sea-stars and ophiuroids), and ophiocistioids (a group of Palaeozoic echinoderms related to both echinoids and holothurians). During the 1950s, Georges Ubaghs was also involved in an eight year project devoted to the stratigraphy of foraminiferans collected from cores made in Angola by the oil company Petrofina (modern Total). His works for this private company have not been published.

The year 1959 was pivotal in the scientific career of Georges Ubaghs, with the beginning of the re-examination of "carpoid" echinoderm faunas from the Lower Ordovician of Montagne Noire (southern France). "Carpoids" are flattened Palaeozoic echinoderms, with no sign of five-fold symmetry (e.g. cinctans, solutes, stylophorans). The exquisite preservation of the Montagne Noire material (within silico-aluminous concretions) and the elaboration of a new technique of casting (using latex) allowed him to observe numerous previously undocumented aspects of carpoid morphology, and to propose new interpretations of their anatomy. For example, Georges Ubaghs demonstrated that Lingulocystis and Rhipidocystis, two forms long interpreted as "carpoids", were indeed eocrinoids. Later on, he began to investigate the atypical morphology of stylophorans (cornutes, mitrates), with the description of the Montagne Noire mitrate Chinianocarpos thorali. In his first paper on stylophorans, Georges Ubaghs followed their traditional interpretation as bizarre, stemmed, asymmetrical echinoderms. However, soon after, new observations made on the Montagne Noire cornute Phyllocystis blayaci, as well as his great knowledge of the anatomy of both crinoids and "stelleroids" led him to propose a new interpretation for the articulated appendage of these fossils. He suggested that it was not a stem made of columnals, but rather that it corresponds to a feeding device bearing a single ambulacral groove protected by two series of moveable cover plates: the "aulacophore". Later on, the description of new cornutes and solutes from the Upper Cambrian of Nevada allowed him to support the view that the long, articulated appendage of solutes was probably not homologous with that of stylophorans.

After these major advances in the knowledge of carpoid and eocrinoid anatomy, almost all papers produced by Georges Ubaghs focused on Cambro-Ordovician echinoderms, and he rapidly became one of the leading specialists in the field. During the 1960-1970s, he produced several key papers on the morphology and systematics of various eocrinoids, "carpoids", and primitive crinoids. However, during these years, most of his energy was devoted to the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. He contributed to all three volumes of the echinoderm Treatise, as he was in charge of the chapters dealing with ophiocistioids (volume "U"; 1966), general characters of echinoderms, eocrinoids, stylophorans, cinctans, and "haplozoans" (volume "S"; 1967), and finally skeletal morphology and origin of crinoids, camerate crinoids, and classification of echinoderms (volume "T"; 1978). His enormous contribution to the Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology probably represents his major legacy and scientific achievement. The Treatise provided Georges Ubaghs a powerful agent for the expansion of his new interpretations (otherwise poorly known, as most of his papers were written in French): not only those concerning the anatomy of the various groups of "carpoids", but many other key advances, such as the evidence -for the first time- of the fundamental difference between "arms" (as in crinoids) and brachioles (as in blastoids, cystoids and eocrinoids).

When he retired in 1984, Georges Ubaghs was nominated Honorary Professor at Liège University. He then had plenty of time to devote to the study of Early Palaeozoic echinoderms. His last contributions were greatly enhanced by two very fruitful collaborations. The first one, with R. Robison (Lawrence, Kansas), provided him the opportunity to describe beautifully-preserved Middle Cambrian faunas of both "carpoids" (solutes, stylophorans) and eocrinoids from Utah. The second collaboration was with Daniel Vizcaïno (Carcassonne, France), and concerned Cambro-Ordovician echinoderm faunas from Montagne Noire and Spain. He was strongly affected by the death of his wife in March 1999, but he survived her by five years. He died peacefully on 31st January 2005 in Liège.

The legacy of Georges Ubaghs to our knowledge of echinoderms (and especially crinoids, eocrinoids, and "carpoids") is invaluable. The exceptional quality of his work was recognized by several distinctions: he was appointed Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and Commander of the Order of the Crown. His absence will be all the more felt in that he did not transmit his great experience and knowledge of echinoderms to any PhD student. However, in a certain way, the contribution of Georges Ubaghs has influenced so deeply our current knowledge of various groups of echinoderms that, even if his work has left few traces in his own country, his ideas -often ahead of their time- are more alive than ever in the worldwide echinoderm community.

Bertrand Lefebvre

Biogéosciences, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon (France)

Edouard Poty

Université de Liège, Liège (Belgium)