Patrick Michael Holligan: a short biography

Our understanding of the role of marine phytoplankton in the global biogeochemical cycles of carbon and sulphur, particularly the rates and variability of primary production and calcification, phytoplankton activity and ecology in the subsurface chlorophyll maximum, and the use of satellite remote sensing to detect coccolithophore blooms, has progressed substantially through research initiated, led and undertaken by Patrick M. Holligan. The enthusiasm and commitment of Patrick’s colleagues for both this special issue and the symposium on “Marine Plankton: From Cells to Ecosystems” held in his honour in April 2008 at Plymouth, UK are testament to the high esteem in which he is held within the international scientific community. His expertise as a scientific leader, teacher and writer has inspired students and collaborators over more than three decades. In particular, his chairmanship during the early 1990s of the Planning Committee for the “Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone” (LOICZ) project led to the establishment of a new core project within the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). As the first Head of the School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES), University of Southampton (1998– 2002), Patrick had responsibility for substantial expansion of the School, including 13 new academic appointments. As one of the first UK Principal Investigators to propose an open-ocean latitudinal time-series study, he helped initiate the development of the Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) programme (www.amt-uk. org), and as the President of the Council of the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS), he guided the transition to a new Directorship of the Continuous Plankton Recorder programme. Patrick gained an MA in Botany from Christs College, Cambridge in 1966. He then moved to the Department of Botany at the University of Leeds where he completed his PhD in 1970 on “Carbohydrate metabolism in the fungus Dendryphiella salina“ under the supervision of David Jennings. During the first year of his PhD, Patrick assisted Ed Drew in some research on acclimations by seaweeds to changes in light intensity and quality that required summer fieldwork in Malta. It was here that Patrick practised his self-taught skills in scuba diving, met John Woods for the first time, acted as a guinea pig for behavioural research into the effects of nitrogen narcosis, and developed a serious interest in the marine environment. While doing his PhD, Patrick also met and married his wife, Sue. Patrick then undertook a postdoctoral appointment (1969–1973) with David Lewis in the Department of Botany at the University of Sheffield to work on the physiology of higher plants infected by rust fungi. In 1973, Patrick joined the staff at the Marine Biological Association (MBA) in Plymouth UK as a Research Scientist, despite his only “marine” credentials being research on a marine fungus and his hobby of scuba diving. He sought external advice from David Cushing and Tim Wyatt at Lowestoft and from Jack Talling at Windermere about developing a new research programme on marine phytoplankton and then, over morning coffee, met Robin Pingree, a physicist with an interest in biology who had come from the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences (IOS), Wormley, UK to work