John Walter Thomson Explained

John Walter Thomson
Birth Date:July 9, 1913
Birth Place:Cockenzie, Scotland
Death Place:Mount Horeb, Wisconsin
Field:Botany
Work Institutions:University of Wisconsin
Alma Mater:Columbia University
University of Wisconsin
Doctoral Advisor:Norman C. Fassett
Thesis Title:Relic Prairie Areas in Central Wisconsin[1]
Doctoral Students:Bill Culberson
Mason Hale
Author Abbrev Bot:J.W.Thomson

John Walter Thomson Jr. (1913–2009) was a Scottish-born American botanist and lichenologist, sometimes referred to as the "Dean of North American Lichens".[2]

Biography

When he was eight years old, Thomson moved with his family to the U.S.A.[3] In 1935 he graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor's degree, majoring in botany and zoology. At the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW Madison) he graduated in botany with a master's degree in 1937 and a Ph.D. in 1939. After receiving his Ph.D., he worked as a naturalist at Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History and taught at Brooklyn College until 1942.[4] During WW II, he taught topics in military aviation and meteorology from 1942 to 1944 for the U.S. Army Air Corps at Superior State Teachers College (now named the University of Wisconsin–Superior).[5] In 1944 he became a faculty member of the department of botany at University of Wisconsin–Madison, retiring there in 1984 as professor emeritus. In retirement, he continued to work almost daily at the Madison campus until he was about 88 years old.[4]

Thomson taught for many summers at the University of Minnesota's Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories campus,[6] which is located on Lake Itasca.[7] He collected lichens not only in the Arctic and in Wisconsin, but also in a number of other U.S. states, including "California, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington".[3] He was the author or coauthor of over 100 scientific articles. He accumulated an extremely valuable herbarium of lichens, which gave the Wisconsin State Herbarium at UW Madison perhaps the world's best lichen collection of North American and Arctic material.[3] [8] Thomson issued two exsiccatae, namely Lichenes Wisconsinenses exsiccati (1946–1960) and Lichenes Arctici (1960–1966).[9] [10]

In 1937 in Madison, Wisconsin, Thomson married the botanist and conservationist Olive Sherman.[11] [5] Upon his death he was survived by his widow, three sons, Dennis, Norman, and Roderic, a daughter, Elizabeth, and seven grandchildren.[2] Another son, Douglas E. Thomson, M.D., died in 1978 at age 34.[3] [12] As a memorial to Douglas their dead son, John and Olive Thomson gave money to The Nature Conservancy for land acquisition, leading to the establishment of the Thomson Memorial Prairie,[13] which consists of "323 acres of remnant dry prairie".[11] Dennis Thomson and his wife Joan Schurch Thomson donated land to the nonprofit conservation organization The Prairie Enthusiasts, which created the 193-acre preserve named Schurch-Thomson Prairie.[14]

Awards and honors

Selected publications

Articles

Books and monographs

References

  1. Thomson. John W.. Relic Prairie Areas in Central Wisconsin. Ecological Monographs. 10. 4. 1940. 685–717. 0012-9615. 10.2307/1943556. 1943556. 1940EcoM...10..685T . (abridgment of Thomson's 1939 Ph.D. thesis, 123 pages)
  2. Bennett, John. Lichenologist John Walter Thomson (1913–2009). Botanical Electronic News. 405. March 10, 2009.
  3. Ahti. Teuvo. Teuvo Ahti. A tribute to John Walter Thomson (1913–2009). The Lichenologist. 41. 6. 2009. 561–563. 0024-2829. 10.1017/S0024282909990508. free.
  4. Cochrane, Theodore S.. Wisconsin Flora (Newsletter of the Botanical Club of Wisconsin). In Memoriam: John Walter Thomson 1913 – 2009. April 2009. 1–3. reprinted in: Cochrane, Theodore S.. In Memoriam: John W. Thomson. The Great Lakes Botanist: A Journal of North American Botany. 48. 2. 61–62. April 2009.
  5. Book: Gilchrist, Susan Cantrell. Interview: John Walter Thomson and Olive (Sherman) Thomson. Views of the Ridge: Oral Perspectives from the Military Ridge Prairie Heritage Area in Southwest Wisconsin. 2013. 197–203. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
  6. Remembering a Conservation Leader and Educator. Henderson, Rich. The Prairie Promoter. The Prairie Enthusiasts. 22. 1. Spring 2009. 3–4.
  7. Web site: About Itasca . Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories, College of Biological Sciences . February 20, 2015 . University of Minnesota.
  8. Web site: Lichens. Wisconsin State Herbarium.
  9. Web site: Lichenes Wisconsinenses exsiccati: IndExs ExsiccataID=165012480 . IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae . Botanische Staatssammlung München . 21 September 2024.
  10. Web site: Lichenes Arctici: IndExs ExsiccataID=515968978 . IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae . Botanische Staatssammlung München . 21 September 2024.
  11. Web site: Olive Thomson WCGF Nominee Passes. The Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame. September 24, 2017.
  12. Enerson. D. E.. In memoriam. Douglas E. Thomson, M.D.. Radiology. 135. 3. 1980. 798. 0033-8419. 10.1148/radiology.135.3.6992202. 6992202.
  13. Web site: Thomson Memorial Prairie. The Nature Conservancy.
  14. Web site: Schurch-Thomson Prairie. The Prairie Enthusiasts.
  15. Web site: Acharius Medallists. https://web.archive.org/web/20210624065615/http://www.lichenology.org/index.html?%2FAwards%2FAchariusMedallists.html. 2021-06-24. 2021-02-03. International Association for Lichenology. dead.
  16. Hawksworth. D. L.. David L. Hawksworth. Review of Lichenographia Thomsoniana: North American Lichenology in Honour of John W. Thomson, edited by M. G. Glenn, R. C. Harris, R. Ding and M. S. Cole. The Lichenologist. 31. 4. July 1999. 403. 0024-2829. 10.1006/lich.1999.0214.
  17. Web site: John Thomson Award. Botanical Club of Wisconsin.

External links

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