David Lack
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/* Career */ clarification of Lack's year 1938-9
{{Infobox Scientist
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|birth_date = {{birth date|1910|07|16|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[London]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|1973|03|12|1910|07|16|df=y}}
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|field = [[Ornithology]]
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'''David Lambert Lack''' [[Royal Society|FRS]], ([[16 July]] [[1910]] – [[12 March]] [[1973]]) was a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[ornithologist]] and [[biologist]].<ref name=auk>Charles H. Blake (1974). Obituary, ''The Auk'', '''91''' (1) : 239 [http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v091n01/p0239-p0242.pdf Obituary]</ref>
== Early life ==
Lack was born in [[London]] and educated at [[Gresham's School]], [[Holt, Norfolk]], and [[Magdalene College, Cambridge]], where he studied [[Natural Sciences]]. He was the oldest of four children of Harry Lambert Lack [[Doctor of Medicine|MD]] [[Royal College of Surgeons of England|FRCS]], who later became President of the [[British Medical Association]].<ref>''Harry Lambert Lack, MD FRCS'', obituary in ''Journal of Laryngology & Otology'' ([[Cambridge University Press]], 1943), '''58''', pp 135-136</ref> The name 'Lack' is derived from 'Lock'. His father grew up in a farming family from Norfolk and became a leading ear, nose and throat surgeon at the [[Royal London Hospital|London Hospital]]. Although his father had some interest in birds as a boy it does not appear that he influenced David's interest. His mother Kathleen was the daughter of Lt. Col. McNeil Rind of the [[British Indian Army|Indian army]]. Kathleen's father was Scottish and on her mother's side was part Irish, Greek and Georgian.<ref name=thorpe>Thorpe, W. H. (1974) David Lambert Lack. 1910-1973. ''Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.'' '''20''': 271-293</ref>
Until the age of fifteen, Lack lived in a large house in Devonshire Place, London. By the age of nine, he had learnt the names of most birds and had written out an alphabetically arranged life-list.<ref name=thorpe/>
==Career==
After Cambridge, he became a schoolmaster at [[Dartington Hall|Dartington Hall School]], [[Devonshire]] until Summer 1938 when he took a year off to study bird behaviour on the [[Galapagos Islands]]. He was only in the Galapagos for part of that year, starting August 1938. April to August 1939 was spent at the [[California Academy of Sciences]] and at [[Ernst Mayr]]'s home in [[New Jersey]]. He returned home in September 1939, after the outbreak of war.<ref>Provine, William B, 1986. ''Sewall Wright and evolutionary biology''. Chicago. p406</ref>
During [[World War II]] Lack served in the [[British Army]] working on [[radar]] research. After hostilities ended he was made Director of the [[Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology]] at [[Oxford University]] (1945-1973). His wartime experience enabled him to make radar observations of [[bird migration]].
Lack's work in ornithology was almost entirely based on studies of the ''living bird''. He was one of the pioneers of life-history studies in Britain, especially those based on quantitative approaches, when some traditional ornithologists of the time were focussing their studies on morphology and geographic distribution.<ref>Johnson K. 2004. The Ibis: transformations in a twentieth century British natural history journal. Journal of the History of Biology. '''37''' (3): 515-555. DOI: 10.1007/s10739-004-1499-3</ref> Lack's major scientific research included work on [[population biology]] and density dependent regulation. His work suggested that natural selection favoured clutch sizes that ensured the greatest number of surviving young. This interpretation was however debated by [[V.C. Wynne-Edwards]] who suggested that clutch-size was density-independent. This was one of the earliest debates on [[group selection]]. Lack's studies were based on nidicolous birds and some recent studies have suggested that this may not hold for other groups such as seabirds.<ref>R.C. Ydenberg and D.F. Bertram 1989. Lack's clutch size hypothesis and brood enlargement studies on colonial seabirds. ''Colonial Waterbirds''. '''12''' (1): 134-137. doi:10.2307/1521328</ref>
He wrote numerous papers in ornithological journals, and had a knack of choosing memorable titles: he once claimed to have single-handedly caused the renaming of a group of birds through the submission of a scientific paper, his 1935 publication, "Territory and polygamy in a bishop bird, ''[[Euplectes hordeaceus|Euplectes hordeacea]] hordeacea'' (Linn.)" in the journal ''Ibis''. Up to that point birds in the genus ''[[Euplectes]]'' had been referred to simply as bishops, but the journal editor felt that with that form the title might cause misunderstanding.
==== Darwin's finches ====
Lack's most famous work is ''Darwin's Finches,'' a landmark study whose title linked [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s name with the [[Galapagos]] group of species. It is often forgotten that there are two versions of this work, and they differ significantly in their conclusions. The first is a book-length monograph, written after his visit to the Galapagos, but not published until 1945. <ref>Lack, David. 1945. The Galapagos finches (Geospizinae): a study in variation. ''Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences'' '''21''':i-vii, 1–152.</ref> In it Lack interprets the differences in bill size as species recognition signals, that is, as [[isolating mechanisms]].
The second is the later book in which the differences in bill size are interpreted as adaptations to specific food niches, an interpretation that has since been abundantly confirmed. <ref>Lack, David 1947. ''Darwin's Finches''. Cambridge University Press (reissued in 1961 by Harper, New York, with a new preface by Lack)</ref><ref>Mayr, Ernst 1982. ''The growth of biological thought''. Harvard, Cambs MA. p274-5</ref> This change of mind, according to Lack's Preface, came about as a result of his reflections on his own data whilst he was doing war work. The effect of this change in interpretation is to put the emphasis for speciation onto natural selection for appropriate food handling instead of seeing it primarily as a by-product of an isolating mechanism. In this way his work contributed to the [[modern evolutionary synthesis]], in which [[natural selection]] came to be seen as the prime mover in evolution, and not random or mutational events. Lack's work laid the foundations for the much more extensive work of [[Peter and Rosemary Grant|Grant]] and his colleagues. <ref>Grant, Peter R. 1999. ''Ecology and evolution of Darwin's finches''. Princeton NJ.</ref> Also, Lack's work feeds into studies of island biogeography which continue the same range of issues presented by the Galapagos fauna on a more varied canvas. <ref>MacArthur R. and Wilson E.O. 1967. ''The theory of island biogeography''. Princeton 1967.</ref>
:"The person who more than any one else deserves credit for reviving an interest in the ecological significance of species was David Lack<ref>Lack, David 1949. The significance of reproductive isolation. In Jepsen G, Mayr E and Simpson GG (eds) ''Genetics, paleontology and evolution''. Princeton.</ref>... It is now quite clear that that the process of speciation is not completed by [isolation] but requires also the acquisition of adaptations that permit co-existence with potential competitors." Mayr op cit p275.
==== Religious beliefs ====
Lack became a convert to [[Anglicanism]], which led to his composition, in 1957, of a brief book, ''Evolutionary theory and Christian belief,'' on the relationship between Christian faith and evolutionary theory. This book foreshadows, in some ways, the non-overlapping magisteria conception of the relationship between religion and science later popularized by [[Stephen Jay Gould]]. <br>[[Arthur Cain]] remarked of him "David Lack was the only religious man I knew at that period who did not allow his religion to dictate his view of natural selection." <ref>Cain A.J. and Provine W.B. 1991. Genes and ecology in history. In Berry R.J. et al (eds) ''Genes in ecology'': the 33rd Symposium of the British Ecological Society. Blackwell, Oxford. p9</ref>
===Career outline===
*1933 to 1940: biology master at [[Dartington Hall|Dartington Hall School]]
*1940: study visit to the [[Galapagos Islands]]
*1940-1945: work on radar development
*1945-1973: Director of the [[Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology]], Oxford.
*1948: [[ScD]], [[Magdalene College, Cambridge]]
*1963: [[Fellow]] of [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]
*1972: awarded [[Darwin Medal]] of the [[Royal Society]]
*1973 dies at [[Oxford]], 12 March 1973.
[[Image:Apus apus 01.jpg|right|thumb|The Common Swift]]
==Honours==
*1951: elected Fellow of the [[Royal Society]]
*1958: receives Godman-Salvin medal of the [[British Ornithologists' Union]] (awarded as a signal honour for distinguished ornithological work)
*1962-1966: President, [[International Ornithological Congress]]
*1964-1965: President, [[British Ecological Society]]
*1972: Awarded the [[Darwin Medal]] of the [[Royal Society]]
==Major publications==
===Books===
*Lack, David. 1943. ''The life of the Robin''. Witherby, London.
*Lack, David. 1947. ''Darwin's Finches''. Cambridge University Press (reissued in 1961 by Harper, New York, with a new preface by Lack; reissued in 1983 by Cambridge University Press with an introduction and notes by Laurene M. Ratcliffe and Peter T. Boag). ISBN 0-521-25243-1
*Lack, David. 1950. ''Robin Redbreast''. Oxford. (A new edition of this book, revised and expanded by Lack's son [[Andrew Lack|Andrew]], was published under the title ''Redbreast: the Robin in life and literature'' by SMH Books in 2008.)
*Lack, David. 1954. ''The natural regulation of animal numbers''. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
*Lack, David. 1956. ''Swifts in a tower.'' Methuen, London.
*Lack, David. 1957. ''Evolutionary theory and Christian belief: the unresolved conflict. '' Methuen, London.
*Lack, David. 1966. ''Population studies of birds''. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
*Lack, David. 1968. ''Ecological adaptations for breeding in birds''. Methuen, London.
*Lack, David. 1971. ''Ecological isolation in birds''. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. and Blackwell, Oxford.
*Lack, David. 1976. ''Island biology illustrated by the land birds of Jamaica''. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-03007-9 (posthumously).
===Selected papers===
*Lack, David. 1940. Evolution of the Galapagos finches. ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' 146:324–327.
*Lack, David. 1942. Ecological features of the bird faunas of British small islands. ''Journal of Animal Ecology'' 11:9–36.
*Lack, David. 1945. The Galapagos finches (Geospizinae): a study in variation. ''Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences'' 21:i-vii, 1–152.
*Lack, David. 1947-8. The significance of clutch-size. ''Ibis'' '''89''', 302-52; '''90''', 25–45.
*Lack, David 1949. The significance of reproductive isolation. In Jepsen G, Mayr E and Simpson GG (eds) ''Genetics, paleontology and evolution''. Princeton.
*Lack, David. 1954. The evolution of reproductive rates. In Huxley J, Hardy AC and Ford EB (eds). ''Evolution as a process''. [[Allen & Unwin]], London.
*Lack, David. 1973. The numbers of species of hummingbirds in the West Indies. ''[[Evolution (journal)|Evolution]]'' 27:326–337.
==References==
{{reflist}}
<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
{{Persondata
|NAME= Lack, David
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
|SHORT DESCRIPTION= [[United Kingdom|British]] [[ornithologist]] and [[biologist]]
|DATE OF BIRTH= [[July 16]], [[1910]]
|PLACE OF BIRTH= [[London]]
|DATE OF DEATH= [[March 12]], [[1973]]
|PLACE OF DEATH=
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lack, David}}
[[Category:1910 births]]
[[Category:1973 deaths]]
[[Category:Evolutionary biologists]]
[[Category:British ornithologists]]
[[Category:Ecologists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Old Greshamians]]
[[Category:Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge]]
[[de:David Lack]]
[[es:David Lack]]
[[fr:David Lack]]
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