Lincoln Pierson Brower (September 10, 1931 – July 17, 2018) was an American
entomologist
Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...
and
ecologist, known for his work on
monarch butterflies through six decades, including on their
automimicry,
chemical ecology and
conservation. G. Pasteur called this Browerian mimicry, after Lincoln and his first wife Jane Van Zandt Brower.
Life
Brower was born to Bailey and Helen Pierson Brower in
Madison, New Jersey in 1931. He was raised in
Chatham Township, New Jersey, where he showed interest in butterflies.
[Mytelka, Roz]
"Butterflies, Moths and Chatham Township; Lincoln Brower 1931-2018"
''Chatham Living'', August 2019. Accessed February 1, 2022. "Lincoln Brower, foremost expert on Monarch butterflies, grew up in Chatham Township.... A graduate of Chatham High School, he received a BA from Princeton University and a PhD from Yale." In an oral history, he recalled being punished at school, being made to sit all day for skipping a class to go out and collect a species of moth; asked whether it was worth it, he stated "Absolutely".
He met Jane Van Zandt while a student at
Chatham High School.
[ He was educated at Princeton University where he gained a BA in biology in 1953. He and Jane married and took their PhDs in zoology together at Yale University in 1957, his on speciation in the '' Papilio glaucus'' group of butterflies, hers doing the first ever controlled experiments on ]Batesian mimicry
Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both. It is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, after his work on bu ...
in butterflies. They spent two years at Oxford University, the first as Fulbright scholars, in E. B. Ford
Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford (23 April 1901 – 2 January 1988) was a British ecological genetics, ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford ...
's ecological genetics laboratory. He then lectured at Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
from 1958, rising to the endowed Stone Professorship in 1976. In 1980 he moved to the Zoology Department at the University of Florida. On retiring in 1997, he moved to Sweet Briar College
Sweet Briar College is a private women's college in Sweet Briar, Virginia. It was established in 1901 by Indiana Fletcher Williams in memory of her deceased daughter, Daisy. The college formally opened its doors in 1906 and granted the B.A. deg ...
as a research professor.
A butterfly and moth collector from an early age, he began studying the biology of the monarch butterfly
The monarch butterfly or simply monarch (''Danaus plexippus'') is a milkweed butterfly (subfamily Danainae) in the family Nymphalidae. Other common names, depending on region, include milkweed, common tiger, wanderer, and black-veined brown. It ...
while a postgraduate at Yale in 1954, and became a world expert on the species over six decades. He contributed to over 200 papers and 8 films, combining research, public education about the monarch butterfly, and conservation work. Unlike some popular sources, Brower did not suppose the monarch to be in danger of extinction, though he agreed that its migration across America was threatened.[
He led a team of researchers studying the ecology of the overwintering grounds of the monarch in the mountains of Michoacan, Mexico, starting in the winter of 1977, incorporating aspects of thermal biology, predator-prey interactions, and chemical ecology. In the 1980s, he assisted conservation groups in Mexico and the Mexican government to protect fir forests used by the species from logging.][ In the last decades of his life, he recorded the sharp decline in the monarch population of North America, down by some 80% in the 20 years to 2018, attributed to herbicides, logging, and weather events. He was the only scientist to sign a 2014 petition to the US government to give the monarch legal protection.][
He advised the novelist ]Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver (born April 8, 1955) is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the Univers ...
on butterfly migration for her 2012 book ''Flight Behavior
''Flight Behavior'' is a 2012 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It is her seventh novel, a New York Times Bestseller,Charis Perkins"Barbara Kingsolver talks Trump, #MeToo and the magic of Australia" ''The Australian Financial Review'', 28 March 2018 ( ...
''.[
]
Family
He divorced Jane Van Zandt in 1974. He then married Christine Marie Moffitt; they divorced in 1980. He married his third wife, Linda S. Fink, in 1990. He had a son, Andrew Van Zandt Brower, who is also a biologist, and a daughter, Tamsin Brower Barrett.[
He died on July 17, 2018 in Nelson County, Virginia.]
Honors and awards
* Honorary Life Member of the Lepidopterists' Society, 1990Linnean Medal
The Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London was established in 1888, and is awarded annually to alternately a botanist or a zoologist or (as has been common since 1958) to one of each in the same year. The medal was of gold until 1976, and ...
for zoology, the Linnean Society of London, 1993
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brower, Lincoln
1931 births
2018 deaths
American entomologists
American ecologists
Chatham High School (New Jersey) alumni
Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Princeton University alumni
Chemical ecologists
People from Chatham Township, New Jersey
People from Madison, New Jersey