Nadejda "Nadia" Waloff
FRES
Fres ( el, Φρες) is a village and former municipality in the Chania regional unit, Crete, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Apokoronas, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an ...
(2 September 1909 – 5 June 2001) was a Russian-born English
entomologist. She worked on the biology of
locust
Locusts (derived from the Vulgar Latin ''locusta'', meaning grasshopper) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstanc ...
s, flight and dispersal of the
Hemiptera, and taught at
Imperial College,
Silwood Park campus.
Nadia was born in
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and her family fled in 1919 and took refuge in Britain. After her mother died in 1926 and her father moved to Romania, Sir
Boris Uvarov
Sir Boris Petrovitch Uvarov (3 November 1886 – 18 March 1970) was a Russian-British entomologist best known for his work on the biology and ecology of locusts. He has been called the father of acridology.
Biography
Boris Petrovitch Uvarov was ...
, who was the director of the
Anti-Locust Research Centre The Anti-Locust Research Centre (ALRC) was set up in London, United Kingdom, by the Colonial Office in 1945, with the aim of improving the worldwide forecasting and control of locusts. The Russian-British entomologist Boris Uvarov was appointed as ...
in London, took in Nadia, her sister Zena (died 1991) and two brothers. An early interest in entomology led her and Zena to study at the Imperial College. After earning her bachelor’s degree, Nadia taught school for a number of years.
In 1946, Nadia began work on pests at the Slough laboratory and received a Ph.D and Sc.D from Imperial College. She was known for her exceptional teaching ability and she also conducted research on the
diapause
In animal dormancy, diapause is the delay in development in response to regular and recurring periods of adverse environmental conditions.Tauber, M.J., Tauber, C.A., Masaki, S. (1986) ''Seasonal Adaptations of Insects''. Oxford University Press I ...
of flour moths, the ecology and population dynamics of various insects.
Some of her significant research included studies on the dispersal and flight of Hemiptera including
leafhoppers.
She examined the factors contributing to wing polymorphism, the presence of wingless, short-winged and long-winged forms in relation to habitats and life-history. She suggested that trees and woody plants are architecturally more complex with leaves being widely separated and making flight more important. This she suggested would explain the observation that cicadas and other arboreal hemiptera rarely had wingless forms. She was also among the first to use radioactive phosphorus,
P-35, tracers to study the dispersal of
mirid bugs.
Waloff retired in 1978, but in 1990, she was still publishing as a member of the Department of Pure and Applied Biology, Imperial College.
The grasshopper ''Oedaleus nadiae'' was named after her.
Selected publications
Waloff published under both her given name, Nadejda, and her preferred name, Nadia.
* Waloff, Nadejda. "The mechanisms of humidity reactions of terrestrial isopods." ''Journal of Experimental Biology'' 18.2 (1941): 115-135.
* Richards, O. W., and Nadia Waloff. "The study of a population of Ephestia elutella Hübner (Lep., Phycitidae) living on bulk grain." ''Transactions of the Royal Entomological Society of London'' 97.11 (1946): 253-298.
* Richards, Owain Westmacott, and Nadejda Waloff. "A study of a natural population of Phytodecta olivacea (Forster)(Coleoptera, Chrysomeloidea)." ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences'' 244.710 (1961): 205-257.
* Waloff, Nadia. "Studies on the insect fauna on Scotch broom Sarothamnus scoparius (L.) Wimmer." ''Advances in ecological research''. Vol. 5. Academic Press, 1968. 87-208.
* Mound, Laurence Alfred, and Nadia Waloff. "Diversity of insect faunas;(papers of the ninth Symposium of the Royal Entomological Society held in London, on 22-23 Sep 1977)." (1978).
* Waloff, Nadia, ed. "Diversity of insect faunas." Royal Entomological Society, 1978.
* Waloff, Nadia, and G B Popov. "Sir Boris Uvarov (1889-1970): The Father of Acridology." Annual Review of Entomology 1990 35:1, 1-26
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Waloff, Nadia
British entomologists
Women entomologists
Fellows of the Royal Entomological Society
20th-century British women scientists
White Russian emigrants to the United Kingdom
Scientists from Saint Petersburg
Alumni of Imperial College London
Academics of Imperial College London
1909 births
2001 deaths
20th-century British zoologists