John Albert Raven

British botanist (1941–2024)

This article is about the Dundee botanist, John Albert Raven. For the Cambridge classical scholar and amateur botanist, see John Earle Raven. For the English cricketer, see John Raven (cricketer).

John Raven

Born|

John Albert Raven

(1941-06-25)25 June 1941
Died| 23 May 2024(2024-05-23) (aged 82)

Dundee, Scotland

Nationality| British
Alma mater| University of Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD)
Awards|

* FRSE (1981)[1]
* FRS (1990)[2][3]

Scientific career
Fields|

* Botany
* Ecophysiology

Institutions|

* University of Dundee
* University of Technology Sydney

Website|

* www.uts.edu.au/staff/john.raven
* www.lifesci.dundee.ac.uk/people/john-raven

John Albert Raven FRS[2][3] FRSE (25 June 1941 – 23 May 2024) was a British botanist who was emeritus professor at University of Dundee and the University of Technology Sydney.[4] His primary research interests were in the ecophysiology and biochemistry of marine and terrestrial primary producers such as plants and algae.[5]

## Early life and education

[edit]

Raven was born on 25 June 1941,[6] and brought up on a farm in northwest Essex and educated at the Friends' School, Saffron Walden[7][6] and St John's College, Cambridge, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Botany in 1963.[8] He remained at Cambridge to complete a PhD in Botany (plant biophysics) in 1967, under the supervision of Enid MacRobbie, and specialising in the membrane transport processes and bioenergetics of giant-celled algae.[9][10]

## Career

[edit]

After a period as a lecturer at Cambridge, Raven moved to the University of Dundee in 1971, and he remained at Dundee until his formal retirement in 2008. He was appointed there to a personal chair in 1980, and was the John Boyd Baxter Professor of Biology from 1995 until 2008.[11] In 1978, Raven was a co-founding editor of the influential peer reviewed scientific journal Plant, Cell & Environment with Paul Jarvis,[12] David Jennings, Harry Smith[13][14] and Bob Campbell.[15]

## Research

[edit]

Raven's research investigated algal life forms in the upper levels of the ocean, which underpin marine ecosystems and recycle carbon. He has explored how carbon dioxide, light and trace minerals interact to limit primary productivity in algae.[3] Raven had research interests that range[11] from organism-level bioenegetics,[16] biochemistry[17] and ecophysiology,[18] through to wider-scale biogeochemistry,[19] palaeoecology[20] and even astrobiology.[21] He published more than 300 refereed research papers,[22] over 50 book chapters, the book Energetics and Transport in Aquatic Plants (1984),[23] and, together with Paul Falkowski, the influential textbook Aquatic Photosynthesis (1997, 2007).[24] In 2005, Raven led a Royal Society review of the state and implications of ongoing ocean acidification.[25] As of 2016[update], Raven was active in both research[26] and teaching, despite officially retiring in 2008 when he warned:

> Life has survived many rapid and large amplitude environmental changes over billions of years, but we should not be complacent about the biological effects of current anthropogenic influences on the environment. At the most selfish level, we depend on the continued provision of 'ecosystem services' for our quality of life.[11]

## Death

[edit]

Raven died at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee on 23 May 2024, at the age of 82.[6][27][28]

## Awards and honours

[edit]

Raven was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 1981.[11]

He was elected President of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh for 1986–88.[29]

Raven was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1990,[3] for which his certificate of election reads:

> Raven has made important theoretical and experimental contributions at the plant cell and whole plant levels. His work on H+ transport has helped to produce an integrated view of pH regulation in plants and on the transport of weak electrolytes such as plant growth substances and certain nutrients into plants. He has carried out important work on chemiosmotic mechanisms. His work on photosynthesis and respiration has provided quantitative clarification of the role of dark respiration in plants. He has also provided important information on the suppression of photorespiration by HCO₃ transport in aquatic plants and on the possible phylogeny of vascular land plants.[2]

He was also a recipient of the Award of Excellence from Phycological Society of America in 2002[30] and made an Honorary Life Member of the British Phycological Society in 2006.[31]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows as of 2016-05-13" (PDF). Edinburgh: Royal Society of Edinburgh. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 March 2016.
2. ^ a b c "Certificate of election EC/1990/28: Raven, John Albert". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 31 March 2016.
3. ^ a b c d "Professor John Raven FRS". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

> “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --"Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2016.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)

4. ^ "Professor John Raven". University of Technology Sydney. Archived from the original on 4 September 2014.
5. ^ Lüttge, Ulrich; Beyschlag, Wolfram; Francis, Dennis (2013). Progress in Botany. ISBN 9783642309670.
6. ^ a b c "RAVEN, Prof. John Albert". Who's Who. Vol. 2016 (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
7. ^ "Profile John A. Raven", New Phytologist, vol. 215, pp. 514–515, 2017, retrieved 19 September 2023
8. ^ "Bioenergetics and the major evolutionary transitions". The Royal Society. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
9. ^ "Keynote Presentations at the GREENCYCLES II Summer School". Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
10. ^ "Professor John Raven FRS FRSE: Interactions among resources in the growth of phytoplankton". dundee.ac.uk. 30 August 2013. Archived from the original on 10 September 2015.
11. ^ a b c d "Symposium to mark retiral of Professor John Raven". University of Dundee. 11 September 2008. Archived from the original on 31 March 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
12. ^ Smith, Harry (2013). "Paul Gordon Jarvis, FRS: co-founding editor ofPlant, Cell & Environment". Plant, Cell & Environment. 36 (5): 907–908\. doi:10.1111/pce.12080. ISSN 0140-7791. PMID 23421651.
13. ^ Smith, Harry (1978). "Editorial". Plant, Cell and Environment. 1 (1): 1. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3040.1978.tb00738.x. ISSN 0140-7791.
14. ^ Raven, John A. (2015). "Harry Smith, FRS: co-founding editor and first Chief Editor ofPlant, Cell & Environment". Plant, Cell & Environment. 38 (8): 1453–1454\. doi:10.1111/pce.12567. ISSN 0140-7791. PMID 25991437.
15. ^ "Wiley-Blackwell Announces Retirement of Bob Campbell". wiley.com. 28 February 2013. Archived from the original on 30 March 2016.
16. ^ Raven, J.A. (1970). "Exogenous inorganic carbon sources in plant photosynthesis". Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 45 (2): 167–220\. doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.1970.tb01629.x. S2CID 86332656.
17. ^ Raven, J.A. (2000). "Land plant biochemistry". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. 355 (1398): 833–846\. doi:10.1098/rstb.2000.0618. PMC 1692786. PMID 10905612.
18. ^ Raven, J.A.; Hurd, C.L. (2012). "Ecophysiology of photosynthesis in macroalgae". Photosynthesis Research. 113 (1–3): 105–125\. doi:10.1007/s11120-012-9768-z. PMID 22843100. S2CID 5744231.1–3&rft.pages=105-125&rft.date=2012&rft_id=https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:5744231#id-name=S2CID&rft_id=info:pmid/22843100&rft_id=info:doi/10.1007/s11120-012-9768-z&rft.aulast=Raven&rft.aufirst=J.A.&rft.au=Hurd,+C.L.&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:John+Albert+Raven" class="Z3988">
19. ^ Raven, J.A.; Wollenweber, B.; Handley, L.L. (1992). "Ammonia and ammonium fluxes between photolithotrophs and the environment in relation to the global nitrogen-cycle". New Phytologist. 121 (1): 5–18\. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8137.1992.tb01087.x.
20. ^ Raven, J.A.; Yin, Z.H. (1998). "The past, present and future of nitrogenous compounds in the atmosphere, and their interactions with plants". New Phytologist. 139 (1): 205–219\. doi:10.1046/j.1469-8137.1998.00168.x.
21. ^ O'Malley-James, J. T.; Raven, J. A.; Cockell, C. S.; et al. (2012). "Life and Light: Exotic Photosynthesis in Binary and Multiple-Star Systems". Astrobiology. 12 (2): 115–124\. arXiv:1110.3728. Bibcode:2012AsBio..12..115O. doi:10.1089/ast.2011.0678. PMID 22283409. S2CID 43997271.
22. ^ John Albert Raven's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
23. ^ Raven, J.A. (1984). Energetics and Transport in Aquatic Plants (1 ed.). Krieger Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8451-2203-7.
24. ^ Falkowski, P.G.; Raven, J.A. (2007). Aquatic Photosynthesis (2 ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-632-06139-6.
25. ^ Raven, J. A. et al. (2005). Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Royal Society, London, UK.
26. ^ Raven, John A.; Beardall, John (2016). "The ins and outs of CO2". Journal of Experimental Botany. 67 (1): 1–13\. doi:10.1093/jxb/erv451. PMC 4682431. PMID 26466660.
27. ^ "Obituary: Prof. John Albert Raven". Facebook. International Phycological Society. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
28. ^ Griffiths, Howard (9 September 2024). "John Raven (1941–2024)". Cell. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
29. ^ "Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh". 45 (2). 1987: 163–165\. doi:10.1080/03746608708685428. `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `|journal=` (help)
30. ^ "Award of Excellence". Phycological Society of America. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
31. ^ "Honorary Life Member of the British Phycological Society". University of Dundee. 20 August 2013. Retrieved 1 April 2016.

## Bibliography

[edit]

* Raven, John A. (April 2004). "Building botany in Cambridge. 1904–2004: the centenary of the opening of the Botany School, University of Cambridge, UK". New Phytologist. 162 (1): 7–8\. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8137.2004.01040.x.

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