Barbara York Main

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Barbara York Main

Barbara York Main OAM (born January 27, 1929 in Kellerberrin , Western Australia - † May 14, 2019 ) was an Australian arachnologist , university teacher and writer.

Life

Childhood and youth

Barbara York grew up with four brothers on her family's farm in the Shire of Tammin , Australia , in the wheat belt of Western Australia . Her father had come to Australia from Yorkshire in 1909 to farm land in the developing wheat belt. Her mother was from Perth and had been sent to the wheat belt after completing her training as a teacher. Like many of her colleagues, she married a farmer and gave up her job to devote herself to raising children and running the farm. Her mother's library was very important to Barbara. She attended a one-class school with her brothers for only two years and then received distance learning with individual attention from a teacher from the Department of Education of Western Australia. Decades later, Barbara York Main was grateful for these years and expressed the conviction that this form of teaching promoted self-confidence and independence. With the help of her teacher, she obtained a scholarship to high school in Northam , where she lived from then on during class hours.

College career

In 1947 York enrolled at the University of Western Australia in Perth . Her original intention of majoring in literature and zoology could not be realized due to the abolition of the desired course. Therefore, she studied zoology with literature as a minor. Her diploma thesis from 1950 treated crustaceans in four periodically draining ponds on her family's farm. After completing her studies, she began teaching in New Zealand at Dunedin College of Education , now part of the University of Otago . There she began researching orb web spiders as part of a doctoral degree , but had to return to Western Australia for medical treatment in 1952. She resumed her PhD studies at the University of Western Australia and devoted herself to research into various tarantula families known as trapdoor spiders. Her dissertation dealt with the evolution of spiders using the example of a tribe of actual trapdoor spiders (Ctenizidae), which are now part of the Idiopidae family .

1979 Main received an honorary professorship at the University of Western Australia.

As the first woman in the museum's history, Main was appointed to the board of directors of the Western Australian Museum in Perth in 1982 . She held this office until 1993. Main was a member of all major arachnological associations in the world and several Australian conservation organizations. She was co-editor of the Fauna of Australia and the Zoological Catalog of Australia .

Field studies

Since her student days and throughout her academic career at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Main has focused on field studies on spiders. One of the first projects in canopy research was to investigate the social behavior of a species of spider in a research facility near Albany . In 1958, Main accompanied her husband on a research trip to the United States . There she had the opportunity to participate in field studies in California, Arizona and Texas. Main's most important field study was the long-term observation of trapdoor spiders of the species Gaius villosus on her parents' farm, begun in 1974 and initially for 20 years . The unexpected longevity of one of the examined specimens, Number 16 , caused the repeated extension of the examination period and, for Main, the continuation of her scientific work well beyond retirement. Only in 2015 did Main hand over the study to Leanda Mason, a doctoral student at Curtin University in Perth .

Taxonomy

Main's research in the 1950s was made much more difficult by the practice of the Natural History Museum in London at the time of only having type material examined in the museum. Australian researchers had little access to the types of spiders described in the 19th century , even if they were Australian species.

In 1958, Main was able to study the type collections of the major natural history museums during a stay in the United States. During this trip she met some of the world's leading arachnologists , including Willis John Gertsch and Herbert Walter Levi . In the same year, Main received a research grant from the International Federation of University Women , which enabled her to visit the UK for six months on her way back from the United States. There she examined the type collections of the Natural History Museum, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and specimens on loan from other European museums. In the following decades Main took part in numerous international conferences on arachnology, often using her travels to study the arachnological collections of museums in Europe and the USA. In 1979 Main visited the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris and studied the extensive spider collection of the French arachnologist Eugène Simon .

During her scientific career, Main wrote the first descriptions of seven genera and 34 species of spiders.

Publications

While Main was looking after the children in the 1950s and 1960s, she wrote two books on spiders, the chapter on jaw-claw bearers in a zoological textbook and a series of articles on her research on trapdoor spiders. During her scientific career, Main published two popular science books on Australian spiders and several chapters in arachnological and ecological books, and numerous articles on arachnology. Her field of work is the tarantula families known as trapdoor spiders or funnel- web spiders . Many of their publications are first descriptions of genera and species or revisions of taxonomy . Another focus of her publications is work on the biogeography , evolution and ecology of spiders, whereby she considered species protection early on .

In 1964 Main published her first book. The Spiders of Australia was the first monograph on the spider fauna of the entire continent and was aimed primarily at laypeople interested in natural history, but also at a scientifically trained readership. The illustrations came from Main himself, including, as a novelty compared to other arachnological publications, numerous detailed illustrations of spider webs.

In addition to her arachnological publications, Main published two books and a series of essays and short stories that thematize the history and development of the Western Australian wheat belt and focus on the landscape and its changes through human influence.

Main's book Between Wodjil and Tor , published in 1967, is a monograph on the natural history of the wheat belt. Main describes it as a formed from their own observations and experiences fictitious year sequence in a location adjacent to the farm of her parents and of acacia dominated shrub landscape , locally Wodjil referred. This is a type of landscape that was originally characteristic of the wheat belt and which has almost completely disappeared since the end of the 19th century due to the large-scale conversion of natural areas into arable land.

Her book Twice Trodden Ground , published four years later, is a richly illustrated account of the early years of her family's farm at the beginning of the 20th century. Unlike Between Wodjil and Tor , in which human impacts on nature are largely excluded, Main describes the early social history of the wheat belt and the interactions between nature and human activity.

In 1981 the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced the 25-minute television film Lady of the Spiders , in which Barbara York Main's research on trapdoor spiders in the Western Australian bush is shown. The first broadcast took place on September 22, 1981 on BBC One as the third episode of the eighth season of the BBC series Wildlife on One , speaker was as usual David Attenborough .

In the summer of 2012, three interviews were conducted with Barbara York Main as part of an oral history project at the University of Western Australia, in which she reported about her childhood on a wheat belt farm, her education and her entire scientific career.

Private

At the university, Main met her future husband Albert "Bert" Russell Main , a herpetologist . By the time she defended her dissertation in 1956, Main was already pregnant. The first child was quickly followed by two more, so that she was busy looking after three small children until 1965. She later went on extensive collecting trips to the south and south-west of Australia with her husband and their children. During this time, until the late 1970s, she had access to the research facilities of the University of Western Australia and shared an office with her husband. However, she did not have a job at the university and received very limited funding for her research.

Awards and dedication names

Barbara York Main was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in the general department on January 26, 2011 for her services to science and conservation . The award was made in recognition of her services to science and species protection as a researcher and teacher in the field of arachnology, as well as for her work for the people of Western Australia. Barbara York Main is an honorary member of the International Society of Arachnology .

Numerous genera and species were named after Barbara York Main, mainly spiders:

be crazy

Other kinds

Publications (selection)

science

Fiction

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Professor Barbara York Main, OAM, accessed June 6, 2019
  2. ^ Ernest P. Hodgkin: Barbara York Main. P. Vii.
  3. ^ A b Tony Hughes-d'Aeth: Islands of Yesterday. P. 13.
  4. ^ A b Ernest P. Hodgkin: Barbara York Main. S. viii-ix.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Ernest P. Hodgkin: Barbara York Main. S. ix.
  6. ^ A b Ernest P. Hodgkin: Barbara York Main. S. x.
  7. ^ A b Tony Hughes-d'Aeth: Islands of Yesterday. Pp. 17-18.
  8. ↑ Avi Selk: The extraordinary life and death of the world's oldest known spider , The Washington Post , May 1, 2018, accessed May 18, 2018.
  9. ^ SD Bradshaw: Albert Russell ('Bert') Main 1919–2009. In: Historical Records of Australian Science. 2011, Volume 22, pp. 104–125, here pp. 109–110, online PDFhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.science.org.au%2Ffiles%2Fuserfiles%2Ffellowship%2Fmemoirs%2Fdocuments%2Falbert-russell-main-hr.pdf~GB%3D~IA% 3D ~ MDZ% 3D% 0A ~ SZ% 3D ~ double-sided% 3D ~ LT% 3DOnline% 20PDF ~ PUR% 3D , 1.0 MB.
  10. ↑ Robyn Williams, Vicki Laurie and Barbara Yok Main: Barbara York Main: Spider Woman . Transcript of a radio interview broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Ockham's Razor series on September 15, 2013, accessed on May 18, 2018.
  11. ↑ a b c d Ernest P. Hodgkin: Barbara York Main. S. xi.
  12. ↑ Tony Hughes d'Aeth: Islands of Yesterday. Pp. 21-24.
  13. ↑ Interviews with Barbara York Main as part of the Oral History Project at the University of Western Australia, summer 2012, accessed on May 18, 2018.
  14. ^ Australian Honors Search Facility , accessed May 18, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Main, Barbara York
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian arachnologist, university professor and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Kellerberrin , Western Australia
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 2019