IN MEMORIAM: GUNNAR SVÄRDSON, 1914–2004

Abstract

Gunnar Svardson, Professor Emeritus at the Freshwater Laboratory, Drottningholm, Sweden, and Corresponding Fellow of the AOU, was born on 19 September 1914 in Stockholm. He celebrated his 90th birthday shortly before his unexpected death in Stockholm on 6 November 2004. He was one of Sweden's best known and most highly respected evolutionary biologists and ornithologists. His strong interest in natural history emerged early. After finishing school, he studied zoology, botany, and geography at the University of Stockholm. Like many biologists, he started out primarily as bird watcher and had lifelong passion for ornithology. Yet his best-known scientific contributions were based on studies of freshwater fish. In 1945 he presented his doctoral thesis, titled simply Chromosome Studies on Salmonidae. In his thesis, which is still cited, focused on a of whitefish (Coregonus) in Scandinavian freshwaters and demonstrated that it actually consisted of up to half dozen genetically incompletely isolated populations, each adapted to certain set of environmental circumstances. The introgression of genes into each of them from one or more of the others prevented their definite fission and kept them in state of lasting incipiency. Svardson's work led to an entirely novel appreciation of the evolutionary history, genetics, and systematics of the genus Coregonus, and to day it provides one of the most fascinating and intriguing examples of the dynamics of speciation in population groups. applied an impressive array of methods and concepts, including cytology, biogeography, and behavior. A similar approach was later used by him to study other groups of salmonids and by other researchers for great variety of other animal taxa. Moreover, in today's world of biotic globalization and violent anthropogenic perturbations of animal and plant communities, Svardson's insights into the processes of species formation and splitting have received increased attention. Hybridization is widely regarded as one of the theoretically and practically most important phenomena in population genetics, as well as in the struggle to preserve the world's biodiversity. As the ideas of the Modern Synthesis reached Scandinavia during and after the war, was one of the few who quickly realized the fundamental significance of new way of thinking and became its leading proponent and defender in Sweden. Breaking as they did with the Linnaean tradition of systematics in Sweden, the new ideas aroused acrimonious feelings in wide and influential circles, and was involved in many heated arguments. It is truly refreshing to read his crystal-clear contributions to debate, and more than almost anything he published, those texts show him decades ahead of his time. Very little would have to be changed to make these publications reflect today's state of the art in evolutionary biology. Another major contribution flowed from Svardson's detailed familiarity with birds and bird communities in Scandinavian forests. In comparatively brief paper in Oikos (1949), he presented an innovative model of the different evolutionary and ecological consequences of intraspecific and interspecific competition. Although based on bird work, the general applicability of the model was quickly realized in many quarters, and more than one of the most prominent (if aging) ecologists of the late 20th century have in conversations mentioned to me that Svardson 1949 was major eyeopener for them and greatly influenced their own research in community once related to me that particular paper had been summarily rejected by the editor-inchief of the new journal, with the argument that this is not ecology. In those days, long before MacArthur, the attitude in Scandinavia was that