Knox, George A. 1919- (G.A. Knox, George Alexander Knox)

views updated

Knox, George A. 1919- (G.A. Knox, George Alexander Knox)

PERSONAL:

Born 1919.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Canterbury, Department of Biological Sciences, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand.

CAREER:

Writer, zoologist, marine biologist, and educator. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand, professor of zoology, c. 1949-84, head of the department of zoology, c. 1964-84, professor emeritus. Appointed to the National Committee on Antarctic Research, 1959; member of the Ross Dependency Research Committee, 1965-92; Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), New Zealand delegate, 1974-86, president, 1978-82.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Made a Member of the British Empire, 1985, for services to the University of Canterbury and to science; New Zealand Antarctic 50th Anniversary Award, 2008, in recognition of his fifty years of outstanding scientific contributions.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) General Account of the Chatham Islands 1954 Expedition, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (Wellington, New Zealand), 1957.

(Editor) The Natural History of Canterbury, Reed (Wellington, New Zealand), 1969.

Environment 77, Canterbury Environmental Centre (Canterbury, Kent, England), 1979.

(With Tetsuo Miyabara) Coastal Zone Resource Development and Conservation in Southeast Asia, with Special Reference to Indonesia, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Regional Office for Science & Technology for Southwest Asia (Jakarta, Indonesia), 1984.

Estuarine Ecosystems: A Systems Approach, CRC Press (Boca Raton, FL), 1986.

The Biology of the Southern Ocean, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1994, 2nd edition, CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group (Boca Raton, FL), 2007.

(With D.B. Cameron) The Marine Fauna of the Ross Sea, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (Wellington, New Zealand), 1998.

The Ecology of Seashores, CRC Press (Boca Raton, FL), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

George A. Knox is a writer, zoologist, marine biologist. He served as a professor in the zoology department of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand for thirty-five years, twenty of which he also served as the head of the department of zoology.

In The Biology of the Southern Ocean, Knox examines and summarizes an extensive collection of published scientific research to describe the current state of knowledge about the "biology of the seas surrounding the Antarctic continent," noted a SciTech Book News reviewer. Knox covers the basic physical and chemical makeup of the Antarctic seas, and provides detailed information on important characteristics and life forms found there. He explores the complex food chain and its constituents, including the vital importance of Antarctic krill. He also covers the higher-level animals such as fish, whales, seals, cephalopods, and seabirds. Knox describes the life and processes of phytoplankton, microbial communities found in the sea ice, and zooplankton. He includes material on life and the environment of all levels of the Antarctic seas, from the benthic environment of the sea floor to the types of life found beneath the ice shelves.

Elsewhere in the book, Knox looks at human impact on the Antarctic seas, in areas such as resource exploration and exploitation and the effects such activities have on the cold-water marine ecosystems. In conclusion, he summarizes more than fifty years of research and investigation into the characteristics and function of Antarctic and Southern Ocean ecosystems, detailing the advances and changes in knowledge that have resulted.

The Ecology of Seashores is "a most learned and detailed look at the ecology of the narrow strip where land and sea meet," commented reviewer Brendan J. Godley on the Marine Turtle Newsletter Web site. In seven chapters, Knox covers hundreds of topics relevant to seashore biology and ecology. His references serve as summaries of the topics as well as starting points for more thorough research in the primary literature, Godley observed. Knox provides material on seashore environments from points across the world. He discusses the characteristics of seashore environments and provides insight on why and how seashores will vary. He covers a wide variety of topics of interest to students, ecologists, marine biologists, and other professionals, including hardshores, softshores, the influence of tides, adaptations of shore life, ecosystem processes and design, and intertidal zonation patterns. Godley concluded that Knox's book is an "authoritative review of the subject area."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, October, 1995, G.C. Jensen, review of The Biology of the Southern Ocean, p. 318; June, 2001, J.C. Briggs, review of The Ecology of Seashores, p. 1816; October, 2007, G.C. Jensen, review of The Biology of the Southern Ocean, p. 307.

Quarterly Review of Biology, March, 1996, Gerald L. Kooyman, review of The Biology of the Southern Ocean, p. 140; December, 2007, Gerald Kooyman, review of The Biology of the Southern Ocean, p. 430.

SciTech Book News, March, 2001, review of The Ecology of Seashores, p. 64; March, 2007, review of The Biology of the Southern Ocean.