From Butterflies to Global Preservation

As a student, I was fascinated with evolution in general and butterflies in particular. I wanted to discover how the different kinds of those beautiful insects were related to one another. My doctoral dissertation was on butterfly taxonomy, and led to investigations of arcane questions such as whether the relationships of butterflies based on characteristics of their muscles would be the same as that based on their exoskeletons. My answer, that they were not, would still be disputed by most taxonomists (they're wrong).

My fascination with the process of evolution got a boost when I was a postdoc with Joe Camin. We were investigating the role of snake mites in transmitting a disease of snakes. A trip to islands in Lake Erie to collect water snakes serendipitously started a study demonstrating that natural selection was responsible for the unbanded color patterns of the island snakes. Predators tended to eat banded young snakes and overlook plain ones that were camouflaged on the plain limestone rocks of the islands.

When I arrived at Stanford in 1959, I embarked on a detailed study of the ecology and evolution of populations of the Bay checkerspot butterfly that continues to this day. From time to time, I also worked on other systems, but what I like best is synthesizing knowledge of natural systems to create explanatory theories. Perhaps the most rewarding study was done jointly with then Stanford colleague, Peter H. Raven. We combined my knowledge of butterflies and his of plants to develop a general theory of coevolution-the reciprocal evolutionary interactions of ecologically intimate organisms.

My interest in understanding how the world works was soon accompanied by an interest in keeping it working. A first foray into the policy arena occurred in an effort initiated by Edward O. Wilson to prevent a gigantic misuse of pesticides in 1958. The Department of Agriculture announced an ill-conceived plan to control the imported fire ant, a nasty pest, with a massive campaign of spraying. We were sure many kinds of animals would suffer population reductions and that the fire ant would survive-so we tried to stop the spraying. The battle was lost, but more than three decades later, Ed and I shared the Crafoord Prize of the Swedish Academy of Sciences-the Nobel Prize of population biology-for our efforts to preserve the earth's living resources.

Starting in the 1960s, my wife Anne and I, along with many other colleagues, have put increasing effort into trying to resolve the "human predicament." While that can be intellectually challenging too, it is not remotely as thrilling as writing numbers on butterflies' wings, releasing them, and seeing where they go; recording which species wins when tropical birds squabble over fruit; watching how sturgeonfishes react to themselves in a mirror; or figuring out a general explanation for why caterpillars feed on certain plants. Science may help save the world, but the very best thing about being a scientist is that it's fun.