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Photosynthesis Research in Canada from 1945 to the early 1970s

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Abstract

This history traces the development of photosynthesis research in Canada from 1945 to 1975, starting with the work of Gleb1 Krotkov and his students, Paul Vittorio, Tony1 Bidwell, Don1 Nelson, Jim1 Craigie, Bruce Tregunna, Andreas Hauschild, Geoff Lister and others in the Department of Biology at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. They focused on the influence of taxonomy and light quality on the path of carbon into early products, photorespiration and photosynthesis in young trees. During the same period, Ken1 Clendenning and one of the authors (PRG) at the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC) laboratory in Ottawa began studies of chloroplast photoreduction and leaf carboxylases. They were joined by Don1 Mortimer, who showed that the path of carbon varies with species of plant and by Morris Kates, who studied phospholipid enzymology in chloroplasts and leaves. Stan1 Holt researched the chemistry and distribution of chlorophylls in different taxa. In 1952, Ralph Lewin joined NRCC’s new Atlantic Regional Laboratory in Halifax, Nova Scotia, followed by Jim Craigie, Jack McLachlan and Tony Bidwell who mainly investigated the products of photosynthesis in marine algae. Tony Bidwell continued these studies in 1959 at the Department of Botany, University of Toronto. Dave1 Canvin joined the staff at Queen’s in 1965 and became involved in solving the mystery of photorespiration. Tony Bidwell returned to Queen’s in 1969 and studied photosynthesis of algal chloroplasts using an ‘artificial leaf.’ In 1965, Don Nelson established a group at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia that included his former student, Geoff Lister who produced the first photosynthetic action spectra for trees, and Bill1 Vidaver, who showed the useful relation between chlorophyll fluorescence and photosynthetic activity. In 1970, Mário Fragata headed a group at the Université du Québec à Trois Rivières, Québec, that began with studies of Photosystem II in chloroplasts and particles.

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Acknowledgements

We found the compiling of this history more challenging than anticipated. With the passage of time and the death of many of the principal researchers, records of their activities have become spotty and rather difficult to retrieve. We may have missed some important contributions and over-emphasized others as a result. Failure to explain the importance of some of the publications that are cited reflects our lack of sufficient expertise in the field. We express special thanks to Dr. James S. Craigie, Researcher Emeritus, Institute for Marine Biosciences, National Research Council of Canada, Halifax, for supplying much of the text concerning the contributions of Bidwell, Craigie and McLachlan and to Dr. Morris Kates, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Ottawa University, Ottawa, Dr. David T. Canvin, Professor Emeritus of Biology, Queen’s University and Dr. Mário Fragata, Professeur, Département de chimie-biologie,␣Université du Québec á Trois-Rivières, Québec, who supplied text or information about their contributions. Mary (Krotkov) Finegold and␣Dr. Geoffrey R. Lister, Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University provided valuable information about and photographs of researchers at Queen’s and Simon Fraser Universities. Reviews of drafts of the manuscript, or portions thereof, and the provision of anecdotes and/or helpful suggestions by Tony Bidwell, Jim Craigie, Morris Kates, Geoff Lister, Bill Vidaver and Marty Gibbs (Lifetime/ Á vie Member of CSPP/SCVP) are gratefully acknowledged.

We wish to thank Govindjee for his unflagging interest and helpful advice. We also acknowledge,␣with thanks, the assistance provided by the␣following that helped us gather or supplied information about photosynthesis researchers and their contributions as described in the foregoing article: Deborah Day (Archivist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California); Mary (Krotkov) Finegold; Steven Leclair (Archival Services Officer, National Research Council Canada, Ottawa); Ralph Lewin (Professor of Marine Biology Emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California); J.L. McLachlan; Patricia Mortimer (Secretary General, National Research Council Canada, Ottawa); Shirley Purdon (Secretary to the Chair, Department of Chemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia); Jeanne Salo (Administrative Assistant, Membership, The Royal Society of Canada, Ottawa); Memoree A. Schafer (Manager, Department of Botany, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario); and Garron Wells (University Archivist, University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services, Toronto, Ontario).

This manuscript was written at the invitation of Govindjee, the Historical Corner Editor of Photosynthesis Research; it was also edited by him.

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  1. Paul R. Gorham

    Present address: , 12408-49 Ave NW, T6H 0H2, Edmonton, Alta., Canada

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  1. Department of Botany, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta., Canada

    Paul R. Gorham

  2. Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ont., Canada

    Constance G. Nozzolillo

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Correspondence to Paul R. Gorham.

Appendix A

Appendix A

Paul Gorham’s recollections of Robert (Bob) Emerson (1903–1959)

I first came to know and admire Bob Emerson (see Govindjee (2004, figure 1) and Govindjee and Krogmann (2004, figures 8(a, c) for photos) in 1942 for the tall, fair-minded, humorous but dedicated scientist and idealist that he was when I served as his teaching assistant at Cal Tech for one semester. I helped with the culture of Chlorella pyrenoidosa for manometric photosynthetic experiments. We had interesting conversations and he later invited me to accompany him on an important trip to Salinas, California, when he was seeking support from the Continental Rubber Company (that owned and controlled guayule rubber production in the USA) for a proposal for a government-sponsored Emergency Rubber Project. His project involved the employment of young Japanese American citizens, interned in a nearby camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, to grow and harvest crops of the desert shrub, guayule (Parthenium argentatum Gray). He wanted to provide these young internees with something constructive to do. Bob received a polite but non-committal hearing and the Company then showed us how they propagated guayule seedlings on a large scale for transplanting to the field.

Before driving back to Pasadena (in Bob’s early 1930s Lincoln seven-passenger touring car) we visited two of Bob’s friends. One was the distinguished microbiologist C.B. (Kees) Van Niel in Pacific Grove, California. The other was F. E. Lloyd, a genial, well-known retired plant physiologist from McGill University, Montreal, Québec (appointed in 1912) who was living in nearby Carmel. He had a small laboratory equipped with a good compound microscope and was enthusiastically studying the spider web constructions that were taking place in his garden!

On a visit to Robin Hill’s laboratory in Cambridge, England in 1954 I had an unexpected reunion with Bob. I had a memorable lunch with him and Robin Hill at the latter’s medieval farm house on the outskirts of town. Bob vividly described his frustration with his former professor, Nobelist Otto Warburg, whom he had invited to his laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for the purpose of trying to resolve their different figures for the quantum yield of photosynthesis by Chlorella pyrenoidosa.

I last saw and talked with Bob at a scientific meeting not long before his tragic and untimely death in a plane crash on February 3, 1959.

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Gorham, P.R., Nozzolillo, C.G. Photosynthesis Research in Canada from 1945 to the early 1970s. Photosynth Res 88, 83–100 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-005-9022-z

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