John R Dolan

Sorbonne University | UPMC · Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche (LOV) - UMR 7093

We describe remarkable diurnal changes in the morphology of the planktonic dinoflagellate Ceratium ranipes. The species is distinguished by the unusual appendages, known as toes or fingers, protruding from its horns. Varieties have been described based on the characteristics of the fingers. We discovered that cultures, maintained on a 12:12 photope...

Is there a mesopelagic protist fauna composed of species different from that of the overlying surface community? Does the mesopelagic community show seasonal changes in abundances and species composition? We addressed these questions by considering 3 distinct groups in which species identification is relatively unambiguous: tintinnid ciliates, phae...

For the Ross Sea, the only Marine Protected Area in Antarctica, available data on the tintinnid ciliates of the marine microzooplankton are mostly limited to nearshore waters near Terra Nova Bay or the vicinity of the McMurdo Sound. Here, we report results from a geographically extensive sampling across the Ross Sea conducted in December 2020. Mate...

Here are presented two letters by a young Ernst Haeckel, who became a major figure of biology, as well as recognized as a scientific artist, in the late 19th century. The letters, previously available only in German, are given here with his illustrations, in English. They were written when he was a medical student, addressed to his parents, describ...

Sont présentées ici deux lettres adressées à ses parents en 1856 du jeune Ernst Haeckel, figure majeure de la biologie à la fin du XIXème siècle mais aussi dessinateur et aquarelliste de talent. Cette correspondance, seulement disponible en allemand jusqu’à présent, est ici proposée avec ses illustrations originales en français, conjointement à une...

The Institut de la Mer de Villefranche is located near deep Mediterranean waters, and so is well-placed for investigations of the fauna of the deep sea. Shown here are some rare images of living microscopic organisms that populate the deep sea. Each shows a beautiful and complex morphology, and some images show unexpected features.

The discipline of Oceanography might seem unlikely to harbor artistic work. However, the study of the ocean includes the study of marine organisms. Depictions of marine organisms appear in many reports of oceanographic expeditions, and some are undeniably works of art, jewels of scientific illustration. Here are exhibited a selection of plates from...

However, most accounts of Margalef's life underline his considerable accomplishments in advancing ecological theory. Here that aspect will be neglected in favor of highlighting his work as a naturalist and planktologist, the foundation upon which Margalef developed his ideas. It will be shown that the man now recognized as a brilliant theorist, was...

We recently documented the existence of 26 different forms of Papulifères, presumptive ciliate cysts, from plankton net tow material of the Chukchi Sea gathered in 2015, 2021, and 2022. The forms appeared to be rare, found in only 7 of the 308 samples taken in annual August surveys from 2010 to 2022. Thus, we were surprised to find them relatively...

In Ernst Haeckel's classic book Kunstsformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), forams are prominent; they occupy three of the 100 plates. In one plate, the centerpiece is Peneroplis planatus shown with extended rhizopods, and organisms from the plankton. It is a very curious illustration as it is the only foram shown living, and one of only two orga...

The First Lady of Radiolaria

Presentation (in French) about the first naturalists of Nice

Edward Heron-Allen and Arthur Earland were among the last great amateur foraminifera researchers. Their partnership began in 1907 and ended in 1932. While close in age to one another, they shared little more than a fascination for forams and a lack of any university training. In most other aspects, the two men were completely different. Heron-Allen...

In the early 20th century, Alphonse Meunier described "Papulifères" as a group of enigmatic forms of unknown taxonomic affinity characterized by possessing a hyaline pimple, a "papula". In the early 1980's Papulifères were equated with cysts of tintinnid ciliates. The most conspicuous forms, the large Fusopsis, have been widely found, and are now k...

Challengerids, phaeogromids rhizarian protists, are emblematic protists of the deep sea but are also enigmatic as they occur in very low concentrations. In previous studies, we reported on temporal changes in abundance at a near‐shore mesopelagic site, but only as part of sampling of the entire microplankton assemblage, not well suited for examinin...

Eozoon canadense, 'the dawn animal of Canada', a large foraminifera, was announced in 1864 as the oldest fossil organism known. Camps soon formed into disbelievers of its fossil nature, agnostics, and "Eozoonists". Eozoon would number among its proponents major figures of the time. The saga of Eozoon, or more precisely the dispute as to its actual...

The history of publishing on protists

Science in general, and microscopy in particular, lagged far behind Europe in early 19th century America. Jacob Bailey was one of the very few American microscopists. In eulogies he was called 'the Ehrenberg of America' and 'the founder of microscopical research'. He was a major figure in the scientific community of America in his time and instrume...

On the little known man of the Utermöhl method

Louis Joblot published one of the first manuals of microscopy in 1718, just a few years before both he and Leeuwenhoek died. It contained Joblot's microscope designs and his extensive observations on microorganisms including experiments on spontaneous generation. Joblot's work and his observations have often been overlooked, misdated, and denigrate...

Charles Atwood Kofoid was a scientist of considerable stature and a key figure in the development of protistology in the United States of America during first half of the 20th century. Today he is known mainly for his detailed taxonomic monographs on protists of the marine plankton, specifically dinoflagellates and tintinnid ciliates. Lesser known...

Here we summarize the results from 10 cruises in the Chukchi Sea, in August, each year from 2011 to 2020. Samples for the qualitative analysis of the microzooplankton were obtained from stations located across the Chukchi Sea using a 20μm plankton net. Conditions encountered, in terms of sea ice coverage and chlorophyll concentrations, varied widel...

Beulah Mitchell Clute (1873-1958) was a talented artist who specialized in the design of bookplates. She was well known in her time, from her days as an art student, and today is still recognized as a very talented designer. Among her most famous creations are 3 bookplates for scientists of the faculty of the University of California in the early 1...

The Carnegie was a very unusual ship, a nonmagnetic 44‐m brigantine schooner designed to conduct surveys of terrestrial magnetism. From 1909 to 1922, in 6 cruises, it navigated a total of 466,000 km and was then kept in storage in its homeport of Washington, D.C., from 1922 until 1927, when the vessel was overhauled and refitted for Cruise VII, a 3...

Accounts are given of the lives and careers of Edouard Claparède (1832-1871) and Johannes Lachmann (1832-1860), the authors of the landmark work of 19th century protistology “Etudes sur les Infusoires et les Rhizopodes”, published in 3 parts in 1859, 1860 and 1861. Accounts are also given on the origin of the monograph, the relationship of Claparèd...

You may be asking yourself 'What is a polycystine radiolarian and do I care about paleobiology?' Well, first, you probably do know what polycystines are but don't realize it. They are the major constituents of the phylum Radiolaria in recent classifications.

I am always on the lookout for early illustrations of my favorite organisms, tintinnid ciliates of the marine plankton. Periodically, I search listings of used books for titles containing variants of the old-fashioned term 'infusoria', referring to organisms found in 'infusions' by Leeuwenhoek and his followers. Recently, I came across an offer of...

Since the advent of deep-sea microbiology in the 1950's, microbiologists have justifiably recognized Adrien Certes as a pioneer due to his early studies on culturing deep-sea bacteria, and investigating the effects of pressure on microorganisms. However, Certes was actually first and foremost a protistologist. He was but a 'part-time' scientist, wi...

The campaigns of the Travailleur and the Talisman (1880–1883) were the first French expeditions to explore the deep sea. In early 1884, the campaign participants mounted a temporary exhibition in the Paris Natural History Museum displaying specimens collected and the equipment used. The exhibition included not only fantastic creatures but also “han...

Here the nearly forgotten contributions of Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778-1846) to natural history during his stay in Philadelphia are reviewed. He was a self-taught artist and naturalist whose first occupation was that of an illustrator working for Nicolas Baudin, the commander of a Napoleonic expedition to explore the Austral regions in the earl...

It is rare to meet protistologists who are not passionate about their study subject. The vast majority of people, however, never get the chance to hear about the work of these researchers. Although every researcher working on protists is likely to be aware of this situation, efforts made and tools employed for dissemination of knowledge are rarely...

William Beebe (1877-1962) was a very popular 20th century naturalist and an early proponent of studying all organisms in a habitat. Beebe's deep-sea work began with his Arcturus Oceanographic Expedition in 1925 with sampling closely modelled on the Michael Sars deep-sea expedition. Dissatisfied with ship-based sampling of stations for a few days at...

The first serial publication devoted to marine science appears to be a French title, published from 1867 to 1887, “Les Fonds de la Mer” (The Bottom of the Sea). It was an unusual publication, published irregularly in issues of 16 pages with plates. Very few copies exist in libraries and apparently no library holds an original complete set of the te...

The dark ocean and the underlying deep seafloor together represent the largest environment on this planet, comprising about 80% of the oceanic volume and covering more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface, as well as hosting a major part of the total biosphere. Emerging evidence suggests that these vast pelagic and benthic habitats play a major r...

Doing science in difficult times! http://revue-colligo.fr/index.php/vol-3-num-1?id=39

This article describes the earliest French oceanographic expeditions dedicated to investigating the deep sea. Though these expeditions, conducted from 1880 to 1883, were quite successful in terms of both science and what today we call “outreach,” they are often overlooked in histories of oceanography or mentioned only in passing. They produced a su...

This chapter begins with a short review of what constitutes the plankton and what in the plankton can be considered as zooplankton, classically considered as animal plankton. It attempts to foster understanding of the major characteristics of the zooplankton in the Ligurian Sea, through a consideration of a model taxon for two of the major zooplank...

Most tintinnid species have a shortest linear dimension < 50 μm. Hence, a priori, nets of mesh sizes ≥ 50 μm will likely under‐sample most tintinnid species. However, studies often appear (23 since 2015) using sampling with nets of meshes sizes ≥ 50 μm, reporting both tintinnid concentrations, and community composition. How biased are results from...

Interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere occur at the air-sea interface through the transfer of momentum, heat, gases and particulate matter, and through the impact of the upper-ocean biology on the composition and radiative properties of this boundary layer. The Tara Pacific expedition, launched in May 2016 aboard the schooner Tara, was a...

he effect of flagellate grazing on bacterioplankton community composition, e.g. cell size and diversity, has been well studied in fresh waters, but much less is known for marine sys- tems. We conducted experiments with communities from an oligotrophic bay in the NW Mediter- ranean Sea; size fractionation was used to alter grazing by flagellates, an...

small text on the mesopelagic in a coffee table book.

From opposite sides of the Atlantic, plagiarism charges were launched in the 1850's. Here I attempt to sort out the charges, present examples of the evidence of presumed copying along with some consideration of the norms of the times. I leave it to the reader to decide who was a copycat.

Authur Hassall's micrscopic illustrations

In 1703 two articles appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society, authored by an unnamed gentleman. The articles, with deference to Leeuwenhoeck, described recent observations made with a microscope. Clifford Dobell, in his biography of Leeuwenhoeck, remarked at length on the extraordinary quality of the illustrations and descriptions of "ani...

In the latter half of the Victorian Age (1837–1901) microscopy was introduced as popular past-time. Many books were published aimed at general audiences, both adult and juvenile, on microscopy. Here I consider 5 of these popular books of particular interest to protistologists as they included presentations of ‘infusoria’ or ‘animalcules’. I focus o...

Link to free access publisher's version: https://www.openscience.fr/Les-radiolaires-et-les-meduses-d-Ernst-Haeckel-influence-de-ses-visites-a

The marine oligotrich ciliate Strombidium sulcatum, the best known marine oligotrich of the marine microozoplankton, was first cultured in Villefranche-sur-Mer 35 years ago. Cultures were maintained from 1983 to 2003 and used in 22 studies investigating a very wide variety of questions. Here we review the major findings of these studies and underli...

We used both nuclear ribosomal genes (28S rDNA, 18S rDNA, 5.8S rDNA, internal transcribed spacer regions: ITS1, ITS2) and mitochondrial CO1 sequences to group or distinguish morphotypes of Parafavella, a problematic genus of tintinnid ciliates of the marine microzooplankton. We sequenced 30 single cells of Parafavella from the Bering Sea, the Green...

Species identifications of tintinnid ciliates are based on characteristics of the lorica housing the ciliate cell. Molecular characterization of tintinnid ciliates has revealed the occurrence of cryptic species, genetically distinct forms with similar loricas, as well as poly-morphic species in which genetically identical forms have distinct lorica...

Diatoms are a diverse and ecologically important group of phytoplankton. Although most species are considered free living, several are known to interact with other organisms within the plankton. Detailed imaging and molecular characterization of any such partnership is, however, limited, and an appraisal of the large-scale distribution and ecology...