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Elke Mackenzie

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Elke Mackenzie
Mackenzie photographed near Port Lockroy, December 1944
Born(1911-09-11)11 September 1911
Clapham, London, UK
Died18 January 1990(1990-01-18) (aged 78)
Braintree, Massachusetts, US
NationalityBritish
Alma materEdinburgh University
Scientific career
FieldsLichenology
InstitutionsBritish Museum (Natural History)
National University of Tucumán
National Museum of Canada
Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany
Doctoral studentsVernon Ahmadjian
Royall T. Moore
Author abbrev. (botany)I.M.Lamb

Elke Mackenzie (11 September 1911 – 18 January 1990), born Ivan Mackenzie Lamb, was a British polar explorer and botanist who specialized in the field of lichenology. Beginning her education at the Edinburgh Academy, Mackenzie later pursued botany at Edinburgh University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1933. Her career highlights include a secret World War II mission, Operation Tabarin, in Antarctica, where she identified and documented many lichen species, several of them previously unknown to science.

Mackenzie's academic pursuits led her to positions at the British Museum, National University of Tucumán, National Museum of Canada, and the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard University. Notably, in 1971, Mackenzie transitioned, renaming herself to Elke Mackenzie and faced institutional prejudice as a result. Despite facing adversity, her legacy is preserved in the names of two genera and numerous species named in her honour. Mackenzie's contributions to polar exploration earned her the British and United States Polar Medals.

Early life

Mackenzie was born in Clapham, London, on 11 September 1911. Mackenzie's family moved to Scotland while she was a child, and she was enrolled in the Edinburgh Academy. After her graduation in 1929, she attended Edinburgh University. She earned her B.Sc. with Honours in Botany in 1933. She received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service, and continued doing research in botany at the University of Munich and the University of Würzburg.[1]

Career

British Museum and Antarctic exploration

Mackenzie was appointed as an assistant keeper at the British Museum (Natural History) in 1935, mentored by lichenologist Annie Lorrain Smith, who had recently retired. Mackenzie became especially interested in the lichen flora of the Antarctic, as it was comparatively unknown, and she began studying early British, French, and Belgian Antarctic collections in Turkey and Paris. She earned her Doctor of Science from Edinburgh University in 1942, with a thesis titled "A monograph of the lichen genus Placopsis".[1]

Operation Tabarin. Base A, Port Lockroy; photographed by Mackenzie in 1945

Mackenzie is famous for her part in Operation Tabarin, a secret mission instigated by Winston Churchill during the Second World War.[2] On the surface, it was an Antarctic expedition organized to demonstrate British sovereignty in the Antarctic Peninsula. Mackenzie joined the crew in 1943 at Base A in Port Lockroy,[3] and was assigned the official duties of both botanical and geological collecting.[4] At the island, Mackenzie participated in several brief manhauling expeditions,[5] where two Nansen sleds, each loaded with 700 pounds of food and scientific equipment, were hauled by hand.[6] In 1945, twenty-five huskies from Labrador, Canada, were introduced to bolster sledding operations. These sled dogs facilitated more extensive surveying and exploratory journeys. Mackenzie was part of the sledding team, which navigated the Prince Gustav Channel along the eastern coast of the Graham Land peninsula. Subsequently, they veered eastward along James Ross Island's southern edge, rounding its easternmost point before making their way northwest back to Hope Bay.[4] She collected lichen samples and conducted experiments on the accumulation of snow and subsequent thawing. Mackenzie discovered a number of lichen species, including Verrucaria serpuloides, a marine lichen which stays permanently submerged.[3] During her stay from February 1944 to January 1946 in the Antarctic, Mackenzie collected a total of 1,030 botanical specimens. This collection included various categories such as lichens, bryophytes, different types of algae, phanerogams, fungi, and diatoms. The majority of these collections were made around the bases at Port Lockroy and Hope Bay. Additionally, specimens were obtained from local excursions and during three sledge journeys spanning about 800 miles. Mackenzie managed to determine the genus of all the lichen specimens, discovering some that had never been recorded in the Antarctic or were new to the Graham Land region.[7]

Post-war academia and research

After the war, Mackenzie became professor of cryptogamic botany at National University of Tucumán and traveled extensively in Argentina and Brazil to collect Stereocaulon and marine algae samples.[2] In 1950, Mackenzie was put into contact with Erling Porsild, who hired her as a cryptogamic botanist at the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa. After the move to Canada, Mackenzie sold her private herbarium of 3,200 specimens to the Canadian Museum of Nature. She continued to collect, gathering specimens from various locations in Canada, including the Rocky Mountains, Cypress Hills (Saskatchewan), Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia), and the Ottawa area.[1]

In 1953, Mackenzie was offered the directorship of the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany by Harvard University, and she left Canada.[1] Mackenzie met Vernon Ahmadjian in 1955 when they both took a marine botany course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. United by their common interest in lichens, Ahmadjian subsequently became Mackenzie's first graduate student the next year at Harvard.[8]

Antarctic return and other research endeavours

In 1960, Mackenzie became a US citizen.[5] A year later, she travelled to the McMurdo Sound in Antarctica for the National Science Foundation in order to observe the biological facilities and studies present. Mackenzie returned to Antarctica in October 1964, where she began scuba diving investigations with her colleagues from France and Argentina, under a grant from the National Science Foundation and with the logistic support of the Argentine Navy. This study, to which Mackenzie referred to as "Operation Gooseflesh",[1] took part in the South Shetland and Melchior Islands.[5] During her stay, Mackenzie collected Verrucaria serpuloides, which she had discovered in 1944. For the three following years, she continued to collect throughout Europe and Mexico.[1] From 1932 to 1960, Mackenzie compiled the Index Nominum Lichenum (published in 1963), a catalogue of all names of lichen taxa published during that time period.[9]

Professional relations

Mackenzie had an adversarial rivalry with Carroll William Dodge, citing the latter's "reckless taxonomy".[10] As a book reviewer, she rejected Dodge's 1973 work Lichen Flora of the Antarctic Continent and Adjacent Islands for its dubious scholarship.[1] Her judgement was later vindicated, as others have since similarly opined about the lack of merit in Dodge's work.[11][12]

Personal life

Mackenzie married Maila Elvira Laabefo of Finland in 1936;[1] they had two sons and a daughter.[5] The 1960s were a decade of great personal turmoil for Mackenzie, as personal and family crises piled on increasing career duties. Apparently, Mrs. Lamb had incurred great personal debts in Mackenzie's name. This and other issues in his life resulted in periods of depression, including suicidal thoughts. Eventually, he obtained a legal separation from his wife.[1]

After separation, Mackenzie visited a specialist in New York City, who diagnosed her with "dysphonia syndrome", a disorder affecting the larynx.[10] In 1971, Mackenzie transitioned, underwent a gender-affirming surgery, and renamed herself to Elke Mackenzie.[13] She was forced into a early retirement after transition, as many institutions were disapproving of her choice, as stated by her friend Laurence Senelick. Mackenzie retired from the Farlow Herbarium in 1972 at the age of 60. The final specimen she recorded, dated 1973, was Pylaiella littoralis, an alga collected from the mudflats of Maine.[10]

During the next six years, Mackenzie lost interest in her work with cryptogams, preferring to translate German botanical text books into English. She constructed an A-frame bungalow in Costa Rica, and moved there in 1976.[1] After transitioning, Mackenzie made a discreet announcement in the International Lichenological Newsletter's October 1976 issue, simply stating she "should now be addressed as Dr. Elke Mackenzie".[14] In 1980, Mackenzie returned to Cambridge to live with her daughter, citing political unrest. She took up woodworking, but was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in 1983. She died in 1990, in Braintree, Massachusetts.[1] Her lifelong work on a comprehensive monograph of Stereocaulon was never completed.[10] Although her original drawings and exsiccata material of this genus were lost due to fire and mildew, she published some results in an abridged form, as well as an identification key to the species of Stereocaulon.[8] Mackenzie's diary and documents reside in the archives of the British Antarctic Survey. Within this collection are comprehensive, unpublished notes in which she meticulously reviewed the descriptions of over 170 type specimens collected from Antarctic expeditions.[15]

In some of her final publications, Mackenzie cited the help of "Miss Elke Mackenzie".[8] In the obituary written by surveyor Andrew Taylor, a colleague on Operation Tabarin, he wrote that Mackenzie was "greatly admired by all for his gentle kindness and generosity".[5] Former graduate student Vernon Ahmadjian called Mackenzie "the most considerate, patient, helpful and unselfish advisor that a graduate student could have wished for".[8]

Recognition

Mackenzie was the recipient of both the British and United States Polar Medals for her involvement in Operation Tabarin.[1] In 1974, she was elected as an honorary member of the British Lichen Society.[8]

Eponyms

Placopsis lambii is one of several species named in honour of Mackenzie.

Mackenzie is the namesake of two genera, Lambia[16] (genus of green algae in the family Bryopsidaceae) and Lambiella[17] (genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Xylographaceae), and several species. The list of species includes:[18]

Cape Lamb on Vega Island is named for Mackenzie, as she studied the lichen on the island during her career.[28]

Selected publications

Mackenzie published 43 papers over a 43-year period; a full listing of her scientific work is given in the obituary written by George Llano.[1]

  • Lamb, I. M. (1936). Lichenological notes from the British Museum herbarium. I. Journal of Botany 74: 174–178
  • Lamb, I. M. (1947). Monograph of the lichen genus Placopsis Nyl. Lilloa 13:151–288.
  • Lamb, I. M. (1948). New, rare or interesting lichens from the southern hemisphere. I. Lilloa 14: 203–251
  • Lamb, I. M. (1953). New, rare or interesting lichens from the southern hemisphere. II. Lilloa 26: 401–438
  • Lamb, I. M. (1955). New lichens from northern Patagonia, with notes on some related species. Farlowia 4: 423–471
  • Lamb, I. M. (1970). Antarctic terrestrial plants and their ecology, pp. 733–751. In M. W. Holdgate (ed.), Antarctic Ecology. London and New York.
  • Lamb, I. M. (2018). The Secret South: A Tale of Operation Tabarin, 1943–46 (S. Haddelsey, R. Lewis-Smith, Ed.). Greenhill Books.
The standard author abbreviation I.M.Lamb is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Llano, G. (1991). "I. Mackenzie Lamb, D.Sc. (Elke Mackenzie) (1911–1990)". The Bryologist. 94 (3): 315–320. JSTOR 3243974.
  2. ^ a b "Lamb, Ivan Mackenzie (1911–1990)". Natural History Museum, London. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  3. ^ a b Haddelsey, S. (2014). Operation Tabarin: Britain's Secret Wartime Expedition to Antarctica, 1944–46. Stroud: History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-9356-5.
  4. ^ a b "Dog sledging". British Antarctic Survey. 12 April 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d e Taylor, Andrew (1990). "Obituary. Dr Ivan Mackenzie Lamb". Polar Record. 26 (159): 341–344. doi:10.1017/s0032247400012158.
  6. ^ "Early exploration". British Antarctic Survey. 12 April 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2023.
  7. ^ "Scientific discovery". British Antarctic Survey. 12 April 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2023.
  8. ^ a b c d e Ahmadjian, Vernon (1991). "Ivan Mackenzie Lamb (Elke Mackenzie) (1911–1990)". The Lichenologist. 23 (1): 85–87. doi:10.1017/S0024282991000142. S2CID 87163431.
  9. ^ Ainsworth, G.C. (1996). Brief Biographies of British Mycologists. British Mycological Society. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-9527704-0-4.
  10. ^ a b c d Imbler, Sabrina (26 September 2020). "The Unsung Heroine of Lichenology". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  11. ^ Hertel, Hannes (1988). "Problems in Monographing Antarctic Crustose Lichens" (PDF). Polarforschung. 58: 65–76.
  12. ^ Castello, Miris; Nimis, Pier Luigi (1995). "A critical revision of Antarctic lichens described by C.W. Dodge". Bibliotheca Lichenologica. 57: 71–92.
  13. ^ Johnston, Eddie (24 June 2022). "Lichen Adventurer: Elke Mackenzie". Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
  14. ^ Brodo, I.M., ed. (October 1976). "News and Notes" (PDF). International Lichenological Newsletter. 9 (2): 5.
  15. ^ Lewis-Smith, Ronald I. (2000). "I.M. Lamb's unpublished contribution to Antarctic lichenology". Nova Hedwigia. 70 (3–4): 491–504. doi:10.1127/nova.hedwigia/70/2000/491.
  16. ^ Delépine, R. (1967). "Sur un nouveau genre de Chlorophycées antarctiques, Lambia" [On a new genus of Antarctic Chlorophyceae, Lambia]. Compte Rendu Hebdomadaire des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences. Paris (in French). 264: 1410–1413.
  17. ^ Hertel, H. (1984). "Über saxicole, lecideoide Flechten der Subantarktis" [On saxicolous, lecideoid lichens of the subantarctic]. Beihefte zur Nova Hedwigia (in German). 79: 399–499 [459].
  18. ^ Hertel, Hannes; Gärtner, Georg; Lőkös, László (2017). "Forscher an Österreichs Flechtenflora" [Investigators of Austria's lichen flora] (PDF). Stapfia (in German). 104 (2): 1–211 [84–85].
  19. ^ Skottsberg, C. (1953). "On two collections of Antarctic marine algae". Arkiv för Botanik. 2. 2: 531–566.
  20. ^ Dodge, Carroll W. (1973). Lichen Flora of the Antarctic Continent and Adjacent Islands. Canaan, New Hampshire: Phoenix Publishing. p. 324. ISBN 978-0914016014.
  21. ^ Hakulinen, R. (1954). "Die Flechtengattung Candelariella Müller Argoviensis" [The lichen genus Candelariella Müller Argoviensis]. Annales Botanici Societatis Zoologicae Botanicae Fennicae "Vanamo" (in German). 27 (3): 1–127 [36].
  22. ^ Imshaug, H. (1954). "A new species of Neuropogon from the United States". Rhodora. 56: 154–157.
  23. ^ Øvstedal, D.O.; Lewis Smith, R.I. (2009). "Further additions to the lichen flora of Antarctica and South Georgia" (PDF). Nova Hedwigia. 88 (1–2): 157–168. doi:10.1127/0029-5035/2009/0088-0157.
  24. ^ Wirth, V. (1987). Die Flechten Baden-Württembergs. Verbreitungsatlas [The Lichens of Baden-Württemberg. Distribution Atlas] (in German). E. Ulmer. p. 511. ISBN 978-3800133055.
  25. ^ Ahmadjian, V. (1959). The Taxonomy and Physiology of Lichen Algae and Problems of Lichen Synthesis (PhD thesis). Cambridge, USA: Harvard University.
  26. ^ Imshaug, Henry A. (1957). "Alpine lichens of western United States and adjacent Canada I. The macrolichens". The Bryologist. 60 (3): 177–272 [232]. doi:10.2307/3240365. JSTOR i362808.
  27. ^ Erichsen, C.F.E. (1940). "Lichenologische Beiträge III" [Lichenological contributions III]. Annales Mycologici (in German). 38: 303–331.
  28. ^ "Cape Lamb". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
  29. ^ International Plant Names Index.  I.M.Lamb.
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