Peter Bernhardt—Recipient of the 2022 Peter Raven Award

Abstract

Peter Bernhardt’s (Fig. 1) volunteering for the Peace Corps in 1975, after he had completed his M.A. Studies at the State University of New York, Brockport, was an early indication of his deep interest in working with people. His Peace Corps assignment was in the small but diverse Central American country of El Salvador. There he worked for two years as a professor at the Universidad de El Salvador, studying orchids in particular, and floral ecology and phytogeography more generally. During that period, he and I began exchanging letters, and I have attempted to encourage him in the development of his remarkable career ever since. I became aware of his interest in scientific communication through an article that he prepared for Natural History Magazine dealing with the orchids that were growing within the boundaries of the poverty-stricken city of San Salvador. Peter was studying these orchids scientifically, but soon decided that he also needed to bring his findings to the attention of a wider audience to enrich their lives and help them understand the importance of preserving the beauty that was all around them. Subsequently, the excellent and entertaining expositions that Peter has produced for many years have helped many people to understand the importance of nature and to develop a desire to maintain it in their own surroundings and beyond. Returning from El Salvador, Peter worked for six months at The New York Botanical Garden, and then made the adventurous decision to travel to Australia to undertake his doctoral studies. He enrolled at the University of Melbourne, where he completed his Ph.D. degree in 1981. For the subsequent three years, he remained as a Research Fellow at the University. His lifelong affection for Australia began in those years, and has never deserted him. During those early years in Australia, Bernhardt initiated his impressive and prolonged series of studies of the floral constancy of bees and nectar-feeding birds and the reproductive systems of plants. Peter returned to the U.S. to take up an appointment in the Department of Biology at St. Louis University. In St. Louis, he published his first book of essays, the fascinating “Wily Violets and Underground Orchids: Confessions of a Botanist” (1989). When awarded tenure in 1990, he took up a two-year research leave at the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, becoming a Research Fellow there for his second year. In all, his appointment at St. Louis University lasted 33years, a highly productive period for both innovative research and education during which he fostered relationships with the Missouri Botanical Garden. Although he and his wife still reside in St. Louis, their intention is to return to Melbourne and finish their life’s work there. At St. Louis University, Peter Bernhardt taught a variety of courses and mentored many students, helping them to understand such important aspects of floral biology as floral lifespan, pollen-stigma interactions, reproductive ecology of threatened species (in Missouri, Pacific Rim, and Pacific Basin). In carrying out these studies, Peter’s work has stood out for the precision that he has employed in reaching his conclusions. Many people not focusing in depth on pollination are satisfied to characterize individual kinds of plants as “bee flowers,” “butterfly flowers,” or whatever, and consider that to be more or less the final word on the subject for that plant species. In contrast, Bernhardt has never been satisfied to complete a given study without carrying out quantitative studies of the frequency, character, and timing of visits to the flowers. These have included determining the whole array of animals involved, as well as quantitative determinations of their pollen loads, the manner in which pollen is attached to a given pollinator’s body, and the parts of the animal’s body to which it adheres. In the course of his studies, he has made comprehensive observations of the whole process of pollination in individual plant populations and measured the effectiveness of the observed events in actually fertilizing flowers and ultimately producing seeds. In doing so, Bernhardt has set the gold standard for studies of pollination, and the field has benefited greatly from his efforts. In addition to the complexities just mentioned, the ways in which a given pollination system functions often vary greatly at different times of day or from season to season. They may also differ a great deal from one year to the next, depending on the availability of water, the prevalence of other species competing for the same pollinators, and a number of additional factors. For all of these reasons, making seemingly simple observations on a few visitors to the flowers of a given kind of plant is never sufficient to tell the story of that plant’s pollination systems accurately. Doing so is not something to be taken lightly. In emphasizing these factors in his studies, participating actively with a group of like-minded scientists, mentoring students, and reporting his results widely, Peter Bernhardt has helped to improve the standards for investigations into pollination relationships in ways that many others have found useful. Over more than four decades, Peter Bernhardt has employed his exemplary writing and speaking skills in reaching out to the public, contributing greatly to their understanding and appreciation of the way plants function, particularly in respect of their pollination systems. He has published a number of articles in both American and Australian magazines and newspapers, culminating in his authorship of four popular books. Notable among these was the way he effectively removed the public’s phobia about binomial nomenclature in his book, Gods and Goddesses in the Garden (2008, Rutgers U. Press). His more technical book, Darwin’s Orchids Then and Now (2014), coedited and co-written with Dr. Retha EdensMeier, has gained and maintained a popularity with orchid