Elizabeth Bernays
Australian entomologist (1940–2024)
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Elizabeth A. Bernays (1940[1] – 5 March 2024) was an Australian entomologist who was a Regents Professor at the University of Arizona.[2] She was known for studies of physiological, behavioural, and ecological interactions between plants, herbivorous insects and their predators. Bernays worked on the feeding behaviour of a variety of insects including aphids, grasshoppers, and hawkmoths.[3][4][5] She was known for championing the idea that predation drove many insects to specialise on a few species of hostplants, rather than specialisation being solely the outcome of a chemical arms race between plant and insect herbivores.[6][7][8]
Early life
Educated at the University of Queensland, Australia, she moved to London to teach high school students; she subsequently studied for a PhD there.[9] Prior to moving to the University of Arizona, she was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.[8]
Career
Bernays published more than 100 book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, edited volumes and books on a variety of entomological subjects including insect learning, feeding, taste and water homeostasis.[10][11][12] Her research into the feeding behaviour of insects helped guide interventions designed to minimise crop pest damage.[9] Along with Michael S. Singer, she published a paper in 2005 in Nature showing that parasitised tiger moth caterpillars have greater sensitivity to pyrrolizidine alkaloids than non-parasitised caterpillars and that parasitised caterpillars seek out plants containing these chemicals to defend themselves from predation and parasitism.[13][14]
Academic honours
In 1986, she received the Vatican's highest scientific honour, the Pius XI Gold Medal of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.[15]
Late career activities
After retirement, Bernays studied for a master's degree in creative writing at the University of Arizona.[8] She wrote two memoirs. The first memoir, Six Legs Walking: Notes from an Entomological Live, described her childhood experiences with nature, her work with her husband as an applied entomologist in Africa, and her professional experiences as a woman in science moving from the science culture of the U.K. to a professorship at the University of California, Berkeley.[16] Her second memoir, Across the Divide: The Strangest Love Affair, describes her personal and creative relationship with her wife Linda Hitchcock which included collaborating on children's nature books and travelling the southwestern U.S.[17]
Personal life
She was married to the English entomologist Reginald Frederick Chapman until his death in 2003. She met Linda Hitchcock, photojournalist in 2004 and subsequently married in 2018 .
Selected books and edited volumes
- Herbivores and Plant Tannins with Gillian A. Cooper-Driver and M. Bilgener, London: Academic Press, 1989.
- Insect-Plant Interactions, Boca Raton: CRC Press, 1990.
- Host-Plant Selection by Phytophagous Insects with R.F. Chapman, New York: Chapman & Hall, 1994.
- Six Legs Walking: Notes from an Entomological Life, Florida: Raised Voices Press, 2019.
- Across the Divide: The Strangest Love Affair, Arizona: Wheatmark, 2023.