Trevor Platt

Trevor Charles Platt FRS FRSC (August 12, 1942 - April 6, 2020) was a British and Canadian biological oceanographer who was distinguished for his fundamental contributions to quantifying primary production by phytoplankton at various scales of space and time in the ocean.[1]

Trevor Platt

FRS, FRSC
BornAugust 12, 1942
Salford, UK
DiedApril 6, 2020
Plymouth, UK
Alma materDalhousie University
Known forMathematical formulation of the relationship between photosynthesis and light for phytoplankton (P-I curve)
Spouse(s)Shubha Sathyendranath
AwardsG. Evelyn Hutchinson Award, A.G. Huntsman Award
Scientific career
FieldsOceanography
InstitutionsBedford Institute of Oceanography, Plymouth Marine Laboratory

Early life and education

Platt was born in Salford, England in 1942 and received his BSc at the University of Nottingham, UK. He received his MA in 1965 from the University of Toronto, Canada for his thesis “Computer analysis of beam handling system for a linear accelerator”. Later in the same year, Platt started work at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.[2] With the benefit of field and laboratory work conducted by his technical assistant Brian Irwin,[3] who joined the institute in 1966,[4] Platt embarked on studies that led to the fulfillment in 1970 of his PhD thesis (“Some effects of spatial and temporal heterogeneity on phytoplankton productivity”)[5] at Dalhousie University.

Research

Platt's early research[6] was framed by the overarching goals originally envisioned by the founders of the Atlantic Oceanographic Group of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, namely: “to describe pathways and to measure amounts and rates of energy transfer in marine biological communities; and to study the structure and degree of organization of biological systems in the sea”.[2][7] One such early collaborative work[8] concerning energy flow and species diversity in marine phytoplankton blooms was motivated by the ideas of Ramon Margalef, who evidently was nominated by Platt in a later year to receive one of three inaugural medals of the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in the Marine Sciences.

In the ensuing years, Platt, with collaborators, undertook a research program that progressed from investigations of the spatial inhomogeneity of plankton distribution in response to the power spectrum of turbulence,[9] through the physiological responses of the growth of cells in response to light and nutrients,[10][11] to dimensional analysis and the size structure of pelagic food chains,[12][13] further to theoretical considerations of the limits of biological production in the ocean,[14][15] and eventually to the effects of climate change and variability on the biological cycle in the ocean.[16]

Glen Harrison (left), Alan Longhurst (centre), and Trevor Platt (right) at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography 1984, discussing "Carbon dioxide and the biological cycle in the ocean".

By the late 1980s, Platt's research program at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography[17] had reached a stage where the solid foundations built from a close relationship between theoretical developments and observations at sea provided the ready capabilities to embrace the possibilities offered by satellite remote sensing of the ocean. With his close collaborator Shubha Sathyendranath, Platt successfully implemented the analytical solutions and measurement-driven algorithms at regional and ocean basin scales to compute integrated primary production through the water column.[18][19] In 1995, the long-sought calculation of annual global production by marine phytoplankton was made possible for the first time,[20] after Alan Longhurst successfully partitioned the global ocean into a set of biogeochemical provinces within which the phytoplankton are likely subject to common physical forcing.[21]

In later years after the estimation of marine primary production at large geographical scale was made operational,[22] Platt increasingly turned his attention to the use of remotely-sensed ocean colour as indicators of ecosystem performance[23] towards the management of fisheries[24] and stewardship of the ocean.[25]

Career

Platt joined the Fisheries Research Board of Canada at the then three year old Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia on June 22, 1965 as a research scientist in the public service.[2] In 1972, he took over from Kenneth H. Mann as head of the Biological Oceanography Section. He served as head until 2000, after which he remained in the section as senior research scientist. In 2005, he transferred to the Coastal Ocean Science Section, still at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, and remained there until his departure in 2008. Platt was appointed Professorial Fellow at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK) in 2008, and Jawaharlal Nehru Science Fellow at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (India) in 2014.

Platt served the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) for two separate terms as a member-at-large (1974-1977, 1986-1989), then as President (1990-1992).

Platt played an especially important role in the International Ocean Colour Coordinating Group (IOCCG), being one of the founding members of the group, and served as the first Chairman of the IOCCG for a period of 10 years (from 1996-2006).

Platt also had a long association with the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO), first as a visiting Professor in 2005, and then as its Executive Director from 2008 to 2015.[1]

Awards and honours
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References
  1. Anonymous. "In memoriam: Professor Trevor Platt FRS". Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  2. Bedford Institute of Oceanography (1965). Fourth Annual Report (PDF). Dartmouth, Nova Scotia: BIO 65-17. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  3. Platt, T; Irwin, B (1968). "Primary productivity measurements in St. Margaret's Bay, 1967" (PDF). Fisheries Research Board Technical Report Series. 77.
  4. Bedford Institute of Oceanography (1966). Fifth Annual Report (PDF). Dartmouth, Nova Scotia: BIO 66-10. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  5. Bedford Institute of Oceanography (1970). Biennial Review 1969-1970 (PDF). Dartmouth, Nova Scotia: BIO. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  6. Bedford Institute of Oceanography (1968). Biennial Review 1967-1968 (PDF). Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  7. Li WKW. 2014. Plankton ecology at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, 1962-2012. In: Nettleship DN, Gordon DC, Lewis CFM, Latremouille MP [Eds.] 2014. Voyage of Discovery: Fifty Years of Marine Research at Canada's Bedford Institute of Oceanography, BIO-Oceans Association, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. pp. 77-86. ISBN 978-0-9936443-0-6
  8. Platt, T.; Subba Rao, D.V. (1970). "Energy flow and species diversity in a marine phytoplankton bloom". Nature. 227: 1059–1060. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  9. Platt, T.; Denman, K.L. (1975). "Spectral analysis in ecology". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 6: 189–210. doi:10.1146/annurev.es.06.110175.001201.
  10. Platt, T.; Jassby, A.D. (1976). "The relationship between photosynthesis and light for natural assemblages of coastal marine phytoplankton". Journal of Phycology. 12: 421–430. doi:10.1111/j.1529-8817.1976.tb02866.x.
  11. Platt, T.; Gallegos, C.L.; Harrison, W.G. (1980). "Photoinhibition of photosynthesis in natural assemblages of marine phytoplankton". Journal of Marine Research. 38 (4): 687–701.
  12. Platt, T.; Denman, K.L. (1977). "Organisation in the pelagic ecosystem". Helgoländer wissenschaftliche Meeresuntersuchungen. 30: 575–581. doi:10.1007/BF02207862.
  13. Platt, T.; Silvert, W. (1981). "Ecology, physiology, allometry and dimensionality". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 93 (4): 855–860. doi:10.1016/0022-5193(81)90343-X.
  14. Platt, T.; Harrison, W.G.; Lewis, M.R.; Li, W.K.W.; Sathyendranath, S.; Smith, R.E.; Vézina, A.F. (1989). "Biological production of the oceans: the case for a consensus" (PDF). Marine Ecology Progress Series. 52: 77–88.
  15. Platt T, Lewis M, Geider R (1984)Thermodynamics of the pelagic ecosystem: Elementary closure conditions for biological production in the open ocean. In: Fasham M.J.R. (eds) Flows of Energy and Materials in Marine Ecosystems. NATO Conference Series, vol 13. pp. 49-84 Springer, Boston, MA
  16. Longhurst, A.R.; Platt, T.; Harrison, W.G. (1984). "Carbon dioxide and the biological cycle of the ocean" (PDF). BIO Annual Review: 30–32.
  17. Clarke, A.; Lazier, J.; Petrie, B.; Platt, T.; Smith, P.; Elliot, J. (2003). "Ocean sciences – looking back at 40 years" (PDF). Bedford Institute of Oceanography 2002 in Review: 40th Anniversary Edition. Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Natural Resources Canada, Dartmouth, NS: 24–28.
  18. Platt, T.; Sathyendranath, S. (1988). "Oceanic primary production: Estimation by remote sensing at local and regional scales". Science. 241 (4873): 1613–1620. doi:10.1126/science.241.4873.1613.
  19. Platt, T.; Caverhill, C.; Sathyendranath, S. (1991). "Basin‐scale estimates of oceanic primary production by remote sensing: The North Atlantic". Journal of Geophysical Research. 96 (C8): 15147–15159. doi:10.1029/91JC01118.
  20. Longhurst, A.; Sathyendranath, S.; Platt, T.; Caverhill, C. (1995). "An estimate of global primary production in the ocean from satellite radiometer data". Journal of Plankton Research. 17: 1245–1271. doi:10.1093/plankt/17.6.1245.
  21. Longhurst, A.R. (1998). Ecological Geography of the Sea (First ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
  22. Platt, T.; Sathyendranath, S.; Forget, M.-H.; White, G.N.; Caverhill, C.; Bouman, H.; Devred, E.; Son, H.S. (2008). "Operational estimation of primary production at large geographical scales". Remote Sensing of the Environment. 112 (8): 3437–3448. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2007.11.018.
  23. Platt, T.; Sathyendranath, S. (2008). "Ecological indicators for the pelagic zone of the ocean from remote sensing". Remote Sensing of the Environment. 112: 3426–3436. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2007.10.016.
  24. Platt, T.; Fuentes-Yaco, C.; Frank, K. (2003). "Spring algal bloom and larval fish survival". Nature. 423: 398–399. doi:10.1038/423398b.
  25. Racault, M.-F.; Abdulaziz, A.; George, G.; Menon, N.; Jasmin, C.; Punathil, M.; McConville, K.; Loveday, B.; Platt, T.; Sathyendranath, S.; Vijayan, V. (2019). "Environmental reservoirs of Vibrio cholerae: Challenges and opportunities for ocean-color remote sensing". Remote Sensing. 11 (23): 2763. doi:10.3390/rs11232763.
  26. Simpson, F.J.; Atkinson, J. (1993). "History of the Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences (APICS): The First Twenty-Five Years, 1962-1987" (PDF). Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences: 146.
  27. Jayaraman, K. (2014). "India kicks off fellowship for top visiting scientists". Nature News.
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