About 'Biology and Evolution of the Mollusca'

Winston Ponder

Winston F. Ponder MSc, PhD, DSc is a Senior Fellow at the Australian Museum (Sydney), and an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney. Before retirement in 2005 he was a Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum, where he worked in the malacology section for 37 years and was instrumental in organising and building up the extensive collection. While at the museum he also held several honorary positions at a number of Australian universities. In addition to pursuing research programs, he has also been active in transferring expertise to new generations of young zoologists by way of training research students, hosting overseas collaborators, running workshops and organising a number of conferences. It was when running an intensive mollusc course at the University of Wollongong over several years, that the idea for this book dawned. Winston’s research extends broadly across marine and freshwater molluscs and includes observations of living animals, microanatomy, biometrics, cladistics and molecular analysis. He, like his collaborator David Lindberg, has been involved in the revolution in molluscan phylogenetics that has taken place over the last 20 years. His publications include 250 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, two edited books on molluscs and one on invertebrate conservation. Recently he produced (with two others) an online interactive key and information system of Australian freshwater molluscs, has been involved with the molluscan part of the online Australian faunal directory, and was editor of the journal Molluscan Research for 14 years. He organised or co-organised 12 national or international meetings and presented papers at many more. He has undertaken study trips and field work in various parts of the world over more than 40 years but field studies have mainly focused on Australian marine and freshwater habitats. His awards include the Hamilton Prize (Royal Society of N.Z., 1968), Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society, NSW, Silver Jubilee award, Australian Marine Sciences Association (2008), and the Clarke Medal, Royal Society of NSW (2010).

David Lindberg

David R. Lindberg is Professor Emeritus of Integrative Biology, Curator Emeritus in the UC Museum of Paleontology, and a former member of the Center for Computational Biology at UC Berkeley. He has authored over 125 peer-reviewed papers and edited or authored three books on the evolutionary history of nearshore marine organisms and their habitats. At Berkeley, he served as major advisor to 21 PhD graduate students and six post-doctoral researchers. He also served as Chair of the Department of Integrative Biology, Director of the UC Museum of Paleontology, and Chair of the UC Berkeley Natural History Museums. In addition to providing graduate seminars in evolution and organismal biology, he regularly taught a marine mammal course, an invertebrate zoology course with laboratories, and two semester principles of phylogenetics course. Prof. Lindberg has conducted research and field work along the rocky shores of the Pacific Rim for over 45 years. In addition to his research and teaching, Prof. Lindberg was actively involved in K–16 outreach projects at the UC Museum of Paleontology, and focused on the use of the internet to increase access to scientific resources, and the training of teachers in principles of evolutionary biology, science, and global change.

Juliet Ponder

Juliet M. Ponder MA Grad Dip Ed has spent 55 years married to the senior author of this book and developing a variety of interests. She excelled at school and began studying science at Auckland University where she met Winston. She was blown away by his passion for molluscs and decided that, if such dedication was required to be a scientist, she didn’t have it. However, she was happy to support his work and to this end began developing competence in scientific writing and illustrating and even scuba diving. She and Winston have two children and, while rearing them, Juliet acquired qualifications in fine art, community welfare and education. She worked part-time for 10 years painting lifelike models in the Australian Museum but, as her children grew older, she moved into full time community work and then teaching for 15 years. Retirement from paid work in 2004 gave her the opportunity to learn computer graphics and develop a method of colour coding illustrations to clarify similarities and differences between groups of animals. The drawings in this book combine her love of art, science and education.