Q&A: Science spouses

Every winter, Daphne Major island hosts between 500 and 3,500 of Darwin's famous finches -- plus two humans. linkurl:Rosemary;https://www-dept-edit.princeton.edu/eeb/people/display_person.xml?netid=rgrant&display=Emeritus%20Professors and linkurl:Peter;http://www.princeton.edu/eeb/people/display_person.xml?netid=prgrant Grant have visited this tiny Galapagos isle annually since 1973, in earlier years with their two daughters in tow. They have tagged nearly every finch, and observed natural selection in action as the population responds to weather patterns.

Peter and Rosemary Grant
Image: Princeton University
Office of Communications
Denise Applewhite (2009)

The husband-and-wife research team, professors emeriti at Princeton University, were in San Diego this week for a symposium celebrating them and the other recipients of the 2009 Kyoto Prize. The nonprofit Inamori Foundation honored the Grants for their lifelong contributions to evolutionary biology.The Grants sat down with __The Scientist__ to discuss their joint career, recent discoveries, and the evolutionary questions that remain.__The Scientist__: What is it like to be a married couple that also works together?__Peter Grant__: Wonderful. We have very similar interests. We come at our subject from different backgrounds. Rosemary was trained as a geneticist; I was trained as an ecologist. As a result of cooperating and communicating a lot, we've become, as it were, superimposable. We can easily substitute for each other, if one of us is ill. But still, we have an area where Rosemary takes primary responsibility, and an area where I take primary responsibility. We maintain the difference between ourselves and we respect those differences. When we're on the island, we divide up the island geographically. Rosemary becomes an expert on one half of the island; I do the other. We go into separate areas, come back for meals together, and always have plenty of opportunity for talking about what we've discovered or what we should do next. __Rosemary Grant__: We usually go out for two to three months. When our children were very young, one of us would go down in the winter and set up, then we'd go together in the summer.__TS__: How have the Galapagos changed since you started going out there?__RG__: The uninhabited islands have not changed at all, except for purely natural changes. I think they are coping very well with tourism. Tourists only go on trails with trained guides. __PG__: One of the towns, Puerto Vallerta, has grown five times in size. There were no paved roads, no vehicles -- one jeep, actually -- one general store. Now it's a metropolis of sorts.__TS__: You had a linkurl:paper;http://www.pnas.org/content/106/48/20141.abstract in __PNAS__ last year, on what could be the genesis of a new species.__RG__: It started with a bird that arrived on the island in 1981. It had an unusual song. There were [seven generations, ending with] three generations of inbreeding. They all carry the same genetic marker; they are all big; all the males sing the original song. So they're functioning, in every way, as the beginning of a new species. __PG__: But it could be temporary.__RG__: We haven't given it a name, or anything like that.__TS__: Do you have any thoughts on what the name might be?__PG__: No, because we won't describe it, [so] somebody may describe it as __grantii__.__RG__: Oh, no, no, no.__PG__: Or __rosemari__.__RG__: We might call it __inamorii__. __PG__: Yes, or __kyotoensis__.__TS__: How did it feel to receive the Kyoto Prize?

The Grant's accepting their Kyoto Prizes
Image: Inamori Foundation 2009

__RG__: I think it is an amazing prize. It is based in Dr. Kazuo Inamori's philosophy of dedication to scholarship combined with ethics, which is absolutely required if you are going to use the information wisely. I'm so in tune with that philosophy.__TS__: You'll receive half a million dollars. What do you plan to do with it?__PG__: A large part has been donated to the US Treasury.__RG__: The only country in the world which taxes prize money is the United States. What we have left, we have been using for our research.__PG__: A large part is probably be going to be used for our family. Given the uncertainty of economic conditions, it's comforting to know that we have money to help if they need help. We have four grandchildren, and it may be that we can help them make the transition into adult and secure lives.__TS__: What questions in evolutionary biology do you find exciting?__PG__: I think there's an enormous area of ignorance of how genes actually produce a genotype. It is the unpeeling of all the complexity of the genetic control mechanisms, on the one hand, and environmental forces on the other. Putting those two together remains a big enterprise.__RG__: Developmental genetics, put together with observations from the wild, is a very exciting area. __PG__: My view is that evolution is experimental. Things are tried out, they work for a while, and then they don't. Species come and they go.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Finch researchers win Kyoto Prize;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55770/
[20th June 2009]*linkurl:Darwin's (and Grants') Finches;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/61/
[11th June 2005]*linkurl:Gene controls beak morphology;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22382/
[3rd September 2004]