Ruth Dixon Turner | |
|---|---|
 Ruth Turner and Colleen Cavanaugh dissecting clams from the deep sea | |
| Born | December 7, 1914 Melrose, Massachusetts |
| Died | April 30, 2000 Waltham, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Malacology |
| Institutions | Museum of Comparative Zoology |
Ruth Dixon Turner (1914 – April 30, 2000) was a pioneering U.S. marine biologist and malacologist. She was the world's expert on Teredinidae or shipworms, a taxonomic family of wood-boring bivalve mollusks which severely damage wooden marine installations.
Turner held the Alexander Agassiz Professorship at Harvard University, and was a Curator of Malacology in the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology, where she also served as co-editor of the scientific journal Johnsonia. She graduated from Bridgewater State College, earned a master's degree at Cornell University and a Ph.D. at Harvard (Radcliffe College) where she specialized in shipworm research.[1][2]
Turner became one of Harvard's first tenured women professors in 1973, and was one of the most academically successful female marine researchers, publishing over 200 scientific articles and a book during her long career. She was also the first female scientist to use the deep ocean research submarine Alvin.[3] Much of Turner's work was done in co-operation with William J. Clench. Among other things they jointly described about 70 new mollusk species.[4]
Organisms named in honor of Turner include two symbiotic bacteria associated with bivalves: Teredinibacter turnerae (isolated from the shipworm Lyrodus pedicellatus),[5] and Candidatus Ruthia magnifica (from the deep-sea bivalve Calyptogena magnifica).[6]
- ^ "Ruth Dixon Turner, professor of biology, dies". Harvard Gazette. 2000-05-04. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
- ^ "Ruth D. Turner; Professor Was Expert on Shipworms". Los Angeles Times. 2000-05-10. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
- ^ "Ruth Turner". Retrieved 2009-10-16.
- ^ Johnson, Richard I. (2003). "Bibliography of Turner's and Clench's contributions to lists of new mollusk species". Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 158: 1–46. doi:10.3099/0027-4100(2003)158[1:MTABOW]2.0.CO;2. S2CID 86033546.
- ^ Distel, Daniel L.; Morrill, Wendy; MacLaren-Toussaint, Noelle; Franks, Dianna; Waterbury, John (November 2002). "Teredinibacter turnerae gen. nov., sp. nov., a dinitrogen-fixing, cellulolytic, endosymbiotic gamma-proteobacterium isolated from the gills of wood-boring molluscs (Bivalvia: Teredinidae)". International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. 52 (Pt 6): 2261–2269. doi:10.1099/00207713-52-6-2261. ISSN 1466-5026. PMID 12508896.
- ^ Roeselers, Guus; Newton, Irene L. G.; Woyke, Tanja; Auchtung, Thomas A.; Dilly, Geoffrey F.; Dutton, Rachel J.; Fisher, Meredith C.; Fontanez, Kristina M.; Lau, Evan (2010-10-31). "Complete genome sequence of Candidatus Ruthia magnifica". Standards in Genomic Sciences. 3 (2): 163–73. doi:10.4056/sigs.1103048. ISSN 1944-3277. PMC 3035367. PMID 21304746.