| RefNo | EC/1959/17 |
| Previous numbers | Cert XVI, 253; A06007 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Richards, Owain Westmacott: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Description | Certificate of Election |
| Citation | The most outstanding contributions by O. W. Richards concern systematics and biology of Hymenoptera. His monographs of several groups in which morphological characters are related to the mode of life of the insects are models of modern taxonomic research. Studies on bees and wasps included statistical examination of the economy of their colony organisation and provided a basis for an original theory of evolution of their social habits and of types and sizes of colonies, which were shown to be related to maximum efficiency in various climates. Another important group of his researches concerns dynamics of insect field populations, investigated systematically, with original methods of quantitative estimations and critical evaluation of results, on the cabbage butterfly, a grain-feeding moth and grasshoppers. Five-year studies on grasshoppers resulted in the fullest picture available for any insect of quantitative annual changes in a natural population, with the analysis of factors controlling the numbers at each stage of the life-cycle. |
| Proposers | From Personal Knowledge: B P Uvarov; V B Wigglesworth; W H Thorpe; J B S Haldane; P A Buxton; C B Williams; C S elton; Hugh Scott; W R Thompson; George Salt |
| AccessStatus | Open |
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Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA1989 | Richards; Owain Westmacott (1901 - 1984) | 1901 - 1984 |