Daphne Gail Fautin

Daphne Gail Fautin
Born(1946-05-25)25 May 1946
Died12 March 2021(2021-03-12) (aged 74)
Alma materBeloit College (BS)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Known forExtensive work and publications studying and classifying sea anemones and related genera
Scientific career
FieldsInvertebrate zoology
InstitutionsUniversity of Kansas, University of Kansas Natural History Museum
A sea anemone

Daphne Gail Fautin (25 May 1946 – 12 March 2021) was an American professor of invertebrate zoology at the University of Kansas, specializing in sea anemones and symbiosis. She is world-renowned for her extensive work studying and classifying sea anemones and related species.[1]

Education

Fautin received her B.S. in biology (magna cum laude) in 1966 from Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin (where she taught as a visiting professor in the mid-1980s), and her Ph.D. in zoology in 1972 from the University of California, Berkeley. Her Ph.D. dissertation was "Natural History of the Sea Anemone Epiactis prolifera Verrill, 1869, with Special Reference to Its Reproductive Biology."[2]

Career

Fautin published numerous scientific articles and texts—including co-authoring Encyclopædia Britannica's entry on cnidarians—and her publications have been widely cited by other researchers in the field.[3] From 1995 to 2014, Fautin served as the first faculty-curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum (now called the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum).[4]

In her career, Fautin personally identified at least 19 new species.[1] Fautin has been called "the world authority on [sea] anemones",[1] by Prof. J. Frederick Grassle of Rutgers University, who led the international Census of Marine Life completed in 2010. As part of the Census, she co-created with her husband, Prof. R. W. Buddemeier of the Kansas Geological Survey, an extensive database of hexacorals and related species.[1][5][6] This database was later absorbed into Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) and World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).[7] Fautin was a founding member of OBIS's first international committee. Furthermore, she served as the vice-chair of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) science committee.[8]

Fautin served as vice president and commissioner of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, overseeing the naming of new species.[3] She served as the editor of the scientific journal Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics (1992-2001).[9]

Although she lived and worked in landlocked Lawrence, Kansas, she felt that working from dry land was not a serious impediment, stating that "you only need to be near an airport, not the ocean."[1] She died on March 12, 2021.[10]

Eponym

An example of Relicanthus daphneae, named after Fautin

A large sea anemone-like cnidarian species, Relicanthus daphneae, was named in Fautin's honor. Originally called Boloceroides daphneae, it was renamed to Relicanthus daphneae after it was discovered (using DNA-based identification techniques) to belong to a previously unknown cnidarian order.[11][12][13]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Rombeck, Terry (March 22, 2004). "KU marine life expert works from dry land". Lawrence Journal-World.
  2. ^ "Dr. Daphne Fautin Curriculum Vitae". University of Kansas Natural History Museum. Archived from the original on July 17, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2014.
  3. ^ a b Lynch, Brendan M. (December 5, 2013). "Reinventing the high court of organism names". phys.org.
  4. ^ "Invertebrate Zoology History". KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, University of Kansas. Archived from the original on 2026-01-25. Retrieved 2026-01-25.
  5. ^ Fautin, Daphne Gail (July 2005). "Three Species of Intertidal Sea Anemones (Anthozoa: Actiniidae) from the Tropical Pacific: Description of Anthopleura buddemeieri, n. sp., with Remarks on Anthopleura asiatica and Gyractis sesere" (PDF). Pacific Science Center. 59 (3): 379–391. doi:10.1353/psc.2005.0035. hdl:10125/24184. S2CID 33694961.
  6. ^ "Hexacorallians of the world | Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS)". obis.org. Retrieved 2026-01-25.
  7. ^ "In memoriam Daphne Fautin | Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS)". Ocean Biodiversity Information System. 26 March 2021. Archived from the original on 2025-11-17. Retrieved 2026-01-25.
  8. ^ "Ocean Biodiversity Information System". obis.org. Retrieved 2025-02-11.
  9. ^ Futuyma, Douglas J. (2 November 2019). "AREES at 50: A Semicentennial Celebration". Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. 50 (1): 1–26. doi:10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110218-024647.
  10. ^ "Daphne Gail Fautin".
  11. ^ Daly, Marymegan (December 2005). "Boloceroides Daphneae, a new species of giant sea anemone". Marine Biology. 148 (6): 1241–1247. doi:10.1007/s00227-005-0170-7. S2CID 85396602.
  12. ^ Howell, Elizabeth (May 18, 2014). "'Sea Anemone' Reclassified as New Kind of Animal". NBC News.
  13. ^ Rodriguez, Estefania; et al. (May 7, 2014). "Hidden among Sea Anemones: The First Comprehensive Phylogenetic Reconstruction of the Order Actiniaria (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) Reveals a Novel Group of Hexacorals". PLOS ONE. 9 (5) e96998. Bibcode:2014PLoSO...996998R. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096998. PMC 4013120. PMID 24806477.
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