Robert Karl Johnson, 1944–2000

Robert Karl Johnson, 1944–2000

Robert Karl Johnson Professor of Biology, University and College of Charleston, died unexpectedly on 11 May 000, four days after his 56th birthday. He had battled the effects of hepatitis for six years after contracting it during a trip to India.

Bob's role in the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists has been a major one, a contribution that cannot be overstated. At the time of his death, he was serving as the Secretary of ASIH. He had served four terms on the Board of Governors and as Managing Editor of Copeia from 1984 to 1990. He also served on many ASIH committees including the Editorial Policy Committee, Executive Committee, Ichthyological Collections Committee, Long Range Planning and Finance Committee, Nominating Committee (including a term as chair), Raney Award Committee, and Storer Award Committee. Additionally, he served as the society representative to the Association of Systematic Collections. In 1982, Bob served as the local cohost for the annual meeting of ASIH in Dekalb, Illinois; in 1990, he again hosted the annual meeting at Charleston, South Carolina.

Bob was born in Worthington, Minnesota, to Ingeborg Bergliot Braaten and Joseph Palmer Johnson while his father was in the U.S. Navy somewhere in the South Pacific. After World War II, Bob and his parents moved to North Dakota for a short time and then to Salem, Oregon. In 1952, they sold their home in Salem and moved to Tujunga, California; they later moved back to Salem and then back again to Tujunga. In the summer of 1954, his father took a job at Big Rock Ranch in Llano, California, in the Mojave Desert, and this is where Bob developed his love of wildlife and water. By this time, all his family and friends had begun to call him “The Professor.” The family eventually moved back to Tujunga, and Bob graduated from Verdugo Hills High School in 1962.

He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles receiving his A.B. degree, summa cum laude, in 1966. During his years there, Bob was a four-year recipient of a California State Scholarship, received the Selle Award as the outstanding biology major, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While at Occidental, he was trained in ichthyology by John Stephens and worked along with Stephens, John McCosker, and Gerald Key on a research project involving the comparative ecology of three blenny species in the genus Hypsoblennius, which was published in 1970 in Ecological Monographs. He also was a recipient of a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship.

Bob then entered Scripps Institution of Oceanography to begin graduate work with Richard Rosenblatt, being supported by a National Science Foundation National Graduate Fellowship, where he finished in 1971 and received his Ph.D. in 1972, [dissertation entitled “A revision of the alepisauroid family Scopelarchidae (Pisces: Myctophiformes)”].

After graduate school, Bob took a position as a research associate in the Department of Fisheries at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, where he worked on striped bass from 1971–1972. At that time, he moved to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, as an assistant curator in the Division of Fishes. In 1975, he became an associate curator and then became curator in 1981. From 1978 to 1980, and again from 1985 to 1986, Bob served as the Head of the Division; he also served as Chair of the Department of Zoology from 1981 to 1984. While at the Field Museum, Bob played a major role in expeditions for members, leading several tours to the Gulf of California, Honduras, and Alaska.

During his years at the Field Museum, he was an adjunct professor at Northern Illinois University, serving on a number of graduate committees. He also was a member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, and he taught the Biology of Marine Fishes course twice at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories. Also, while at the Field Museum, he met and married the love of his life, Patricia Peyton, whom he affectionately referred to as Patty.

In 1986, Bob decided he enjoyed teaching so much that he would like to move from the Field Museum to a university position. He, therefore, accepted a position at the College of Charleston as Professor of Biology, Associate Director of the Grice Marine Biological Laboratory, and Director of the Graduate Program in Marine Biology. As usual, he jumped in with both feet. In addition to his administrative duties, Bob taught a wide range of courses including ichthyology, biological oceanography, general oceanography, tropical marine biology, zoogeography, elements of biology, general biology, general ecology, and various graduate special topics courses. Bob remained at Charleston until his untimely death.

Bob's first publication was in Copeia in 1966 and dealt with chaenopsid blennies, resulting from his undergraduate work with John Stephens. This was followed by many more Copeia papers, now mostly on midwater fishes relating to his doctoral studies. This continued to be the focus of his research until May 1975 when he joined Bob and Fran Miller and Dave and Terry Greenfield on a three-week collecting trip along the coast of Honduras. This trip reawakened Bob's earlier interest in blennies, and the next year he described a new chaenopsid blenny that had been taken on that trip. This trip also began his long association with Dave Greenfield studying the ecology and systematics of marine fishes in Belize and Honduras with his most recent publication on these fishes in 1999. Even though Bob became interested in coral-reef fishes, he continued to work with his “little black fishes,” publishing numerous papers on various groups. As recently as 1998, he published three papers on midwater fishes, two in a volume on pelagic biogeography.

Bob truly loved ASIH and put a tremendous amount of time and effort into the society. When the society needed a procedures manual so that new officers did not have to reinvent the wheel each time, Bob produced an outstanding document. For many years, future officers and committee chairs will have Bob to thank for making their jobs much easier. More recently, he undertook the job of Society Secretary with the same vigor. The loss to our society is great, and the personal loss that his many colleagues feel is even greater. On a more personal note, I will miss Bob's smiling face on future collecting trips, his counsel as a coauthor and colleague, and I will especially miss him as a close friend.

The Biology Department of the College of Charleston has established a memorial fund in Bob's name. The fund will provide an award each year to an outstanding student in marine biology. Donations should be payable to the College of Charleston Foundation, noting that the contribution is for the Robert K. Johnson Memorial Award, and can be sent to College of Charleston Foundation, 66 George Street, Charleston, South Carolina 29424.