John Alan Elix

John Alan Elix
Born1941 Edit this on Wikidata
Awards
Academic career
FieldsOrganic chemistry
lichenology
taxonomy,
plant physiology
Institutions
Doctoral studentsSimone Henrica J.J. Louwhoff
Author abbrev. (botany)Elix
Scholia has a profile for John Alan Elix (Q21339171).

John Alan (Jack) Elix (born 1941)[1] emeritus professor in chemistry at the Australian National University,[2][3] is an organic chemist who has contributed in many fields: lichenology, lichen chemotaxonomy, plant physiology[2] and biodiversity and natural product chemistry.[3] He has authored 2282 species names,[4] and 67 genera[5] in the field of mycology. Elix edited the exsiccata series Lichenes Australasici exsiccati.[6]

The standard author abbreviation Elix is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[7]

Education

His first degree, B.Sc., and his Ph.D. were both in organic chemistry from the University of Adelaide. This was followed by post-doctoral years at the University of Cambridge and then a D.Sc. in natural products chemistry from the Australian National University.[8]

Career

Elix spent a post doctoral year in 1966 at Cambridge, returning to Australia in 1967 to a lectureship in chemistry at the ANU.[1] He retired as professor of chemistry in 2002,[1] becoming professor emeritus.[3]

By 1975 he had already published several papers on the organic chemistry of lichens,[9][10][11] and ultimately leading to work on the evolution, taxonomy and phylogeny of lichens.[12][13][14] For his work on lichens, Elix was awarded the Acharius Medal in 2004 and the Nancy T Burbidge Medal in 2015.[1] He is a prolific author (or coauthor) of new fungal and lichen species, having formally described about 1147 as of December 2017.[15]

He was honoured in 1997, when lichenologist Helge Thorsten Lumbsch published Elixiaceae which is a family of fungi in the order Umbilicariales. It contains two genera, Meridianelia, and the type genus, Elixia, which is named after John Alan Elix.[16]

He was also honoured again in 2004, with Melanelixia, which is a genus of foliose lichens in the family Parmeliaceae,[17] and in 2016 with Astrothelium elixii, a rare bark-dwelling Bolivian lichen.[18]

Selected publications

  • Elix, John A; Ernst-Russell, Karin D (1993), A catalogue of standardized thin layer chromatographic data and biosynthetic relationships for lichen substances, Australian National University

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Cohn, Helen (2017). "Elix, John Alan (Jack) - Biographical entry - Encyclopedia of Australian Science". www.eoas.info. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Professor John Elix". researchers.anu.edu.au. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  3. ^ a b c "John ELIX | Emeritus Professor | DSc | Australian National University, Canberra | ANU | Research School of Chemistry (RSC)". ResearchGate. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  4. ^ "Mycobank:Advanced search (author contains Elix & rank=sp.)". Mycobank. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  5. ^ "Using an advanced search (author name contains "Elix" AND rank=genus)". www.mycobank.org. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  6. ^ "Lichenes Australasici exsiccati: IndExs ExsiccataID=828430592". IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae. Botanische Staatssammlung München. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
  7. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Elix.
  8. ^ Nash, T.H. "IAL - Acharius Medallists: Jack Elix". www.lichenology.org. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  9. ^ John A. Elix (1975). "2'-O-Methylphysodic acid and hydroxyphysodic acid: two new depsidones from the lichen Hypogymnia billardieri" (PDF). Australian Journal of Chemistry. 28 (4): 849–858. ISSN 0004-9425. Wikidata Q104151554.
  10. ^ JA Elix; U Engkaninan (1975). "The structure of galbinic acid. A depsidone from the lichen Usnea undulata". Australian Journal of Chemistry. 28 (8): 1793–1797. doi:10.1071/CH9751793. ISSN 0004-9425. Wikidata Q78432536.
  11. ^ John A. Elix; David A. Jackman; Melvin V. Sargent (1974). "Structure of the lichen depsidone pannarin". Journal of the Chemical Society. Chemical communications: 892–893. ISSN 0022-4936. Wikidata Q104151783.
  12. ^ Steven D Leavitt; Martin Westberg; Matthew P Nelsen; et al. (23 February 2018). "Multiple, Distinct Intercontinental Lineages but Isolation of Australian Populations in a Cosmopolitan Lichen-Forming Fungal Taxon, Psora decipiens (Psoraceae, Ascomycota)". Frontiers in Microbiology. 9: 283. doi:10.3389/FMICB.2018.00283. ISSN 1664-302X. PMC 5829036. PMID 29527197. Wikidata Q51148234.
  13. ^ S. Y. Kondratyuk; I. Kärnefelt; A. Thell; J. A. Elix; J. Kim; A. S. Kondratiuk; J.-S. Hur (September 2015). "Brownlielloideae, a new subfamily in the Teloschistaceae (Lecanoromycetes, Ascomycota)". Acta Botanica Hungarica. 57 (3–4): 321–343. doi:10.1556/034.57.2015.3-4.6. ISSN 0236-6495. Wikidata Q54800616.
  14. ^ Pradeep K Divakar; Ana Crespo; Mats Wedin; et al. (24 August 2015). "Evolution of complex symbiotic relationships in a morphologically derived family of lichen-forming fungi". New Phytologist. 208 (4): 1217–1226. doi:10.1111/NPH.13553. ISSN 0028-646X. PMID 26299211. Wikidata Q35753148.
  15. ^ Lücking, Robert (2020). "Three challenges to contemporaneous taxonomy from a licheno-mycological perspective". Megataxa. 1 (1): 78–103 [85]. doi:10.11646/megataxa.1.1.16.
  16. ^ Lumbsch, H.T. (1997). "Systematic studies in the suborder Agyriineae (Lecanorales)". Journal of the Hattori Botanical Laboratory. 83: 62.
  17. ^ Blanco, Oscar; Crespo, Ana; Divakar, Pradeep K.; Esslinger, Theodore L.; Hawksworth, David L.; Lumbsch, H. Thorsten (2004). "Melanelixia and Melanohalea, two new genera segregated from Melanelia (Parmeliaceae) based on molecular and morphological data" (PDF). Mycological Research. 108 (8): 873–884. doi:10.1017/S0953756204000723. PMID 15449592.
  18. ^ Flakus, Adam; Kukwa, Martin; Aptroot, André (2016). "Trypetheliaceae of Bolivia: an updated checklist with descriptions of twenty-four new species". The Lichenologist. 48 (6): 661–692. doi:10.1017/s0024282915000559.

Further reading

  • Kantvilas, G; McCarthy, Patrick M. (Patrick Martin), 1955-; Louwhoff, Simone Henrica J. J; Elix, John A; Wirth, V (2001), Lichenological contributions in honour of Jack Elix, J. Cramer, ISBN 978-3-443-58057-5{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)