Professor Roger Cousens: Humans of BioSciences

Meet Professor Roger Cousens, Emeritus Professor in the School of BioSciences. Now formally retired as an employee of the University of Melbourne, he is more active than ever as a scientific writer on the ecology of plants, and an organiser of international ecological workshops.

Like most of our retired Professors, he is still commonly seen around the School and helps to mentor staff. Over four decades, his work revolutionised the field of agricultural weed ecology and was made an honorary member of the Weed Science Society of America in recognition of this (yes, weed societies really exist!). He has written academic books on weed population dynamics and on plant dispersal, with another in the pipeline.

Roger Cousens headshot

Why do you keep going: haven’t you retired?

I didn’t! I haven’t! I just don’t get paid! “Retirement” and my continued association with the School of BioSciences has given me the freedom to continue to be actively involved collaboratively in research, to organise international ecological debates, to invest time in helping early-career researchers and to write another book.

My interest in science has never been greater. The scientific questions are still cascading, leading me into areas that I knew little about and needed more time to think about. I now interact more closely with people in the social sciences, evolutionary and molecular ecology; I have had to learn new ways of thinking, new concepts, and new vocabularies. This has been exhilarating, even though I am capable of doing little myself – other than coordinate, manage accounts and write!

Having spent three decades researching agricultural weeds, I now focus on invasive species in natural habitats. The main topic is the invasion of coastlines around the world by sea-rockets (Cakile maritima and Cakile edentula).

flowering srhub on a beach

Searocket - Image from Wikimedia under Creative Commons license

I came up with a unique theory about the way that insect behaviour drives both the hybridisation and subsequent gene flow back to the parental species, without resulting in any long-term genetic implications for either plant species. We explored the theory using a computer simulation model and received the honour of a special Comment article in the Proceedings of the National Academic of Science of the USA. Since then, we have experimentally confirmed the main assumptions of the model regarding the inheritance of the species breeding systems and the behaviour of the dominant pollinator. All well and good so far: results and theory largely agree. I am now collaborating through an ARC Discovery grant with Monash University and The University of British Columbia to determine what, if any, genetic advantages may be conferred by hybridisation.

What is the motivation behind your international workshops?

Ecology, for me, has fallen well short of my vision as a student of exciting research driven by powerful debate. Look at how we communicate with each other! We write papers, present posters and give short talks at conferences: we sit in parallel rows of chairs in airless, darkened rooms in big cities watching someone talk in front of PowerPoint slides. And a conference centre is about as far removed from ecology (organisms in their environments) as we could get! So I wanted to give our early-career researchers - and myself - the opportunity to experience what a really great debate can add to science. Which meant creating an environment for it. And so, we threw away the rule book!

Thus began the “Andina project" (named after the restaurant where we first floated the idea). Now, every two years we hold workshops in mountainous locations around the world.

a person sits on a stool in the snow with a fishing pole

We have various types of dialogue in the mornings, in rooms with large windows: no formal presentations; no PowerPoint. Every afternoon we go hiking (“free-range walk-shopping”). We walk, breathe fresh air, recharge our mental batteries, talk, watch birds, botanise and become physically exhausted. The evenings involve lots of food and drinks, very informal types of science-related dialogue, plus a few games. By the end of four days, we know each other so well that we can have the most incredible, open, honest and critical debates that you could imagine! And we write about the ideas and start new collaborations. I now regard these meetings, perhaps even more than my own research outputs, as my most important contribution to science!

roger cousens is smiling and holds a small crab by the claw

What do you enjoy doing outside of science?

I have always played lots of sport, including badminton, rugby, hockey and cricket, although mostly not very well. Then I tried lawn bowls and eventually ended up playing in Division 1. I wish I had tried it earlier in life: not all bowlers are old fogies, or quiet and reserved, and it is a great tactical sport. I take a lot of photographs, mostly close-ups of wild flowers and increasingly of birds. I will never make an outstanding photographer, but I try very hard and spend lots of money on gear: I take photos like a scientist rather than as an artist! See what you think.

a bird nesting in sand with a bee and a plant behind itMy other pastimes are listening to folk and classical music (sadly, I am neither vocally nor instrumentally gifted), gardening, travelling, walking, theatre, drinking real beer, reading crime novels, and watching TV while lying on the sofa. Oh, and watching West Coast Eagles win. In my youth, I was a Morris dancer (a ritual form of English folk dancing done by men) -  my party-piece was jumping backwards and forwards over a stick held between my two hands – and other, social folk dancing.