Contributions to Science by Institut d'Estudis Catalans

VOLUME 11 | ISSUE 1 | JUNE 2015

Volume 11 | Issue 1 | June 2015

OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL

Pius Font i Quer (1888–1964)

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FRONT COVER

BACK COVER

The Medes archipelago has seven islets and a surface area of about 23 hectares. Located just a mile off the coast in front of L’Estartit beach (Girona, Catalonia), the Medes Islands archipelago is part of the Montgrí, Medes Islands and Baix Ter Nature Park. The Medes Islands has become a reference point for research on marine ecology in the Mediterranean. There have been described many species inhabiting these islands (mostly in the submerged parts of the ecosystem). There has been monitored the evolution of the associated natural systems and the impact of human activities (fishing, diving, nautical tourism, etc.), both to the whole ecosystem and to very well known and characteristic species, as Neptune grass (Posidonia oceanica), Mediterranean violescent gorgonian (Paramuricea clavata), red coral (Corallium rubrum), and Mediterranean dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus). The results of these studies performed on the Medes Islands during the last forty years suggest that only through continuous biological checking of the area it will be possible to define the appropriate regulations to ensure the protection and preservation of the Medes islands. (See article by J. Ros and JM Gili “Four decades of research on the Medes Islands”, pp75-83 of this issue.)

Pius Font i Quer (1888–1963) was born in Lleida, Catalonia. He was assistant professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Barcelona, professor of pharmaceutical botany at the recently created Autonomous University of Barcelona (1932), and director of the Museum of Natural Sciences in Barcelona. He was founder and director of the Botanical Institute (1935), that became the main center of Catalan botanical research. He wrote several books: Geografía botánica de la Península Ibérica, 1953; Diccionario de botánica, 1953; Botánica, 1956; Botánica pintoresca, 1960 (partially translated into English); Plantas medicinales, 1962. The Diccionario de Botánica made the largest impact on the scientfic community. Font i Quer’s terminology, although not considered ‘mandatory’, has been used for 50 years by the Institute for Catalan Studies to publish a large number of scientific works on botany, medical sciences, etc. Font i Quer dedicated his life fully to science and to his country. He contributed to research and scientific dissemination, and he played a major role as promoter of the most relevant research centers of Catalan botany. (See article by C. Puche and R. Duro “Pius Font i Quer, the greatest Catalan botanist”, pp121-124 of this issue.)

Volume 11 | Issue 1 | June 2015

Editorial Board

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ricard Guerrero

Biological Sciences Section, IEC

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Salvador Alegret

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Ramon Gomis

Science and Technology Section, IEC

Biological Sciences Section, IEC

EDITORIAL BOARD The Science and Technology and Biological Sciences Sections:

Joaquim Agulló, Technical University of Catalonia • Josep Amat, Technical University of Catalonia • Francesc Asensi, University of Valencia • Damià Barceló, Spanish National Research Council (Barcelona) • Carles Bas, Institute of Marine Sciences-CSIC (Barcelona) • Pilar Bayer, University of Barcelona • Xavier Bellés, Spanish National Research Council (Barcelona) • Jaume Bertranpetit, Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) • Eduard Bonet, ESADE (Barcelona) • Joaquim Casal, Technical University of Catalonia • Alícia Casals, Technical University of Catalonia • Josep Castells, University of Barcelona • Jacint Corbella, University of Barcelona • Jordi Corominas, Technical University of Catalonia • Michel Delseny, University of Perpinyà • Josep M. Domènech, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Mercè Durfort, University of Barcelona • Marta Estrada, Institute of Marine Sciences-CSIC (Barcelona) • Gabriel Ferraté, Technical University of Catalonia • Ramon Folch, Institute for Catalan Studies • Màrius Foz, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Jesús A. Garcia-Sevilla, University of the Balearic Islands • Lluís Garcia-Sevilla, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Joan Genescà, National Autonomous University of Mexico • Evarist Giné, University of Connecticut (USA) • Joan Girbau, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Pilar González-Duarte, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Francesc González-Sastre, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Joaquim Gosálbez, University of Barcelona • Albert Gras, University of Alacant • Gonzalo Halffter, National Polytechnic Institute (Mexico) • Lluís Jofre, Technical University of Catalonia • Joan Jofre, University of Barcelona • David Jou, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Ramon Lapiedra, University of Valencia • Àngel Llàcer, Hospital Clinic of Valencia • Josep Enric Llebot, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Jordi Lleonart, Spanish National Research Council (Barcelona) • Xavier Llimona, University of Barcelona • Antoni Lloret, Institute for Catalan Studies • Abel Mariné, University of Barcelona • Joan Massagué, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York (USA) • Federico Mayor-Zaragoza, Foundation for a Culture of Peace (Madrid) • Adélio Machado, University of Porto (Portugal) • Gabriel Navarro, University of Valencia • Jaume Pagès, Technical University of Catalonia • Ramon Parés, University of Barcelona • Àngel Pellicer, New York University (USA) • Juli Peretó, University of Valencia • F.Xavier Pi-Sunyer, Harvard University (USA) • Norberto Piccinini, Politecnico di Torino (Italy) • Jaume Porta, University of Lleida • Pere Puigdomènech, Spanish National Research Council (Barcelona) • Jorge-Óscar Rabassa, National University of La Plata (Argentina) • Pere Roca, University of Barcelona • Joan Rodés, University of Barcelona • Joandomènec Ros, University of Barcelona • Xavier Roselló, Technical University of Catalonia • Claude Roux, University of AixMarseille III (France) • Pere Santanach, University of Barcelona • Francesc Serra, Autonomous University of Barcelona • David Serrat, University of Barcelona • Boris P. Sobolev, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia • Carles Solà, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Joan Antoni Solans, Technical University of Catalonia • Rolf Tarrach, University of Luxembourg • Jaume Terradas, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Antoni Torre, Obra Cultural de l’Alguer • Josep Vaquer, University of Barcelona • Josep Vigo, University of Barcelona • Miquel Vilardell, Autonomous University of Barcelona • Jordi Vives, Hospital Clinic of Barcelona

Volume 11 | Issue 1 | June2015

Contents

FEATURE ARTICLE Solans JA

The university crisis fifty years ago: The urbanization of the Bellaterra Campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona

DISTINGUISHED LECTURES Estrada M

The 2014 Ramon Margalef Prize to David Tilman: An innate curiosity about nature

Tilman D

Biodiversity: From evolutionary origins to ecosystem functioning

Guerrero R

The BKH-AE Women’s Week, 2006–2015

El-Awady N

Arab Spring or long desolated Arab Winter?

Skinner N

The Mediterranean in the crossroad: Past, present and future. 2014 Lectures at the BKH-AE

Mayer i Olivé M

The demography of the first Mediterranean global network: The Roman Empire

Chica C

Alexandria: Lighthouse of science and humanities

Ros J, Gili JM

Four decades of research on the Medes Islands

Dexeus A

The bones of our ancestors. The end of burials in churches in the late 18th century

Rius-Piniés M

On science and the construction of identities: Remembering Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039)

Massó J

103

The theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design. The Nobel Prize in Economics 2012 for Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley

Corbella C, Puigagut J

113

Microbial fuel cells implemented in constructed wetlands: Fundamentals, current research and future perspectives

Puche C, Duro R

121

RESEARCH REVIEWS

HISTORICAL CORNER Pius Font i Quer (1888–1964), the greatest Catalan botanist

FEATURE ARTICLE Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

OPENAACCESS

www.cat-science.cat

CONTRIB SCI 11:1-6 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.207

The university crisis fifty years ago: The urbanization of the Bellaterra Campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona Joan Antoni Solans President, Section of Science and Technology, Institute for Catalan Studies, Barcelona, Catalonia Correspondence: Joan Antoni Solans Institut d’Estudis Catalans Carme, 47 08001 Barcelona, Catalonia Tel. +34-932171620 E-mail: joanantoni@solans.org

Summary. The economic growth experienced by western countries after World War II led to the increase in birth rates and as a result, the number of young people with the possibility of university studies also increased. The higher number of university students trained in both sciences and humanities, added to the disappointment arising from the foreign affairs politics of some of these countries (mainly the United States), favored a change in social values that rocked the established regimes. The confrontation between the new social conceptions defended by the university community and governments in Europe and the United States were made clearly visible in the riots against the Vietnam War, in the United States, and the so-called “French May” in Europe. Result of all this was the beginning of the change of thinking universities as engines of social change and, consequently, a change in the universities. In Spain, then dominated by the regime of General Franco, the change came a little later and culminated in a plan of new universities that gave rise to the creation, among others, of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. [Contrib Sci 11:1-6 (2015)]

Introduction Twenty years after the end of World War II, economic development generated by urban and industrial reconstruction and the Marshall Plan (the European Recovery Program) allowed that, at the end of the four years of its application, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of some countries reached the same level as before the war. In Germany, the recovery was due to monetary (the implementation of the Deutsche

Mark) and social democratic measures developed by liberals (Ludwig Erhard, chancellor from 1963 to 1966 and father of the “German miracle”), that led to a considerable increase in the economic power of the middle and working classes. The result of the application of the so-called social market economy (Soziale Marktwirtschaft) was that a large number of young people had access to university studies. This number was greatly increased by demography, the phenomenon commonly referred to as the “baby boom”, the notable increase in

Keywords: Autonomous University of Barcelona (Bellaterra) · model of campus · Vicenç Villar Palasí (1920–1974) · urban planning · “French May” ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:1-6 (2015)

Urbanization of the UAB campus

The university crisis in the mid-1960s in Spain

the birth rate and the consequent demographic recovery that occurs naturally as a reaction to crises or wars. In developed countries the increase in the birth rate reached 22% compared to the previous period, while in developing countries rose to 40%. In France, for example, the number of students enrolled rose from 76,385 for the academic year of 1940–41 to 363,000 during the year 1964–65, an increase of 475%.

The constitution of the Democratic Student Union of the University of Barcelona (UB) (Sindicat Democràtic d’Estudiants de la Universitat de Barcelona, SDEUB) in 1966 [2] and the Democratic Student Union of the University of Madrid (SDEUM) one year after, were supported by several intellectuals, teachers and professors, and showed the failure of the ideological and cultural regime. Dissidence was expected in the working class but never in the middle and upper classes from which most of the students came at the time. The crisis of the official falangist students’ union (Sindicato de Estudiantes Universitarios, SEU), created in the early 1940’s just after the far right won the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), developed in the late 1950’s first in Madrid (1957) and later in other university cities, mainly in Barcelona. General Franco’s regime acted violently, and did so by applying repressive measures such as sanctions, expulsions of both students and professors, arrests, torture, closure of schools and even universities. To prevent the Spring of 1969 in Barcelona becoming the continuation of the “French May” (under the fear that when Paris sneezes, Europe gets a cold), Franco’s government in Madrid declared on 24 January 1969, after the students’ assault of the rectorate of the UB (17 January, 1969), the “state of exception.” In this way the government had exceptional measures of repression to prevent a new “May” in Spain. Simultaneously, a plan of new universities already had been engaged nine months earlier, with the creation of three “autonomous” universities, those of Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao. In the case of Barcelona, the endeavor was commissioned to the Education Minister’s brother, Vincenç Villar Palasí (Valencia, 1920–Arenys de Munt, Barcelona, 1974), full professor (“catedràtic”) of biochemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the UB, and deputy mayor for the Barcelona City Council, which directed the Commission that would constitute the new university and manage its implementation (July 1968) (Fig. 1).

The student’s situation in the United States This improvement of social classes, along with the women’s liberation movement, sexual liberation, the emergence of new lysergic drugs and new and youth movements (hippies), generated changes in the postulates of Marxism in the advanced capitalist societies. Herbert Marcuse synthesized that change into the image of the new “one-dimensional man” [1]. The Vietnam War (1959–1975), the first event of war with television coverage, had a huge destabilizing effect on the university environment and created an explosive situation on college campuses in the USA. The situation became worse by the system of forced recruitment undertaken with a brazen classist component. The “Vietnam syndrome” led to a dramatic increase of pacifist movements in the USA, which was fueled, in turn, by the hippie movement. Universities in the US were the scenery of demonstrations against the USA involvement in a war that was never declared and which, for that reason, according to many was unjustified. The coincidence of this situation and the period of greatest prosperity gave to youth the needed safety and possibilities that explain why a profound change in habits was happening.

The “French May” The values crisis erupted in Europe in 1968 with the events of May in Paris. The trigger was the location of the new university in Nanterre, Paris X, next to a slum of 14,000 shanties and to the facilities of the Regie Renault. The general strike, followed by nine million workers throughout the country, questioned the Fifth Republic presidentialism and forced General de Gaulle to seek refuge for a few days in Baden-Baden with General Massu. Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China, the war in the departments of Algeria, Oran and Constantine, and the anti-imperialist revolution of Fidel Castro in Cuba were the pretexts of an ideological movement that expressed under slogans such as “imagination to power” or “forbidden to forbid”. www.cat-science.cat

Location, land acquisition and planning The fact that Villar chaired the executive committee of the Planning Commission of Barcelona, explains why he asked Albert Serratosa (1927–2015), deputy director of that agency, and me, at the time inspector of planning services, for a judgment on where to locate the new large equipment. We were also asked for the land acquisition procedures and for 2

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:1-6 (2015)

Contrib Sci

Solans

Fig. 1. Vincenç Villar Palasí (Valencia, 1920–Arenys de Munt, Barcelona, 1974)

the plan of arrangement study, and all this, moreover, in the shortest time. For Villar (and, I guess, especially for his brother the Minister) time was critical. He reported to the promoting commission, which met every Thursday at the headquarters of the regime’s central organization for research in Spain, the National Council for Scientific Research (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) in Egipcíaques Street (Barcelona), chaired by Villar and with economist Antoni Serra Ramoneda acting as secretary. That commission quickly reached the needed agreements to set up the new university, both in its physical and educational aspects. Although it has been written that the location in the town of Cerdanyola del Vallès (about 25 km from the city of Barcelona) was due to the desire of dispersing students and to reduce the protests against the regime of Franco, this is not true. To look for a 220-ha free place to install the new facility inside a premier metropolitan territorial axis, and with an established public transport network that would give good levels of access to the area, was not easy, mainly considering how the central administration used to treat Catalonia in infrastructures. It is true that when it was planned, the B-30 (the metropolitan axis forming the backbone of the metropolitan system) has not yet been built, and that the agreement for the Tibidabo’s tunnels with the “Autopistas y Túneles Barcelona, SA” (TABASA; currently, Tabasa Infrastructure and Mobility Services, SA) company, had not yet een reached; it www.cat-science.cat

would place in November 1969. Neither had constructon of the highway to Sabadell started, nor other highways planned around Barcelona, but these projects were drafted and well known. In addition to having the Bellaterra train station, pertaining to the Sabadell and Terrassa railway, we had Cerdanyola station of the Papiol-Mollet railway branch, which is adjacent to the university campus, and we wanted to connect that station to the Sabadell railway at the Riviere (currently Moreda Riviere Trefilerías, SA) facilities’ surroundings. That demand was never approved by the Administration (only on 23 June, 2011, that railway started to be usable for passengers) and transportation had to be done with old and unsuitable buses from Cerdanyola train station. Acquiring the land was facilitated by an earlier acquisition of 29 ha made by the planning commission to the castle of Sant Marçal, at the entrance of Can Domènech, Can Miró, and the Moranta valleys. That allowed us to determine, by mutual agreement, the price of expropriation of the remaining lands (Fig. 2). The good price for that purchase was due to the loss suffered by the owner as a result of his investment in the Tuca rail station, in Vielha (Aran Valley, north of Catalonia) and the rumors of the future location of a filling station of the highway on their lands. We needed an advance of funds from Sabadell financial institutions to purchase the land for the first phase, the large valley (96 ha), before the Ministry transferred to us the right amount. It should be pointed out that, among the criteria that we considered for their location, 3

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11: 1-6 (2015)

Contrib Sci

Urbanization of the UAB campus

Fig. 2. (A) Aerial views of the intended area for the installation of the campus of the UAB in 1965, before the railway by-pass of PapiolMollet, and (B) at present, year 2015.

was the desire to preserve from urbanization a large valley whose great values, both in landscape and environmental, were threatened due to its location, close to the residential Can Serraperera (Cerdanyola del Vallès).

• University of Bath, UK. 76 ha, 4 km from the center, 5,000 students. • University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. 66 ha, 3 km from the center, 3,000 students. • Tougaloo College, Jackson, Mississippi, USA. 200 ha, 12 km from the center, 2,500 students. • University of Dublin, Ireland. 114 ha, 4.5 km from the center, 4,728 students. • University of Odense, Denmark. 475 ha, 2 km from the center, 6,000 students. • Frei University of Berlin, Germany. 12 ha, 12 km from the center, 3,600 students. • University of Stockholm, Sweden. 15 ha, 4.5 km from the center, 20,000 students. • Scarborough College, Toronto, Canada. 80 ha, 36 km from the center, 12,000 students.

The guidelines of the new model of university For the making of the especial plan, I asked to hire two architects who helped me to do so because, in addition to reporting the pending files every morning, I was responsible, during the afternoon, along with Manuel de Solà-Morales (1939– 2012), for managing the works for the delayed revision of the Barcelona regional plan of 1953. Lluís Millet i Serra and Juan Antonio Paez were the architects who worked with me on the subject, a subject heavily discussed at that time due to the proposals carried out in many countries to face the university overflow. The projects below were considered as potential models:

Talking about a new campus might seem, at first glance, a mistake, because it was going to incorporate an Anglo-Saxon model of university when we wanted the Latin or Central Europe model. But the objective of integration within the socalled directional center as a qualifying element of the peripheral suburban Barcelona (which we felt at the time a key objective for requalification and to serve the rest of the metropolitan system and Catalonia as a whole) explained that we could not rely on an urban model where we did not have it, or where the established one would not allowed us to give the adequate support because the low level of urbanization and marginal uses around Barcelona. The growth of munici-

• Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. 485 ha, 12 km from the center, 18,000 students. • University of Bochum, Germany. 540 ha, 5 km from the center, 10,000 students. • Philipps University in Marburg, Germany. 250 ha, 3 km from the center, 10,000 students. • University of York, UK. 72 ha, 2 km from the center, 3,000 students. www.cat-science.cat

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:1-6 (2015)

Contrib Sci

Solans

Fig. 3. Revision of the Barcelona regional plan of 1953. Final building and area distribution.

palities in the metropolitan area in the 1960’s was miserable. The university would be a key catalyst to attract other economic activities around it, and that was the centerpiece of the adopted decision. Therefore, the campus model, besides allowing us to get an appropriate provision of land, also allowed us to place it within the required model of decentralization and self-sufficiency. Therefore, and to counter it, the drafted plan incorporated a central promenade for pedestrians with shops and services both personal and cultural, as well as student residences that the Spanish government did not include in the executed project. Unlike what was subsequently done, with Sert residence first and, on the pretext of the Olympics held in Barcelona, with homes in Can Domènech valley, these dorms were originally not segregated (Figs. 3 and 4). From the educational point of view, the wanted model was not that of disaggregated schools, understood as independent units with no contact between them, but a university based on superimposed departmental structures. A second component to consider was the structural change represented by moving from an elite university to a mass university, not only because of the dimensional aspects of buildings and their components, but also due to the kind of professionals we will train. The structure of the university had to allow www.cat-science.cat

permeability with outdoor experiences, foster the symbiosis between the centers of scientific and applied research and the industrial network. All this led to a scheme that ordering classrooms, workshops, laboratories and research centers (the later on the axis of the ridge road to allow them greater organizational independence) throughout the various levels of both ridges of the valley had to allow maximum flexibility in allocating the designed open spaces. The location for the rectorate and direction centers was keyed to the divisor point of the Can Miró and La Moranta valleys. So was the location of the civic square, built as the deck of a parking facility at this fulcrum of the planning. The only differences between the partial plan approved and the final urbanism were that, regarding the geological report of the plan, the proposed building structure, equal to the finally built, was asymmetric with respect to the valley to avoid the problems generated by some sloped layers of clay superimposed on some layers of gravel on the right bank of the valley. The project, commissioned by the builder company Huarte to Xavier Subias (1926–2013), winner of the ministerial contest, did not take into account these findings and planned a symmetrical occupation of the valley along the pedestrian promenade. This mistake forced a halt to the construction of buildings on the right edge to prevent the highlighted struc5

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11: 1-6 (2015)

Contrib Sci

Urbanization of the UAB campus

Fig. 4. Revision of the Barcelona regional plan of 1953. Road network and green areas.

tural problems. Everything was going in such a hurry! In any case, the new schools were ready for the 1971–72 academic year, and lectures started in the Bellaterra Campus in early October 1971, at least at the Faculties of Sciences and Humanities. Franco’s regime, however, did not put the required resources to start an institution of that size and metropolitan status. Villar had the wisdom to surround himself with qualified people, or at least people quite different from those who populated the classic university, giving entry to people who had been evicted from other places or working outside Catalonia because they had no place to go and could not teach here, e.g., Enric Casassas (1920–2000), Antoni Serra Ramoneda, Joaquim Molas (1930–2015), Jordi Nadal, Josep Laporte (1922–2005), Heribert Barrera (1917–2011), and so on. But the special status reached by the UAB was going down (strike of the construction company in February 1972) since the cessation of his brother as Minister and the designation as Education Minister of the “exotic” Julio Rodríguez (1928–1979) in June 1973, professor of Geology at the University of Madrid. A month later, Villar resigned as Rector of the university and passed away the following year from pancreatic cancer. The creator of the UAB avoided suffering those turbulent days of www.cat-science.cat

the start and, as Josep Laporte (1922–2005) said, politically defeated, died fulminated as in a Greek tragedy. Today the UAB has about 30,000 undergraduate and 4,000 graduate students. It is one of the best universities in Spain, and has a good position in the ranking of the most advanced European universities.

Acknowledgements. I thank the observations and hints of Prof. Ricard Guerrero, who was the first professor of Microbiology at the Faculty of Sciences of the UAB. Prof. Guerrero, since October 1971, together with many other young docents, pioneered the movement for a new kind of university in Spain. They were convinded (and tried to convince, unsuccessfully, many other) that research, teaching and human development—both of students and professors—were three indivisible aims for a common endeavor: the progress and freedom of a democratic society. Competing interests. None declared.

References 1. Marcuse H (1964) One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Beacon Press, Boston, MA 2. Fernández Buey F (2006) Memoria personal de la fundación del SDEUB: Hispania Nova. Revista de Historia Contemporánea. Núm. 6 http://hispanianova.rediris.es /6/dossier/6d023.pdf

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:1-6 (2015)

DISTINGUISHED LECTURES Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

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CONTRIB SCI 11:7-9 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.208

www.cat-science.cat

MARGALEF PRIZE LECTURE OF 2014

The 2014 Ramon Margalef Prize to David Tilman: An innate curiosity about nature Marta Estrada Institute for Marine Sciences, CSIC, Barcelona, Catalonia

Correspondence: Marta Estrada Institut de Ciències del Mar Pg. Marítim de la Barceloneta, 37 08003 Barcelona, Catalonia Tel. +34-932309500 E-mail: marta@icm.csic.es

Summary. Since his first studies on the ecological relationships among planktonic fresh water organisms, the contribution of Prof. David Tilman to the understanding of ecology has been enormous. His ideas on competition for resources and the importance of space in population dynamics and interspecific interactions, gave birth to a new stochastic niche theory that modified classical niche theory and better described the actual functioning of nature. [Contrib Sci 11:7-9 (2015)]

“So what keeps me going? I guess I’m innately curious about nature. I’m very curious about why the world is as diverse as it is. We have many theoretical explanations of why that might be so, but we really don’t know what’s causing it. And I really want to help gather knowledge that helps us find some pathways toward a more sustainable life for humans on Earth.” David Tilman, the winner of the 2014 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology, wrote these words about his untiring love for scientific research, knowledge and biodiversity. Born in Aurora, Illinois, USA, in 1949, David Tilman obtained his Ph.D. in 1976, by the University of Michigan. He investigated the mechanisms of competition and coexistence among freshwater phytoplankton of Lake Michigan, which as many other lakes was being affected by phosphorus pollution.

He characterized a number of species by traits such as rate of nutrient uptake and efficiency of nutrient use and developed a resource-based competition theory that establishes that if a group of species are limited by the same nutrient, the species with the lowest requirement for this nutrient will displace all other species at equilibrium. Using this framework, he could successfully predict the outcome of species competition both in laboratory experiments and along nutrient gradients in Lake Michigan. His research showed also that two species could coexist on two resources if there were tradeoffs making each species a better competitor for a different resource. In later work, he continued to develop this resource-competition theory, which since the early 1980s has become a standard part of most ecology textbooks.

Keywords: stochastic niche theory · sustainability · 2014 Ramon Margalef Prize ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:7-9 (2015)

2014’s Margalef Prize

After completing his Ph.D. in 1976, Dr. Tilman became Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota (where he has remained until now) and changed the focus of his studies from freshwater algae to the grasslands of the Cedar Creek Natural History Area, which he now directs. He applied his resource competition theory to the new model system and continued to develop concepts to explain diversity and patterns of species abundance in ecosystems. Among other contributions, he highlighted the importance of space in population dynamics and interspecific interactions. He maintained a long temporal series of grassland plot observations and found, for example, that even low levels of persistent nitrogen addition could cause losses of plant diversity. He showed that more diverse plots did better that species-poor ones when subjected to stresses such as drought. The controversy unleashed by this study triggered the re-exploration of the relationships between diversity and stability, a topic dear to Dr. Margalef, and Dr. Tilman responded with new theory and large-scale experiments, including one that involved a European project with 12 European states. After having been elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2002, his inaugural article described a new stochastic niche theory that modified classical niche theory by including stochastic processes comparable to those underlying neutral theory. Based on his new theory, he proposed explanations for species abundance patterns and for invasion dynamics in ecological communities, which resolved many of the shortcomings of previous theories. In the last years, as a natural development of his interest on resource competition, community dynamics, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, Dr. Tilman has also focused on both the benefits that ecosystems provide to society and how social sustainability can be attained in front of global increases in both human population and the consumption per capita. He has teamed up with economists to evaluate ecosystem services and has devoted himself to the study of sustainable farming methods and of the environmental costs and benefits of different types of biofuels. For example, he has demonstrated that making biofuel from prairie grasses could provide more energy per hectare that maize grain ethanol and soybean biodiesel, and would be economically profitable without competing with food for humans. The scientific contributions of Dr. Tilman include several books and about 250 articles, which have been cited the astonishing figure of more than 46,000 times and have ensured his presence in the lists of the most highly cited environmental scientists. A look at his curriculum, with many articles in review in top journals, indicates that his pace www.cat-science.cat

About the author Marta Estrada i Miyares (1946) holds degrees in Biology and in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Barcelona, as well as a Ph. D. in Biology. Her research focuses on the biological processes in the pelagic ecosystem, especially on the diversity and dynamics of phytoplankton communities. She has participated in many oceanographic projects in several oceans and in the Mediterranean. She has been awarded the Tregouboff Award by the French Academy of Sciences (1992), the Narcis Monturiol Medal by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (1994), and the Creu de Sant Jordi (2004), among others. Estrada is currently working at the Institute for Marine Sciences (ICM- CSIC) and is president of the Spanish group of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR).

Marta Estrada, Reseach Professor at the Institute for Marine Sciences-CSIC, Barcelona.

of work continues as active as ever. A characteristic of Dr. Tilman’s research is his ability to combine well-controlled field experiments with mathematical theory. In his own words, as quoted by one of his biographers: “I rarely do an experiment that is not inspired by theory and rarely develop theory that is not inspired by an experiment”. With this approach, he has contributed to strengthen the conceptual framework of ecology and to make it a more quantitative science. 8

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Estrada

Dr. Tilman has also an outstanding record as mentor as has been very active in interacting with the general public and with policy-makers. He has directed about two dozen Ph.D. students and has advised a good number of postdoctoral scientists. His interest in communicating science is reflected in a high number of talks as invited speaker and many interviews in scientific and popular media. With the support of a “Pew Scholars in Conservation Biology” grant (1995–1998), he was founding editor of Issues in Ecology, a publication of the Ecological Society of America, designed to report on major environmental questions in a language understandable by non-scientists. Dr. Tilman has also served in numerous panels and boards, including the US National Science Foundation, National Research Council committes, The United States President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, and the U.S. National Committee for DIVERSITAS. Among other honors, he has received the MacArthur Award of the Ecological Society of America (1997), the Botanical Society of America Centennial Award (2006), the International Prize for Biology of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2008) and the Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental

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Sciences (2010) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. At present he is Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota, and Director of the Cedar Creek Natural History Area. According to the Ramon Margalef Prize’s jury, David Tilman is “a true leader in the field of ecology and has provided, throughout his scientific career, many new ideas which have had a lasting influence in the subject.” They also pointed out that “his research has opened up new ways of study which have been followed by many ecologists, who are his intellectual children.” Dr. Tilman developed a model of competition for resources, proving that biodiversity is essential to stable and productive ecosystems, and corroborating the value of the protection of species in danger of extinction. Specifically, he did research into the effects of biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems, including the stability, productivity and resilience to the invasions of species, one of the favorite themes of Ramon Margalef’s research. Competing interests. None declared.

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DISTINGUISHED LECTURES Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

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CONTRIB SCI 11:11-20 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.209

MARGALEF PRIZE LECTURE OF 2014

Biodiversity: From evolutionary origins to ecosystem functioning David Tilman1,2 Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, MN, USA. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA 1 2

Correspondence: David Tilman Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior University of Minnesota St. Paul 55108, MN, USA E-mail: tilman@umn.edu

Summary. How the Earth came to have on the order of 10 million species and the impacts of this biodiversity on ecosystems, are long-standing questions in evolution and ecology. I propose that both the evolutionary causes and the ecological consequences of biodiversity share a common origin—unavoidable tradeoffs that organisms face when dealing with multiple limiting factors. Our grassland biodiversity experiments and studies in many other systems have shown that species diversity is a major determinant of ecosystem productivity, stability, invasibility and nutrient dynamics. The preservation, conservation and restoration of biodiversity should be a high global priority. Indeed, the evidence accumulated over the past two decades suggests the long-term persistence of a species in an ecosystem should be taken as prima facie evidence that the species contributes to the functioning of that ecosystem. [Contrib Sci 11:11-20 (2015)]

The most unique feature of Earth is the existence of life, and the most profound aspect of this life is its amazing diversity. Indeed, the fossil record shows that, after life’s initial emergence, there has been a seemingly unending increase in the global number of plant and animal species, as is clearly shown by Benton’s [5] summary of the number of families of terrestrial plants and animals (Fig. 1). Recent estimates are that the Earth now has on the order of 10 million species. This remarkable biodiversity fascinated and puzzled the great naturalists, including Darwin and Wallace. An enduring mystery, highlighted in G. E. Hutchinson’s classic paper, raised the issue of how so many different species could compete

with each other and still coexist [30]. This mystery inspired my early work on competition and coexistence of species of algae [57,58], and has remained an interest of mine ever since [47,50,55,56]. Earth also has more than 7,000 million people, with global population being estimated to reach almost 10,000 million people within 50 years, and perhaps 11,000 million people by the end of this century. Global food demand impacts the natural ecosystems of Earth by causing land clearing that simplifies environments. At present, almost half of Earth’s ice-free land surface has been converted into agricultural lands, which have much lower species diversity

Keywords: biodiversity · species formation · coexistence of species · preservation · evolution and ecology ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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Biodiversity

Fig. 1. The number of families of land-based (non-marine) plants and animals observed in the fossil record from the Ordovician era, about 450 million years ago, to the present time. This long-term accumulation of families is mirrored by genera within each family, and by species within genera. Figure modified from Benton [5].

than the natural ecosystems from which they were derived. Concerns about such simplification led to multiple studies on the possible impacts of biodiversity loss on the stability and functioning of ecosystems [11,42,44,63]. In this paper, I discuss why it may be that the Earth came to have such great biodiversity, the effects of biodiversity loss on the functioning of ecosystems, and why the processes that control speciation may also shape biodiversityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impact on ecosystem functioning.

and (2) if interspecific tradeoffs cause progressively superior competitors for one resource to necessarily be progressively poorer competitors for other limiting resources [56]. Let us consider competition for two nutritionally essential resources. For instance, of the two species illustrated in Fig. 2A, species A is the best competitor for resource 1 (R1), and the poorest for R2, and species B is the best competitor for R2, but the poorest for R1. As shown, there are a range of habitat conditions (supply rates of the two resources that are in region H2) for which these two species stably coexist [56]. Many more than just two species can coexist when limited by two resources as long as all of the species are bound to the same interspecific tradeoff curve (Fig. 2B) and the habitat has spatial heterogeneity in the supply rates of the two resources. Indeed, under these conditions, there is no simple mathematical limit to the number of coexisting species. Rather, resource competition theory predicts that as many species can coexist as there are points on a line segment [56]. Many other types of interspecific tradeoffs can also lead to the coexistence of large numbers of competing species. For instance, an interspecific tradeoff between the ability to locally compete for a single limiting resource, versus the ability to disperse to open sites, is predicted by a series of differential equations to allow a potentially unlimited number of species to coexist [52]. A tradeoff between the ability to compete for

The coexistence paradox and bioÂ diÂ versity As Hutchinson [30] highlighted, then-current ecological concepts and models could not explain how so many species could compete and still coexist when limited by a small number of resources. In particular, at that time, the conceptual expectation was that the number of coexisting species could never exceed the number of resources for which they were competing. Subsequent experiments and theory have solved this mystery [2,34,43,52,54,57]. Theory now predicts that a potentially unlimited number of species, competing for just two limiting resources, can stably coexist if: (1) their habitat is spatially, or temporally, heterogeneous;

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Contrib Sci

a single limiting resource at different temperatures can, when generalized to a suite of any number of competing species, allow all such species to persist in a habitat that is spatially heterogeneous in temperature. Tradeoffs for other limiting factors can be similarly described [34,56]. Multi-trophic-level tradeoffs, such as a tradeoff between the ability of species to compete for a limiting resource, versus their resistance to predation, can also allow more species to coexist than there are limiting resources [33,56]. However this tradeoff-based mechanism of coexistence does not require the assumption of spatial, or temporal, heterogeneity. Finally, one of the more interesting models of coexistence is based on oscillations in resource availabilities, and the mechanisms whereby such oscillations can allow many more species to coexist than there are resources [2,3,27,34]. Coexistence in these types of models also requires tradeoffs. In these cases, the tradeoffs are between the ability of species to compete in unvarying, equilibrial habitats, versus their ability to compete when resources oscillate. Based on these and other advances in ecological theory, and on experimental confirmation of the predictive abilities of some of these theories, Hutchinsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paradox of diversity has been resolved. However, to date, there have been few empirical demonstrations of the actual limiting factors in ecosystems, and of the occurrence of appropriate tradeoffs among a majority of the co-occurring species. Thus, we do not yet know if simple tradeoffs among a few limiting factors truly do explain the local and regional coexistence that we observe, or if only high-dimensional tradeoff surfaces, defined by a large number of limiting factors, can explain the high local species diversity observed in so many of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Until we know why so many species coexist, it will be difficult to predict how a variety of anthropogenic environmental changes, such as nutrient pollution, loss of top predators, or loss of herbivores, will impact plant diversity. Perhaps the most perplexing aspect of coexistence theory is the requirement for strict interspecific tradeoffs. If any species could overcome an existing interspecific tradeoff, it should displace established species, as shown for species F (Fig. 2C) that would displace species B and C. Moreover, once such a truly superior species appeared, it could become the

Fig. 2. (A) Competition for 2 resources by two species that have a tradeoff in their abilities to compete for the two resources. (B) The ability of two species to locally coexist at sites with appropriate amounts of two resources, and for many species to coexist in a habitat with spatial heterogeneity in two resources, if they are all bound to the same tradeoff surface, T1. (C) Invader with a superior tradeoff (T2) displaces species from an inferior tradeoff curve (T1). T2 is a superior tradeoff curve since the species on it (species E, F and G) can consume resources down to, and survive at, lower levels of R1 and R2 than can the species of T1 (species A, B, C and D, as in part B).

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Biodiversity

progenitor of a radiation that created a suite of new species whose emergence would define a new and competitively superior tradeoff curve, as indicated by the T2 tradeoff curve. This new taxonomic guild (species E, F and G; Fig. 2C) would competitively displace the pre-existing species that had radiated along the T1 tradeoff curve (species A, B, C and D). Displacement occurs because species on the T2 tradeoff curve drive R1 and R2 to levels lower than the minimal levels required for the survival of the T1 tradeoff curve species [56]. Tradeoff-based competition theory thus makes an interesting set of predictions about evolution and speciation. If all existing species, and all potential future species, are bound to the same tradeoff curve (or, more realistically, multi-axis tradeoff surface), then the formation of a new species should not lead to the competitive displacement of any existing species. In this case, coexistence would be the rule. In contrast, if natural selection led to the gradual accumulation of truly superior suites of traits that exceeded the bounds of an existing tradeoff surface, the net result would be that the formation of new species caused the competitive displacement of established species.

and habitats not previously used by tetrapods. Expressed differently, the new taxa had tradeoff-based differences that let them excel in ecologically empty sites, even though the traits that allowed this also precluded them from performing well in sites already occupied by their progenitors. Analysis of 840 families within the tetrapods showed that these taxa had only minor overlaps in their habitat type, diets, body size and geographic realms [5]. This suggests both that their diversification involved the acquisition of traits that allowed them to use underexploited resources and/or habitats, and that the cost of these traits was that new taxa were no longer capable of persisting in the ecological roles of their progenitors. This latter fact, which is easily overlooked, is the ecological signature of the tradeoffs that occur during speciation. The major biogeographic realms of the Earth have had geologically long periods of isolation during which speciation within each realm generated its own unique floras and faunas. Given these long periods of separate and distinct species radiations, it is interesting to ask what happens when the formation of land bridges allows movement of terrestrial animals and plants between two realms, or when changes in sea levels and currents allows such movements between otherwise isolated ocean basins. A summary and synthesis of major migrations between realms shows that species that move into new realms coexist with the established species of the new realm for millions of years [47]. If extinctions eventually occur, they are most often attributed to climatic change or to a mass extinction event, such as the Pleistocene extinctions of large mammals in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Whether considering invasions by plants [39,41], mammals [5,6,15,61,62] or mollusks [59], the consistent pattern of coexistence of resident and invading species and its great duration suggests the surprising hypothesis that all ecologically similar taxa are bound to the same tradeoff surface independent of their phylogenetic origins and the length of time that they evolved in different realms. This “universal tradeoff hypothesis” thus suggests that intraspecific and interspecific tradeoffs are evolutionarily unavoidable, and that, at least since the Ordovician, the process of evolution and formation of new taxonomic lines and species has been characterized more by movement along an unavoidable tradeoff surface than by the emergence of truly superior combinations of traits, much as suggested for tetrapods [5]. The possible cause or causes of evolutionarily unavoidable tradeoffs merit consideration and debate. They might result from the universal cellular biochemistry and molecular genetic infrastructure that was created during the first 2000 million

Species formation, diversification and tradeoffs What does the fossil record tell us about speciation and the occurrence of coexistence or displacement? The diversification of terrestrial and marine plants and animals that occurred from the Cambrian era (about 550 million years ago) to the modern era has been massive. There are now more than 2500 different families of terrestrial (Fig. 1) and marine plants and animals arose, which contain millions of species. A major feature of this long period of diversification is coexistence. In particular, the arrival or emergence of new families and species was rarely associated with the loss of existing families or species [14,61,62]. Rather, the newly emerging taxa have often coexisted for millions of years with the pre-existing species of their biogeographic realm. Indeed, in their review of patterns of species radiations, Benton and Emerson [4] asserted that there was “no evidence that rapidly speciating clades have reached a limit, nor that they are driving other clades to extinction.” Why was coexistence, rather than competitive dis placement, the norm? In discussing the diversification of the tetrapods, Benton [5] noted that the new families and species were differentiated from the established species by having ecological attributes that allowed them to exploit diets www.cat-science.cat

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years of evolution. All animals are derived from the same single eukaryotic cell, just as all higher plants are derived from the same single eukaryotic algal cell. As such, the differentiation of these cell lines into multicellular organisms would present a series of tradeoffs that carried costs and benefits. After all, any amino acid allocated to make one protein cannot be allocated to make a different one. Any cell dedicated to one purpose, such as motility, cannot be allocated to digestion or some other function. Thus, whether at the level of the metabolic specializations of cells within an individual or at the level of the functioning of physiological systems such as circulatory, or reproductive, or cognitive systems, allocation to one system decreases the proportional allocation to another system. Finally, even allocation to greater body size, and even if it could occur without changing the proportion allocated to different systems (which cannot occur for structural and other reasons), has costs, such as decreased maximal reproductive rates and specific growth rates.

functioning [37,44]. The following year, two papers appeared in rapid succession in Nature. The first of these used results from 207 grassland plots that differed in plant diversity mainly because of different rates of nitrogen addition. It showed that plots with low plant diversity were much less stable during a severe drought than those with many plant species, and that this effect remained highly significant even after statistically controlling for a large number of potentially confounding variables [53]. The second paper presented the results of a growth chamber experiment in which the plant (and invertebrate) species numbers led to higher primary productivity [40]. As might be expected, this seeming support for a hypothesis that had been rejected in the 1970’s was met with considerable questioning [1,10,19,28,29,60]. However, a large number of experimental tests were done across a variety of types of organisms and ecosystems, especially grasslands. As discussed below, the combined weight of these experiments and of theory built on the mechanisms of species interactions led to the emergence of a new paradigm.

Biodiversity and ecosystem func tion ing: a brief history

Results of biodiversity experiments

Let us now consider how the biological diversity of an ecological community or ecosystem might influence its functioning. Darwin [9] was perhaps the first naturalist to suggest that life’s diversification had caused increased productivity in ecosystems [23]. A hundred years later Elton [12] proposed that greater species diversity was associated with greater stability, lower disease incidence, and lower rates of invasion by exotic species. These proposed effects of biodiversity on community and ecosystem processes, which has been based on the observations of two great naturalists, fell out of favor in the 1970’s as the discipline of ecology started to become a more experimental and theory-based science. In essence, the lack of experimental or quantitative observational evidence, and the seeming logical contradiction of hypothesized mechanisms with the theory of evolution [18], combined with the seeming contradiction with new theoretical predictions [36], led most ecologists of that era to lose interest in the possible impacts of species diversity on community and ecosystem functioning. Instead, the discipline started exploring the mechanisms of interactions among species and the magnitudes of such interactions in natural ecosystems. By the 1990’s, after about two decades of work on such mechanisms, the discipline began to once again consider the possibility that the number of species might impact ecosystem www.cat-science.cat

It had been clear to us as soon as we did the analyses [53] that only a well-replicated and fully randomized field experiment could rigorously determine the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. Thus, in the summer of 1993, we prepared and laid out plots at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve for a biodiversity experiment, which we planted in the spring of 1994. The experiment had large plots (13 m × 13 m; later reduced to 9 m × 9m because of lack of sufficient research funds), with about 35 replicates at each of 5 levels of plant diversity (1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 plant species). The species composition of each plot was determined by a separate, random draw of species from a pool of 18 perennial plants that is common in nearby prairie grasslands and savannas. Plots were randomly located within the experimental grid. Randomization allowed us to average across the effects of various species combinations and thus to separate out effects attributable to species composition from those attributable to plant diversity. Because of my involvement in it, the following discussion will focus on the Cedar Creek biodiversity experiment. It has revealed that plant biodiversity has unexpectedly strong impacts on many community and ecosystem processes. Annual net primary productivity, measured as the amount of aboveground biomass produced each year, has been a 15

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Biodiversity

three functional groups (cool season grasses, warm season grasses, and non-legume forbs) had its greatest inhibitory effects on invading species within that same functional group [13]. Thus the ecology of invasive species is, to a great extent, determined by their abilities to live on “leftover” resources. A variety of meta-analyses that used results from the Cedar Creek experiment combined with results from many other biodiversity experiments, including experiments on other types of species and habitats, have found that the effects that we have observed at Cedar Creek are quite general [8,22,24,26]. The only seeming exception is an interesting one: results of shorter-term experiments are rarely as strong as those of longer-term experiments [7]. Our biodiversity experiments suggests that this may occur because of biodiversity-dependent feedback effects, such as increases in soil fertility and shifts in foodweb structure, that gradually magnify the strength of biodiversity effects. Because natural communities have existed for immensely longer periods of time than even the longest-running biodiversity experiment, it is important that current experiments continue, and that we place the greatest emphasis on long-term results.

significantly increasing function of plant species numbers from the first year that the plants reached maturity (1996), and on (Fig. 3A). Interestingly, the effect of diversity on productivity has become progressively stronger through time, with the average of the 16 species plots being about 70% more productive than the average of the monocultures the first year of measurement, but becoming >200% more productive by the 15th year, and on (Fig. 3A). In addition, the experiment clearly demonstrates what is called transgressive overyielding, which is considered the strongest evidence for demonstrating that the greater productivity of the higher diversity treatments is caused by interspecific complementarity and niche differentiation. As shown in Fig. 3B, the productivity of the most productive species in monoculture is less than that of the average 16 species mixture. Indeed, by 2012 the average 16 species plot had productivity that was much greater than the best monoculture species, and every individual 16-species plot was more productive than the best species in monoculture. The Cedar Creek biodiversity experiment has also shown that greater plant diversity leads to greater year-toyear stability of net primary productivity [49]. This finding confirms the earlier comparative evidence that suggested that greater plant diversity led to greater stability of primary productivity [53]. Some other findings are insightful in their own right, and provide mechanistic insight into why net primary productivity increases with plant diversity, and why this effect becomes greater through time. Perhaps most important are the greater increases in soil organic carbon and soil organic nitrogen (Fig. 3C) observed in the higher diversity treatments [16,17,48]. These increases mean that soils of higher diversity treatments became progressively more fertile through time, with the greatest increases in soil fertility occurring at higher diversity. Greater productivity at higher diversity was also the result of greater consumption of the major limiting resource, soil nitrate [51], lower incidence of species-specific plant diseases [38], and shifts in the insect community toward higher levels of predatory and parasitoid insects and lower densities of herbivorous insects [20]. Another major finding of the Cedar Creek biodiversity experiment was that greater plant diversity led to lower rates of invasion by exotic plant species [13]. Why did this occur? Two lines of evidence support the hypothesis that plant invasions mainly occur when invaders are able to germinate, survive and grow on the amounts of limiting resources left unconsumed by the established plant species. In particular, lower levels of unconsumed soil nitrate of the higher diversity treatments greatly inhibited potential invaders [13]. In addition, the pattern of resource reduction by each of www.cat-science.cat

How important is biodiversity? Many other long-term experiments have been established at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, from 1982 and on, to determine the effects of factors that might influence plant species compositions or productivity in our perennial grassland ecosystems. In particular, we established randomized and replicated experimental additions of major limiting soil resources, including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, cal cium, trace metals, and water, and other experiments with herbivore removal, or with different fire frequencies, or with carbon dioxide enrichment. A comparison of the effects of biodiversity with the effects of each of these other variables showed that none of these other variables had a larger impact on net primary productivity than biodiversity [46]. An analysis and synthesis of other experiments by Hooper et al. [25] led to a similar conclusion. Biodiversity is thus at least as important as nitrogen, water, herbivory, fire and carbon dioxide in determining ecosystem primary productivity, a finding that few scholars would have anticipated in the 1990’s. Two other studies highlight the strength and ubiquity of the effects of biodiversity. Isbell et al. [31] found that the loss of plant diversity caused by nitrogen addition led to subsequent loss of productivity. Indeed, after an initial increase in primary productivity that was strongly correlated 16

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with the annual rate of nitrogen addition, productivity decreased through time in direct proportion to the greater loss of plant species numbers caused by higher nitrogen addition rates. Second, Hautier et al. [21] examined the stability of primary productivity across the full suite of different long-term experimental manipulations at Cedar Creek, and found a surprisingly simple explanation for the effects of fire, herbivory, water addition, drought and nitrogen addition on stability. The effect of each of these variables on the stability of primary productivity was explained by how that factor changed plant diversity. The quantitative effect on stability of each lost or gained plant species was identical to that observed in the Cedar Creek biodiversity experiment. In total, the effects of biodiversity are highly general. They apply just as rigorously when other factors, such as those associated with human-driven environmental change, cause the loss of diversity as when diversity is manipulated directly.

Theory of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

Contrib Sci

As already discussed, numerous competing species are predicted to stably coexist if species have interspecific tradeoffs in their abilities to compete for resources and if the habitat is spatially and/or temporally heterogeneous. Such models became the foundation upon which to build modern theories of biodiversity effects on community and ecosystem processes. A review of five such models showed that all five predict that greater plant diversity leads to both greater primary productivity and to more complete use of the limiting resources [45]. These five models are based on five different mechanisms of competition, including competition for two essential resources [52]; for a single limiting resource in a spatial ecosystem [35]; for a single resource when temperature fluctuates [32]; for a two-dimensional niche space [52]; and for a single resource that is divided up among species via a modified broken-stick process [32]. All five models also predict that the temporal stability of primary productivity will be an increasing function of plant diversity [45].

Fig. 3. Results from the Cedar Creek biodiversity experiment. (A) Plant productivity is an increasing function of the number of planted species each year of the experiment, and has tended to increase through time in the experiment. (B) On average for 2011â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2013, primary productivity in the most productive species growing in monoculture (value indicated by dotted line) is much less than for the 16-species plots. (C) Total soil nitrogen content (mainly organic forms of nitrogen) increased through time most in higher diversity plots from 1994 to 2006 [16,17].

Synthesis

of evidence suggest that the diversification of higher plants and animals was a direct result of unavoidable tradeoffs. Such tradeoffs meant that new species did not competitively displace existing species, but rather were differentiated from them in ways that allowed coexistence when living in the same realm. Theory based on such tradeoffs predicts that

The work I have summarized suggests an intriguing possibility â&#x20AC;&#x2022;that the same forces and factors that led to the emergence of global biodiversity also necessarily make biodiversity be a major determinant of ecosystem functioning. Several lines www.cat-science.cat

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Biodiversity

ecosystems containing more species will be more productive, more stable, less susceptible to disease, and less easily invaded. Numerous biodiversity experiments have found just such results. This suggests that the long-term coexistence of a suite of plant species in an ecosystem may be evidence that each of those species contributes, in some way, to the functioning of the ecosystem. Clearly, this is a difficult hypothesis to directly test for each and every plant species, but the work reviewed above necessitates that this is the best-founded assumption that one should make in the absence of rigorous evidence to the contrary. The conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is thus of paramount importance to the functioning of the numerous terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems upon which the quality of human life is based.

invasion: an experimental test of neutral versus niche processes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100:8916-8920 doi:10.1073/pnas.1033107100 14. Flannery T (2001) The eternal frontier: an ecological history of North America and its peoples. Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, Australia 15. Flynn LJ, Tedford RH, Zhanxiang Q (1991) Enrichment and stability in the Pliocene mammalian fauna of North China. Paleobiology 17:246-265 16. Fornara DA, Tilman D (2009) Ecological mechanisms associated with the positive diversity-productivity relationship: evidence from a long-term, N-limited grassland experiment. Ecology 90:408-418 17. Fornara DA, Tilman D (2008) Plant functional composition influences rates of soil carbon and nitrogen accumulation. J Ecol 96:314-322 doi:10.1111/j.1365-2745.2007.01345.x 18. Goodman D (1975) The theory of diversity-stability relationships in ecology. Q Rev Biol 50:237-266 19. Grime JP (1998) Benefits of plant biodiversity to ecosystems: immediate, filter, and founder effects. J Ecol 86:902-910 doi:10.1046/j.1365-2745.1998.00306.x 20. Haddad NM, Curtsinger GM, Gross K, Haarstad J, Knops JMH, Tilman D (2009) Plant species loss decreases arthropod diversity and shifts trophic structure. Ecol Lett 12:1029-1039 doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01356.x 21. Hautier Y, Tilman D, Isbell F, Seabloom EW, Borer ET, Reich PB (2015) Anthropogenic environmental changes affect ecosystem stability via biodiversity. Science 348:336-340 doi:10.1126/science.aaa1788 22. Héctor A, Bagchi R (2007) Biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality. Nature 448:188-190 doi:10.1038/nature05947 23. Héctor A, Hooper R (2002) Darwin and the first ecological experiment. Science 295:639-640 doi:10.1126/science.1064815 24. Héctor A, Schmid B, Beierkunhlein C, Caldeira MC, Diemer M, Dimitrakopoulos PG, Finn JA, Frietas H, Giller PS, Good J, Harris R, Högberg P, Huss-Danell K, Joshi J, Jumpponen A, Körner C, Leadley PW, Loreau M, Minns A, Mulder CPH, O’Donnovan G, Otway SJ, Pereira JS, Prinz A, Read DJ, Scherer-Lorenzen M, Schulze E-D, Siamantziouras A-SD, Spehn EM, Terry AC, Troumbis AY Woodward FI, Yachi S, Lawton JH (1999) Plant diversity and productivity experiments in European grasslands. Science 286:1123-1127 doi:10.1126/science.286.5442.1123 25. Hooper DU, Adair EC, Cardinale BJ, Byrnes JEK, Hungate BA, Matulich KL, González A, Duffy JE, Gamfeld L, O’Conner MI (2012) A global synthesis reveals biodiversity loss as a major driver of ecosystem change. Nature 486:105-108 doi:10.1038/nature11118 26. Hooper DU, Chapin FS, Ewel JJ, Héctor A, Inchausti P, Lavorel S, Lawton JH, Lodge DM, Loreau M, Naeem S, Schmid B, Setälä H, Symstad AJ, Vandermeer J, Wardle DA (2005) Effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning: a consensus of current knowledge. Ecol Monogr 75:3-35 doi:10.1890/04-0922 27. Huisman J, Weissing FJ (1999) Biodiversity of plankton by species oscillations and chaos. Nature 402:407-410 doi:10.1038/46540 28. Huston MA, Aarssen LW, Austin MP, Cade BS, Fridley JD, Garnier E, Grime JP, Hodgson J, Lauenroth WK, Thompson K, Vandermeer JH, Wardle DA (2000) No consistent effect of plant diversity on productivity. Science 289:1255a doi:10.1126/science.289.5483.1255a 29. Huston MA (1997) Hidden treatments in ecological experiments: reevaluating the ecosystem function of biodiversity. Oecologia 110:449460 doi:10.1007/s004420050180 30. Hutchinson GE (1959) The paradox of the plankton. Am Nat 95:137-145 31. Isbell F, Reich PB, Tilman D, Hobbie SE, Polasky S, Binder S (2013) Nutrient enrichment, biodiversity loss, and consequent declines in ecosystem productivity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110:11911-11916 doi:10.1073/pnas.1310880110 32. Lehman CL, Tilman D (2000) Biodiversity, stability, and productivity in competitive communities. Am Nat 156:534-552 33. Levin BR, Stuart FM, Chao L (1977) Resource-limited growth, competition, and predation: a model and experimental studies with

Competing interests. None declared.

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www.cat-science.cat

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Tilman

bacteria and bacteriophage. Am Nat 111:3-24 34. Levins R (1979) Coexistence in a variable environment. Am Nat 114:765-783 35. Loreau M (1998) Separating sampling and other effects in biodiversity experiments. Oikos 82:600-602 doi:10.2307/3546381 36. May RM (1973) Time-delay versus stability in population models with two and three trophic levels. Ecology 54:315-325 doi:10.2307/1934339 37. McNaughton SJ (1993) Biodiversity and function of grazing ecosystems. In Schulze E-D and Mooney H (eds.) Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function, Springer-Verlag, Berlin 38. Mitchell CE, Tilman D, Groth JV (2002) Effects of grassland plant species diversity, abundance, and composition on foliar fungal disease. Ecology 83:1713-1726 39. Morley RJ (2003) Interplate dispersal paths for megathermal angiosperms. Perspect Plant Ecol Evol Syst 6:5-20 doi:10.1078/14338319-00039 40. Naeem S, Thompson LJ, Lawler SP, Lawton JH, Woodfin RM (1994) Declining biodiversity can alter the performance of ecosystem. Nature 368:734-737 doi:10.1038/368734a0 41. Pennington RT, Dick CW (2004) The role of immigrants in the assembly of the South American rainforest tree flora. Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 359:1611-1622 doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1532 42. Pimm SL (1979) Complexity and stability: another look at MacArthurâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original hypothesis. Oikos 33:351-357 doi:10.2307/3544322 43. Rees M, Condit R, Crawley M, Pacala S, Tilman D (2001) Long-term studies of vegetation dynamics. Science 293:650-655 doi:10.1126/ science.1062586 44. Schulze ED, Mooney HA (1993) Biodiversity and ecosystem function. Springer, Berlin. 45. Tilman D, Isbell F, Cowles JM (2015) Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 45:471-493 doi:10.1146/annurevecolsys-120213-091917 46. Tilman D, Reich PB, Isbell F (2012) Biodiversity impacts ecosystem productivity as much as resources, disturbances or herbivory. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:10394-10397 doi:10.1073/pnas.1208240109 47. Tilman D (2011) Diversification, biotic interchange and the universal trade-off hypothesis. Am Nat 178:355-371 doi:10.1086/661245 48. Tilman D, Hill J, Lehman C (2006) Carbon-negative biofuels from lowinput, high-diversity grassland biomass. Science 314:1598-1600

49. Tilman D, Reich PB, Knops JMH (2006) Biodiversity and ecosystem stability in a decade-long grassland experiment. Nature 441:629-632 doi:10.1038/nature04742 50. Tilman D (2004) Niche tradeoffs, neutrality, and community structure: a stochastic theory of resource competition, invasion, and community assembly. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:10854-10861 doi:10.1073/ pnas.0403458101 51. Tilman D, Lehman CL, Thomson KT (1997) Plant diversity and ecosystem productivity: theoretical considerations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94:1857-1861 52. Tilman D (1994) Competition and biodiversity in spatially structured habitats. Ecology 75:2-16 53. Tilman D, Downing JA (1994) Biodiversity and stability in grasslands. Nature 367:363-365 doi:10.1038/367363a0 54. Tilman D, Pacala S (1993) The maintenance of species richness in plant communities. In Ricklefs R and Schulter D (eds.) Species diversity in ecological communities, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 55. Tilman (1988) Plant strategies and the dynamics and structure of plant communities. Monographs in Population Biology, Princeton University Press, pp.360 56. Tilman D (1982) Resource competition and community structure. Monographs in Population Biology, Princeton University Press, pp 296 57. Tilman D (1977) Resource competition between planktonic algae and experimental and theoretical approach. Ecology 58:338-348 58. Tilman D (1976) Ecological competition between algae: experimental confirmation of resource-based competition theory. Science 192:463465 doi:10.1126/science.192.4238.463 59. Vermeij GJ (1991) When biotas meet: understanding biotic interchange. Science 253:1099-1104 doi:10.1126/science.253.5024.1099 60. Wardle DA, Bonner KI, Nicholson KS (1997) Biodiversity and plant litter: experimental evidence which does not support the view that enhanced species richness improves ecosystem function. Oikos 79:247-258 doi:10.2307/3546010 61. Webb SD (2006) The great American biotic interchange: patterns and processes. Ann Mo Bot Gard 93:245-257 62. Webb SD (1991) Ecogeography and the great American interchange. Paleobiology 17:266-280 63. Wilson EO (1989) Threats to biodiversity. Sci Am 261:108-116

About the author

is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Other awards include the 2010 Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, the 2014 International Balzan Prize for basic/applied Plant Ecology.

David Tilman is director of the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve long-term ecological research station, Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, and instructor in conservation biology, ecology, evolution, behavior and microbial ecology. He obtained his B.S. in zoology in 1971 and his Ph.D. in ecology in 1976, by the University of Michigan with the study of the mechanisms of competition and coexistence among freshwater phytoplankton of Lake Michigan. His research focuses on both terrestrial and aquatic ecology, and he has developed his stochastic niche theory offering a new approach to ecological issues and removing former ecological paradigms. His long-term experiments have been of extreme importance in the understanding of the ecosystemsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; dynamics. In 2000 he was designated the Most Highly Cited Environmental Scientist of the Decade by Essential Science Indicators and, in 2002, he was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences. He

www.cat-science.cat

Fig. 4. Prof. David Tilman.

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11: 11-20 (2015)

Biodiversity

Scientists awarded the Ramón Margalef Prize for Ecology (2005-2014)

The Autonomous Government of Catalonia created the Ramon Margalef Award for Ecology to honor the memory of the Catalan scientist Ramon Margalef (1919–2004), one of the main thinkers and scholars of ecology as a holistic science. His contributions were decisive to the creation of modern ecology. This international award recognizes those people around the world who have also made outstanding contributions to the development of the science of ecology. More information can be obtained at: www.gencat.cat/premiramonmargalef. Year

Winner

Main topic of research

Country

2005

Paul Dayton

Population and community ecology, mostly in benthic environments.

USA

2006

John Lawton

Dynamics of populations and communities, impact of global changes in organism populations and communities.

2007

Harold A. Mooney

Plant physiological ecology and phenomena affecting global changes, such as ecological invasions, the loss of diversity and the degradation of ecosystems.

USA

2008

Daniel Pauly

Study of the decline of fish stocks and the ecosystems’ response to human pressure.

France

2009

Paul R. Ehrlich

Population and human over-population.

USA

2010

Simon A. Levin

Mathematical modeling and empirical studies on the understanding of macroscopic patterns of ecosystems and biological diversities.

USA

2011

Juan Carlos Castilla

Marine ecology, mostly rocky ecosystems and their sustainability.

Chile

2012

Daniel Simberloff

Invasive species and their impact in the loss of diversity.

USA

2013

Sallie W. Chisholm

Biological oceanography and marine ecology, mostly for the studies in the understanding of the dominant photosynthetic organisms in the ocean and the microbiology of the oceans from a revolutionary new perspective.

USA

2014

David Tilman

Ecosystem functioning, biodiversity and protection of endangered species.

USA

www.cat-science.cat

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:11-20 (2015)

DISTINGUISHED LECTURES Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

OPENAACCESS

CONTRIB SCI 11:21-26(2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.210

www.cat-science.cat

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2014 & 2015

The BKH-AE Women’s Week, 2006– 2015 Ricard Guerrero Member of the Section of Biological Sciences of the Institute for Catalan Studies, and Editor-in-chief of Contributions to Science

Correspondence: Ricard Guerrero Director, Contributions to Science Institut d’Estudis Catalans Carme, 47 08001 Barcelona, Catalonia Tel. +34-932701727 E-mail: rguerrero@iec.cat

Summary. The article describes the activities of the Institute for Catalan Studies commemorating the International Women’s Day, from 2006 to 2012, and the new activities developed by the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea (BKH-AE) constituting the BKH-AE Women’s Week, from 2013 to 2015. This Week will be continued in the coming years. Two major changes have revolutionised society and specifically higher education in only one century. Firstly, there has been a rapid expansion of higher education and scientific research throughout the world. Access to higher education has become a common aspiration, and is no longer perceived as the privilege of social elites. Moreover, higher education is increasingly recognised as a social, economic and political driving force for progress. Nowadays, a larger proportion of humanity aspires to education, and higher education is today increasingly regarded as tomorrow’s general education. Secondly, this exceptional opportunity to promote and strengthen the values of science in the service of humanism and peaceful development is partially the consequence of the achievements of women in science during recent decades. By breaking down the barriers posed by earlier cultural norms, women have been able to apply their knowledge and skills to many fields of science and humanities, and their contributions to progress in all of them have been highly significant. [Contrib Sci 11:21-26 (2015)]

Introduction From 2006 to 2012, the Institute for Catalan Studies commemorated from 2006 to 2012 the International Women’s Day with a Distinguished Lecture. Since 2013, the celebration has been the responsibility of the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea (BKH-AE) [4,6]. To the main lecture, other activities have been added, including a concert, a workshop and a visit to a center in Barcelona of special cul-

tural or scientific relevance. Therefore, the activity has been renamed the BKH-AE Women’s Week. The International Women’s Day (IWD) first emerged from the activities of female workers at the start of the 20th century in North America and across Europe. On February 28, 1909, the first Woman’s Day was observed in the United States. The Socialist Party of America proposed this day in honor of the 1908 strike of garment workers in New York, where women protested against working conditions. In

Keywords: International Women’s Day lectures · BKH-AE Women’s Week · �� Academia Europaea activities · higher education for women · gender equality ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:21-26 (2015)

Contrib Sci

International Women’s Week

Fig. 1. Celebration of the International Women’s Day at the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea. Lectures by Nadia El-Awady, Egypt, on March 5, 2014 (left), and by Lynn Kamerlin, Sweden, presented by Anna Alberni, Barcelona, on March 4, 2015 (right). Held at the premises of the Institute for Catalan Studies.

looking ahead to obtain a full and equal participation in society. The United Nations (UN) started celebrating the IWD on March 8, 1975, on the occasion of the International Women’s Year. In December 1977, a resolution of the UN General Assembly proclaimed a UN Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace, which would be observed on any day of the year by Member States, according to their traditions. In fact, as we have seen, a Women’s Day had been observed since the early 20th century. According to Temma Kaplan, in Europe, it was first celebrated on March 18, 1911, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the Paris Commune. Nowadays, the IWD is observed in more than 100 countries and in some of them it is even an official public holiday. Increasingly, IWD is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities. Accordingly, the Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC), always eager to follow international trends and multinational cooperation, celebrated the IWD from 2006 to 2012 with a Distinguished Lecture held during the week of March 8 (Fig. 1). Female researchers and scholars have talked on a great variety of topics, as shown in Table 1. Several lectures related to the IWD given at the IEC have been published in Contributions to Science [1,3,5]. From 2013 on, other events have been added to the main lecture (Fig. 2, see p. 24). Therefore, the whole activity has been renamed the BKH-AE Women’s Week.

1910, the Socialist International Meeting in Copenhagen established a Women’s Day to honor the movement for women’s rights and to build support for achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish Parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance. As a result of the Copenhagen initiative, IWD was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded women’s rights to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job. In 1913–1914 the IWD also became a mechanism for protesting World War I. As part of the peace movement, Russian women observed their first IWD on the last Sunday in February. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with other activists. In 1917, against the backdrop of the war, women in Russia again chose to protest and strike for “bread and peace” on the last Sunday in February (which fell on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar). Four days later, the Czar abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. Since those early years, the growing international women’s movement, which has been strengthened by four global UN women’s conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point to build support for women’s rights and participation in the political and economic arenas. Many countries around the world followed the celebration of the International Women’s Day (IWD), in commemoration of the women’s struggles to revindicate their rights, recognizing their social achievements in those struggles and www.cat-science.cat

The role of the AE in promoting women at the highest academic levels On 2 Nov. 2000, UNESCO’s Director General, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, received Prof. Stig Strömholm, President of the 22

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11: 21-26 (2015)

Guerrero

Table 1. Events related to the International Women's Day held at the Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC), Barcelona: The International Women's Day Distinguished Lectures, organized by the IEC from 2006 to 2012, and the Women's Week activities organized by the BKH-AE from 2013 to present.

International Women’s Day 2006–2015 Organized by the Institute for Catalan Studies 2006

“The challenges of subalternity: Women’s movements” Mary Nash, University of Barcelona

2007

“The eloquent silence of Rachel Carson” Mercè Piqueras, Catalan Association for Science Communication (ACCC)

2008

“Laura Bassi and Giuseppe Cerati: an ’electric’ couple” Marta Cavazza, University of Bologna

2009

“Sex and family throughout evolution” Anna Omedes, Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona

2010

“European Spatial Agency (ESA) Gaia Mission” Carme Jordi, University of Barcelona

2011

“Women, reproduction, and in vitro fertilization” Francesca Vidal, Autonomous University of Barcelona

2012

“Lynn Margulis (1938–2011): The will to be, the impetus to do” Coordinated by Carmen Chica and Nicole Skinner, International Microbiology journal. With the participation of: Mercè Piqueras, Marta Estrada, Montse Ponsà, Isabel Esteve, Anna Omedes, Núria Gaju, Marie-Odile Gobillard, Marisa Castro, Eva Barreno, Bego Vendrell, Alícia Duró, Wendy Ran and Olga C. Miracle

Organized by the Barcelona Knowledge Hub-Academia Europaea 2013

“Two cultures, three cultures, or one only culture?” Dacha Atienza, Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona; Mercè Berlanga, University of Barcelona; and Genoveva Martí, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA)

2014 March 5th

Distinguished lecture: “Arab Spring, or long desolate Arab Winter?” Nadia El-Awadi, Egypt; former president of the World Federation of Science Journalists

March 6th

“The Earth is our body. Lynn Margulis and Gaia” Convenor: Carmen Chica, editor of the book Once Upon a Time. With the participation of: Isabel Esteve, Marta Estrada, Ricard Guerrero, Juli Peretó, Mercè Piqueras, Anna Omedes, Carme Puche, Joandomènec Ros and Nicole Skinner

2015 March 4th

InterSection Workshop: “Women and the academic ladder” Convenor: Lynn Kamerlin. With the participations of: Clara Corbella, Margaret Luppino, Maryam Ghafouri, M. Dolors Garcia-Ramon and Lourdes Beneria

March 5th

Convenor: Anna Alberni, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). Short film, “In the search of truth. In memory of Lynn Margulis”, comments by director Carme Puche, Barcelona Distinguished Lecture: “Empowerment of women in the academic world”, by Lynn Kamerlin, University of Uppsala, chair Young Academy of Europe (YAE). Concert: “Women’s Sephardic Songs”. By Olga Miracle, soprano, accompanied by Noemí M. Agell and Pere Olivé, string and percussion instruments

March 6th

www.cat-science.cat

Activities in honor of the YAE: Visit to the Museu Blau, the new Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona. Visit guided by Marta Punseti. Visit to the Cercle del Liceu pinacotheque. Visit guided by María Jiménez de Parga.

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:21-26 (2015)

Contrib Sci

International Women’s Week

Fig. 2. Celebration of the BKH-AE Women’s Week at the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea, on March 5, 2015. Women's Sephardic Songs concert by soprano Olga C. Miracle, Barcelona and Sacramento, California. Held at the premises of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia.

Academia Europaea, and Prof. Enric Banda, Secretary General of the European Science Foundation (ESF). Both visitors expressed their interest in joining UNESCO’s efforts in South East European countries to contribute to the development of the intellectual activities in this region. Director General Matsuura supported this initiative of building upon the region’s unique and diverse cultural identities and its historical close cultural links. The following day, 3 Nov. 2000, another meeting took place between the Permanent Delegates to UNESCO of the following member states: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Romania and Slovenia. The Permanent Delegate of Italy to UNESCO and other delegates agreed on a two-step exercise, with proposals emerging from a scientific expert conference which would need to be examined at a governmental level. As a result of these preliminary discussions, a joint UNESCO-ROSTE/AE/ESF Organizing Committee was set up in order to prepare the expert conference as a first step of the process. The International Conference of Experts on the Reconstruction of Scientific Cooperation in South East Europe took place in Venice, Italy from 24–27 March 2001. It focused on country presentations and reviews of existing collaborations and furthermore on the potential South Eastern European countries to develop cooperation in some strategic fields of research. Two major changes have revolutionised society and specifically higher education in only one century. Firstly, there has been a rapid expansion of higher education and scientific research throughout the world. Access to higher education has become a common aspiration, and is no longer perceived www.cat-science.cat

as the privilege of social elites. Moreover, higher education is increasingly recognised as a social, economic and political driving force for progress. Nowadays, a larger proportion of humanity aspires to education, and higher education is increasingly regarded as tomorrow’s general education. Secondly, this exceptional opportunity to promote and strengthen the values of science in the service of humanism and peaceful development is partially the cause and the consequence of the achievements of women in science during recent decades. By breaking down the barriers posed by earlier cultural norms, women have been able to apply their knowledge and skills to many fields of science, and their contributions to progress in all of them have been significant. However, despite these important gains, women in higher education must still overcome difficult hurdles before being granted the same opportunities as their male peers. There is no real evidence that gender has ceased to stratify opportunities. Many obstacles to women’s equity remain: advancement to the highest rung of the career ladder is slow, the glass ceiling still hangs low and equal work still does not ensure equal pay. Within the top echelons of higher education, women in many countries are greatly underrepresented even though they receive the majority of undergraduate degrees.

Inequality in STEM higher education Skill gaps are a key constraint to innovation, hindering productivity growth and economic development. In particular, shortages in the supply of trained professionals in disci24

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11: 21-26 (2015)

Guerrero

plines related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) may weaken the innovation potential of a society. Empirical studies show that countries with a higher proportion of engineering graduates tend to grow faster than countries with a higher proportion of graduates in other disciplines. In addition, future technical change is likely to be linked to abilities and tasks related to STEM disciplines. A wide gender gap has persisted over the years at all levels of STEM disciplines throughout the world. Although women have made important advances in their participation in higher education, they are still underrepresented in these fields. This problem is more acute at the seniormost levels of academic and professional hierarchies. Although 60 percent of tertiary graduates and 45 percent of researchers in Latin America are women (UNESCO, 2007)— surpassing all other regions, including Europe (33.9 percent), Oceania (39.2 percent), and Asia (18 percent)—in STEM disciplines, this percentage drops to 36 percent. Only 11 percent of Latin American female graduates of tertiary education are in STEM fields, while STEM fields represent 12.3 percent of new enrolments at the tertiary level (UNESCO UIS database). Moreover, participation of Latin American women at the higher strata of research is rare. For example, while in Brazil 49 percent of researchers are female, only 27 percent of women lead research groups (CNPq database, 2012). Gender equality in science, technology, and innovation is not simply a matter of fairness. A more equitable gender balance is believed to enhance the recruitment of the most talented, irrespective of gender, tapping a partially unexploited resource. Ceci and Williams reported in 2011 [2] that while in Europe women account for 45 percent of Ph.D. graduates, they represent only 36 percent of associate professors and a mere 18 percent of full professors. Similarly, in the United States, excluding the humanities, 40 percent of new Ph.D. were women, but they are only 34 percent associate professors and only 19 percent of full professors.

The untapped potential of fully trained and credentialed women who might be interested in STEM but choose not to pursue degrees in these fields or who decide to change careers because of obstacles, real or perceived, represents an important lost opportunity not only for women themselves but also for society as a whole. Career impediments for women deprive societies of human resources, which is detrimental to competitiveness and development. More research is needed to identify the root causes of gender disparities in these fields and to develop appropriate policy responses. Although there is growing recognition of the importance of the issue in developing countries, most of the literature on gender inequalities in STEM and the policies designed to rectify them relate to the United States and Europe. Not only are women in Latin America underrepresented in STEM fields; they are also undermeasured, and the lack of information has prevented researchers from deepening understanding of the reasons for this gap. It has also prevented Latin American policy makers from designing effective interventions.

The role of the Academia Europaea While women academic roles in the 21st century have much advanced, persistent inequities beg for new solutions. And it is in this context that institutions such as the Academia Europaea can provide representative, authoritative and independent perspectives to take on these and other social challenges. One of the main objectives of the Academia Europaea, an international, nongovernmental and not-for-profit association of scientists and scholars from all disciplines, is to propose appropriate action to ensure that topics of transEuropean importance to science and scholarship are adequately addressed. Thus, the Academia Europaea endeavours to encourage achievement of the highest possible standards in scholarship, research and education. But to do so, it must promote gender equality and facilitate connectivity and networking among all Members of the Academia. One of the activities in 2014 was the invitation to the author of this article, in his quality of the Academic Director of the BKH-AE, to give the inaugural lecture in the International Seminar “Education and Empowerment of Women”, held in Cantoblanco (Madrid) in September 17-19. The Seminar was organized by the Autonomous University of Madrid, with the collaboration of the Embassy of Iran in Madrid and the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea (Fig. 3). Although social improvements in women’s rights have yet

Gender equality to promote scientific and technological excellence A more inclusive workforce is assumed to be more innovative and productive than one which is less so [2]. Having scientists and engineers with diverse backgrounds, interests, and cultures assures better scientific and technological results and the best use of those results. Gender equality is seen as a way to promote scientific and technological excellence rather than just improving opportunities for women. www.cat-science.cat

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:21-26 (2015)

Contrib Sci

International Women’s Week

Fig. 3. International Seminar on “Education and Empowerment of Women”, held at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Cantoblanco, Madrid), on September 17-19, 2014, with the collaboration of the BKH-AE.

to alter the nature and structure of institutions at the highest academic level, this should not prevent the Academia Europaea from seeking the full participation of the women’s college-age population, who embody an as yet untapped source of talent for meeting the needs of society, today and in the coming years. To this end, our institution must work with governmental institutions and with professional societies to support higher education of women, by fearlessly embracing radical shifts in organizational paradigms. We need to pursue gender equality at all levels of education, including the highest, where the challenges are often the most daunting. The systematic incorporation of gender awareness into the fabric of institutional, departmental, and programmatic efforts is crucial. And here there is a great challenge for the Academia Europaea and for other high level educational stakeholders in the continent.

References 1. Cavazza M (2009) Laura Bassi and Giuseppe Veratti: an electric couple during the Enlightenment. Contrib Sci 5:115-128 2. Ceci SJ, Williams WM (2011) Understanding current causes of women’s underrepresentation in science. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:31573162 3. Jordi C (2010) The European Space Agency Gaia mission: exploring the Galaxy. Contrib Sci 6:11-19 4. Martí G (2014) The Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea. Contrib Sci 10:17-22 5. Piqueras M (2009) Emma Darwin: a great woman behind a great man. Contrib Sci 5:17-23 6. Puche C (2013) The Institute for Catalan Studies and the International Women’s Day, 2006–2013. Contrib Sci 9:107-108

Competing interests. None declared.

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CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11: 21-26 (2015)

DISTINGUISHED LECTURES Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

OPENAACCESS

CONTRIB SCI 11:27-35(2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.211

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INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2014 & 2015

Arab Spring or long desolate Arab Winter? Nadia El-Awady* Free-lance journalist Correspondence: E-mail: nadiaelawady@gmail.com

Summary. On December 17, 2010, a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, publicly set himself on fire in protest against the municipality confiscating the cart on which he sold fruits and vegetables. He had been slapped by a female police officer and the municipality refused to accept the complaint that he lodged against her. A series of events followed, leading to revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya and the ouster of their long-standing rulers. Much has happened since then. Tunisia looks like it may be on a road towards democracy. Egypt, on the other hand, seems to be facing a more questionable future. Nadia El-Awady stood on the frontlines of the Egyptian revolution from January 25 to February 11, 2011. Three years on, she reflects on the current situation in Egypt, how it has affected her, her family, and those around her. The following is meant to be no more than the personal account, reflections, and opinions of one single individual who took part in the Egyptian revolution of 2011. It also includes her shortcomings. In no way is this to be considered a historical account or a political analysis of the events of the past three years. [Contrib Sci 11(1):27-35 (2015)]

Introduction For two months following the day the revolution ended— for it did end that day of February 11, 2011 when Mubarak was ousted—I felt completely incapable of going anywhere near Cairo’s Tahrir Square where so much happened during those 18 fateful days. Getting close to Tahrir would conjure up horrible memories; memories I needed to suppress. It was only the day after the revolution ended, on February

12, that I allowed myself to process what I had witnessed and experienced for just under a month. Gun shots, tear gas, skies so full of rocks they appeared as if suspended in mid-air, injuries, deaths… How could all that have happened to me, my friends, and my fellow countrymen? I found the experience of putting together this talk very similar to my experience following the revolution. If I came too close to it, it conjured up memories I needed to suppress. More than once I considered cancelling this talk. But every

*This article is based on the lecture given by the author at the Institute for Catalan Studies on 5 March 2014, as the Distinguished Lecture of the Women's Week of 2014.

Keywords: Arab Spring · Mohamed Bouazizi (Tunis, 2010) · Egyptian revolution of 2011 · Khaled Saeed (Alexandria 2010) · Tahrir Square (Cairo) ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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November 28 and December 5, 2010: Egyptian parliamentary elections held. Although, in my opinion, this particular election was not any more fraudulent than so many others before it, it was well covered by social media activists and transgressions were well documented and publicized, helping, again in my opinion, to build a national disgruntlement with Mubarak’s regime. The Muslim Brotherhood failed to win a single seat in this election, even though it held a fifth of the places in the previous parliament.

time I told myself that ours was a story that needed to be told, no matter how difficult, no matter how traumatizing, no matter how grim. It is difficult to find that point in history where a certain story starts. Anger had been simmering in Egyptian hearts for years. Demonstrations were regularly held; always small, always well controlled by Egypt’s police force. Political activists went into and out of prison the way you put chewing gum into your mouth and then spit it out. That was the only Egypt we ever knew. Sometimes normal Egyptians like me would take notice. Other times we would feel bored of the same old story and just move on with our lives. Things were hard enough as they were for us to worry about other people’s lives. That is exactly what many people believe Mubarak’s regime was banking on: keep the people overwhelmed with finding their daily bread and they will not have the energy or the time to get involved in politics. If that was the plan, it worked for decades. But nearing the end of 2010, too many events came, one after the other, which brought a critical mass of Egyptians to boiling point. There were abundant rumors that Mubarak’s son, Gamal, was planning to run for presidency. Many Egyptians loudly opposed what was referred to as “inheriting” the presidency in Egypt.

December 17, 2010: In Tunisia, a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire. The municipality had confiscated the cart on which he sold fruits and vegetables. He was slapped by a female police officer and the municipality refused to receive the complaint he lodged against her. He died from his burns several days later. December 24, 2010: Demonstrations started in Tunisia and spread. December 30, 2010: We Are All Khaled Said Facebook page posted the first known mention of an idea to hold protests on Police Day, January 25. January 1, 2011:- Bomb blast killed 21 in a church in Alexandria where Christians had gathered to mark the New Year.

The short list of facts could be something like this: February 2010: Former International Atomic Energy Agency director general Mohammed El-Baradei returned to Egypt and, together with opposition figures and activists, formed a coalition for political change. The coalition found much support among younger Egyptians.

January 14, 2011: Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country. January 25, 2011: Calls for protests gained momentum and apparent public support.

June 6, 2010: Khaled Saeed, a 28-year-old man from Alexandria, was arrested on dubious charges of theft and possession of weapons. Witnesses reported that the police beat him to death. The police claim he died from swallowing a packet of hashish.

The birth of a revolution My friend Arwa and I had seen all the calls for demonstrations to be held on Police Day but we were very skeptical it would result in anything. We had seen so many similar calls in the previous months and years. They had rarely amounted to little more than a few people gathering on the street. I personally attended many demonstrations in Egypt since I was a university student. I even organized a demonstration while in university. Demonstrations organized by students within university grounds were usually quite impressive. But they were almost always contained within those walls where they were relatively safe from police harassment.

June 10, 2010: We Are All Khaled Saeed Facebook page launched, protesting against Saeed’s death and demanding justice. It rapidly gained hundreds of thousands of followers. The page rapidly turned into an all-out campaign against police brutality and human rights abuses in Egypt. November 24, 2010: Coptic Christians clashed with police in Giza over the construction of a church complex. The government had issued an order to halt its construction. www.cat-science.cat

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Up until January 25, 2011, I had never personally seen a demonstration outside of a university that involved more than 100 to 200 participants. My friend Arwa and I thought the January 25 demonstration would be like all the others. We went anyways. It was a holiday. We had time on our hands. And you never know. And it was there that we started what will probably prove to be the most momentous event of our lives. On Tuesday, January 25, thousands of people took to the streets of Cairo and marched through its downtown area. I had never seen anything of the sort in Cairo. The demonstrators were just normal people. Besides a small number of flags belonging to the Wafd Party at the beginning of the demonstrations that day, I saw no identifying elements that would say that these people belonged to one organization or party or another. They were just people. Thousands of them. People protesting against police brutality. People protesting for better healthcare. People protesting for a better life. And some starting to chant, “Down with Mubarak!” Arwa and I were elated to see that the Egyptian people had woken up. We could hardly believe it. Clashes happened that first day between the protesters and the police. But by the end of the day the people had taken over Tahrir Square in the center of the city for a brief period of time. Some demonstrations happened the following Wednesday and Thursday. But they were workdays and most people, including myself, went to work those days. I decided that if the spirit continued, I would demonstrate on Friday, the first day of the Egyptian weekend. On Friday, January 28, 2011 many Egyptians died. It was probably one of the most horrific days in recent Egyptian history. It is a day that cannot be wiped from my memory. The police directed gunshots directly at protesters. They drove over them with their trucks. Thousands of people were tear-gassed over and over and over again. Millions of people eventually raided Tahrir Square and the police from thence on receded into one spot in the Ministry of Interior in the downtown area, where clashes continued until February 11. The story of our revolution is one that would take long to tell. Suffice to say that during those 18 days I saw death, injuries, passion, compassion, pain, fear and joy. Many days when I left my father’s home near Tahrir Square, where I was staying at the time to make it easier for me to participate in the revolution, I did not know if I would live to return. My elderly father would say God be with you to his two adult daughters as they left into the unknown. All he could do was to follow the events on the television set and try to call us every now and then to make sure we were all right. He www.cat-science.cat

couldn’t always get through to us. In the beginning of the revolution, the Egyptian government shut down all forms of mobile communication and Internet connectivity. Most other days, it was just impossible to reach anyone in the Tahrir area because mobile networks were overloaded. What I learned during those days was that one’s country is a very precious thing. It can be, in certain circumstances, THE most precious thing. During those 18 days, I knew that we were at a moment in time in which we could potentially create real change. We could make life better for our children and for their children. And for that to happen we were willing to face death. I was asked by international media so many times during the revolution: “If you manage to remove Mubarak, what happens next?” My reply was always, “I don’t know. We have a dictator on our hands. He must be removed. What comes after that will be a very difficult road. But it is a road we must go down if we want our country to eventually be better.”

Post-revolution chaos Perhaps one or two months after the revolution I found myself writing in a Facebook status, “After the cleansing rains, the creepy crawlies come out of their holes.” The revolution was like a cleansing rain for Egypt ―or so many of us thought at the time. But it took only a short period of time for more corruption, much of it in the form of intellectually corrupted minds, to appear on the surface. A struggle began over who was going to take control of the country once the army let go, and much of that struggle was a power-struggle over the minds of the Egyptian people. Much happened in Egypt in the three years that followed the revolution. We had constitutional referendums, parlia mentary elections, presidential elections, messy and ridiculous parliamentary discussions, the dissolution of parliament, governments appointed, governments removed, court cases held against suspects for killing protesters, against Mubarak, against his Minister of Interior, against his sons, against other members of his government, no one held accountable for protesters’ deaths, civilians thrown into military prisons, virginity checks on female activists sent to prison, protests, deaths, more protests, more deaths, and finally the ouster ―with the support of the army― of a democratically elected president. There is no easy way to explain the complexity of it all. There is no easy way to understand it ―if there is a way at all. What I want to talk to you about is what all that meant 29

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for an ordinary Egyptian like me. I was left traumatized after the revolution ended. Not in any major way, but what we had taken part in and what we had witnessed, well, it was not easy. Nevertheless, more than traumatized I felt hopeful after the revolution. Our country was going to change for the better. My children would have a better future. Their children would have an even better future. It would take years and years, I knew, but we had started the process and I was proud to have been a part of it. I followed very closely the discussions around the constitutional referendum that was held the following March 19, 2011, just over a month after Mubarak was removed. I was not happy with how some of the discussions were tailored: “Vote yes for the constitutional amendments and you vote yes to stability”; “Vote yes and you vote yes to Islam.” I was a no voter. I wasn’t happy with some of the details in the amendments. I did not believe we should have rushed changes to the constitution. We needed to do this right. How we changed our constitution would set up our country for what was to come. I was among the minority. The majority did vote yes for the constitutional amendments. I was unhappy that it appeared to me that people had voted yes not because they agreed to the details of the amendments but because they wanted to move on with the process and get a parliament and a president in place regardless of the details. We had fought and died for democracy. The vote of the majority would need to be respected. Nevertheless, I felt concern for what was to come. In the months that followed, revolutionaries called for many protests. I took part in none. It was not clear to me what we would stand to gain from such protests. My personal view was that I played my role as a revolutionary from January 25 to February 11. That was something I could do. It was now time for people like me to step aside and to let the politicians take over the process of building our country. I do not understand politics. I also do not have the thick skin needed for politics. At the same time, this political process, I felt, needed stability. I was worried that revolutionaries had become addicted to the adrenaline rush of revolting. I was worried that revolutionaries were not considering tools other than revolting in order to voice their opinions. Protests in the following months, inevitably, resulted in clashes with the police and the military, which inevitably resulted in injuries and deaths. Cairo was becoming more chaotic and unstable than it normally was. There were many times during those months and the three years that followed when I was not sure whether it was safe to put my children on the school www.cat-science.cat

bus to go to school. Clashes sometimes broke out all night in areas where their school bus passes through to reach their school. I have a horrible memory of staying up one night watching the events of a protest unfold on live television. People were getting shot and dying. Tear gas was everywhere. My sister and my best friend both live in the direct area where this was happening. While I had the television on I also had both of them on the phone, learning more about what was happening and making sure they were both safe. I spent the whole night trying to figure out if this was going to be a protest that would settle down by dawn or if it was something that would continue into the following day. My children would have to pass through that area to get to school. In the end, I kept them home with me the following day.

Going back to "normal" life As the politics unfolded in Egypt, we had no choice but to try to go on living our everyday lives. I remember as a young woman I tried to understand how people I knew were able to continue living in Beirut during Lebanon’s 25 years of civil war. They would tell me that they would be sleeping in their homes and there would be gun fights or bombs blasting outside their windows and they would just go back to sleep. In the morning, they would go to work and tip toe over the rubble left by the fights from the previous night. They talked about it as if it was normal. I couldn’t comprehend. I do comprehend now. No matter the situation, humans are given an incredible capacity to move on. During the revolution itself, fear was not my most overwhelming emotion; determination was. From January 25 onwards until today, there have been many occasions when I have been directly exposed to gunfire or tear gas. When I hear gunfire while inside my home, I wake up because of the noise and then I just go back to sleep. The logic is that there is nothing I can do about it now. I know I am safe within my home. I need to sleep because I have work tomorrow. So I sleep. We became accustomed, in Cairo, to having violent demonstrations every Friday for months, even years. Instead of staying home, most Egyptians would just go out and enjoy their weekend; avoiding the areas where demonstrations were happening. We have a good system to know which areas to avoid. Social media play a major role in this. In addition to checking the news on our television sets, we also check our Twitter and Facebook feeds. A large number of Egyptians use both. Egyptians generally have quite large social networks 30

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of friends, acquaintances, and people we follow. When something happens somewhere, we’ll know. We also have traffic apps on our mobile phones that tell us where traffic is seriously held up. Sometimes the apps even tell you why it is held up. By using all this information, many of us are able to live our lives “normally” by avoiding that which is “abnormal”. It can be difficult, with this being the case, to figure out who is living in the real bubble. Is it people like me who try to go on living their lives despite the troubles? Or is it people who are in the midst of the troubles who go on trying to create change in the way they think is best while the rest of the city goes on living their lives? To drive this concept home, I’ll give you a recent example. In November 2013, I had taken my children out for dinner and then to a movie. It was a Friday afternoon and that was our Friday family ritual. On our way home, and as we were driving into my neighborhood, we saw many people standing on the side of the road facing in one direction. They were looking at something I could not see. My eldest daughter was driving. I was teaching her how to drive before she took her driver’s license test. I told her to stop. I opened the window and asked one of the people on the side of the road what was happening. He said there were clashes just ahead and that they had heard gunfire. This was in the direct vicinity of my house. We heard noises. Whether they were gunshots or firecrackers, commonly used in protests to frighten people, we don’t know. I yelled at my daughter, “Get out now and sit in the passenger’s seat!” And I took over the driving. I quickly backed the car into a side street and got to our house using a couple of back streets instead of our normal route. I stopped in front of our apartment building and yelled at the children, “Out! Out! Out! And up to the house! Do not stop until you are inside and stay away from the windows!” I took the car to the garage just a bit further down the street. It was very dangerous to keep a car outside during circumstances like this. Rocks are thrown and windows are broken. Cars are used as shields. Sometimes they are turned over. Other times they are put up in flames. Once I knew my children were safe, it was time for me to try to figure out what was happening. I walked back into one of the larger roads. I saw young men carrying large sticks, chains, and even swords. I stopped one of them and asked what was happening. He told me that the Muslim Brotherhood were demonstrating on the main street and that he and other neighborhood men were trying to stop them from coming into the neighborhood. I could tell that clashes were happening ahead but I dared not move further. I stayed for a little while, things started to calm down, and I headed home. www.cat-science.cat

This was a common scene all over Cairo. There was a rising sense of anti-Brotherhood sentiment among the general population that did not cease with Morsi’s removal. Even if the Brotherhood demonstrations are not violent, many people have very bad feelings towards them and expect violence from them. When demonstrations head into a neighborhood, shops are shut, and many young men in that neighborhood gather together every weapon they own and will sometimes physically clash with the demonstrators in order to prevent them from proceeding further. This situation is even scarier than the more organized clashes that happen between protesters and police. It is impossible to discern who is whom when civilians fight against civilians. It is impossible to tell who started what. People die because other people decide on a whim that they are dangerous and deserve to be stopped. We have been living in a very lawless city.

The removal of Morsi I was in the UK during the summer of 2013. When I’m in Egypt, I watch events unfold through social media and the television set. Every now and then, I unwillingly become part of an event myself, such as the one I just described. When I’m away from Egypt, I follow the events through social media and television. The only difference is that I cannot personally and physically end up being part of an unfolding event. The same does not apply to my family members and friends still in Egypt. On June 30, 2013, I was horrified as I watched millions of Egyptians take to the streets, demanding that President Morsi be removed. During the run-up to the June 30 protests, I was using social media to do everything in my power to persuade friends and followers that trying to remove a democratically elected president by force was only going to make matters worse for our country. June 30 protesters had legitimate grievances. President Morsi had given himself constitutional powers that a very large number of people did not agree with. Very large numbers of Egyptians protested against this when it happened. Morsi had appointed consultants who were leaving him one after the other because he was not listening to their consultations. In some cases he was not even consulting them. In June 2013, Morsi appointed Islamist allies in 13 of Egypt’s 27 governorates. The appointed governor of Luxor once belonged to an Islamist group that was linked to the massacre of tourists in Luxor in 1997. There was talk about the Brotherhood-led government rearranging the boundaries of electorates in a way that would give 31

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Brotherhood members a stronger chance of winning in future elections. The Egyptian people had legitimate reason to be concerned. In my opinion, they had legitimate reason to want to remove Morsi. The question was: What was the best way to go about this for the country? It is important to note that there is another side to the story. Even though Morsi was president, he had virtually no control over the police, the army, or the judiciary. In his speeches, he frequently mentioned, much to the amusement of many Egyptians, conspiracies that were happening behind the scenes to remove him. None of us doubted this to be the case. What Egyptians have referred to as “the deep state” from Mubarak’s time continued to thrive. We knew this. We knew we had only managed to remove the head of that regime. We had not even managed to bring him properly to justice. “The deep state” would surely be strategically planning ways to oust Morsi or anyone else who might have been in his place and retake power. Morsi and the Brotherhood-led government found themselves in an almost impossible situation. Anyone else elected to the presidency would have found themselves in the same position. Morsi’s reaction was to turn inward to the Brotherhood that he knew and trusted. In my view, one of his biggest mistakes was not that he gave himself constitutional powers, that he mistrusted his consultants and that he appointed Islamist allies as governors. Morsi’s biggest mistake was his lack of transparency with the Egyptian people. Had he, in one of his many very long public speeches, plainly explained the obstacles that were being placed in his path in order to create a stable Egypt, he might have had more support from those that really mattered: the Egyptian people. But there was no transparency. Morsi simply did in his speeches what so many Egyptians commonly do when they are sitting over coffee and talking. He talked generally and vaguely about information that had reached him that certain people were making plans against him. In one speech he laughably named the names of some thugs in some neighborhoods in Cairo who were creating havoc. Instead of telling the Egyptian people about the specific problems he faced with the police, the army, and the judiciary, he continuously made public statements supporting them and raising them on a pedestal. Clearly his strategy was to win them over this way. But it wasn’t working and his hands were tied. So much so that when protests happened just outside the presidential palace at one point during his presidency, he was unable to depend on the protection of the police; the result being calls from the Brotherhood to their members to protect the palace and the president themselves. www.cat-science.cat

This resulted in very bloody and deadly clashes between protesters and Brotherhood members. Morsi and the Brotherhood handled the entirety of the political situation horribly. In my view, their lack of public transparency was their downfall. So many revolutionaries were furious; opposition parties were furious; Egyptians were furious, and, understandably, the not insignificant number of Egyptians who were pro-Mubarak and/or anti-Brotherhood saw this as their chance to remove their opponent.

Shortages and domestic problems In the run-up to the June 30 protests, for weeks, there had been gasoline shortages and electricity cuts. Gasoline shortages meant that vehicles would stand for hours in long lines in front of gas stations for when gas actually did become available. Not only did this mean that people had to take days off of work to make sure their cars had fuel, or that taxi drivers lost income because they had to frequently lose a day of work to get fuel, but it also meant that the streets of Cairo were bottlenecked at gas stations in so many places that movement on the city’s streets had virtually come to a standstill in some places. As for the electricity cuts, it meant that people could not use air conditioners in the hot summer months of Cairo; that families were sitting in the dark for hours and, more importantly, for many, it meant there was no running water because so many apartment buildings depend on electric water pumps to pump water up to their apartments or to water tanks on the tops of buildings. Egyptians were never given logical explanations as to why we had these severe gasoline shortages and electricity cuts. I suspect, as do many others, that it was part of a plan to make life hell for Egyptians so that they would blame Morsi and his government thus expediting his removal. Life was, indeed, hell. The lack of transparency on behalf of Morsi and his government made people even angrier. He may very well have been trying to manage the situation behind the scenes, but Egyptians felt they deserved an explanation; one that made sense. People wanted the man gone. By force if need be. It worked with Mubarak. It should work with Morsi. The difference, though, in my opinion, was that Mubarak was a 30-year-long dictator who was not really chosen by the people. Morsi, on the other hand, came into power as a result of a revolution followed by democratic elections. He had only been in power for one year. For so many people he was not the best choice; he was the only choice. His opponent in the presidential elections was a former Mubarak minister. Do 32

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you choose a former Mubarak man or a Muslim Brotherhood man? It was like choosing between two evils for so many people. Even so, there was a significant portion of the population who chose Morsi because they truly supported him and the Muslim Brotherhood. I told friends and followers through social media to think things through. What happens if you forcibly remove Morsi? Then what? Who takes over? It will be the army. Are we in a position to trust the army more than we trust Morsi? Will they not give themselves even more powers than Morsi gave himself? How will they leave for us to get someone else in their place? Can we trust that person when he comes? Will he do any better than Morsi has done? Then, if the Brotherhood is forcibly removed, will they not be turned into victims? They will be pursued and will get sympathy. As someone who did not approve of the Brotherhoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s handling of the country (or their own organization for that matter), I was willing to wait for their term to end and to hold democratic elections afterwards to bring someone else in. The Brotherhood was shooting herself in the foot. They were proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they did not have the necessary competence to govern our country. That would mean that there was a good chance they would not succeed in the next elections. If they were forcibly removed, I believed, they could regain some public sympathy because they would become victims. We needed to give democracy a chance, I believed. As a people, there was a need for us to look into the future and calculate the results of the actions we took. We needed to figure out what was best for the country in the long run, not in the next few days, weeks or years. I was not, of course, the only one who thought this way. Many of my revolutionary friends thought the same. But too many Egyptians did not, including many revolutionaries. They wanted Morsi gone. They trusted the army once so they believed they could trust them again. They wanted the country to have stability. I watched, horrified, from my TV set in the UK and from my computer screen as millions of people took to the streets on June 30, 2013. Every indication was that they were supported whole-heartedly by the army. I was terrified by what this all meant for the future of my country and for what I felt was our newfound democracy, however stunted it may have been. The short story we all know is that Morsi was removed from power and the military took charge of the country. On the ground, Egyptians were divided. Social media was rife with people posing views and counter-views. Arguments ensued. People felt so strongly about their opinions of what had happened and what needed to happen that they www.cat-science.cat

were losing friends. People were falling out with their own mothers, fathers and siblings. The Brotherhood then began huge sit-ins in two parts of Cairo that caused much disruption to normal life and to traffic. As I watched the events unfold, my concerns for my family in Cairo grew. My children joined me in the UK mid-June, some 15 days before the June 30 protests. Having them with me safe in the UK was a huge relief. But my sister, a singlemother-of-one, was living alone in Cairo with her daughter within walking distance from one of the two Brotherhood sit-ins. Because of her location near the center of Cairo, she had already been witness to almost daily troubles. The city generally was becoming very unsafe. Burglaries were on the rise. There were many reports about people being held up by gunpoint while in their cars on a major throughway in Cairo to give up the money and valuables they had with them. One of my former work colleagues had a sister (a mother of one teenaged daughter) who was shot in the head while she was driving through a crowded part of Cairo just so they could steal the money she had in her car. My sister wrote a Facebook status in July saying she was crossing the street in front of her house when two men on a motorcycle swept by, the one in the back pointing a gun somewhere behind him. Expectations, rumors and even army threats all pointed to the fact that the Brotherhood sitins were going to be violently dispersed. One day my sister told me of protests that had reached her street. Cars were overturned and set on fire. Her car was among the lucky few that were spared. My sister was due to visit me in the UK for a short time that summer. My brothers (who live in the USA) and I told her to change her plans and come earlier. We were not happy with her being alone in Cairo in that neighborhood at such a deadly time. She arrived with her daughter to the UK on July 11. On August 14, the army and police invaded the Brotherhood sit-ins and hundreds, if not more, were violently killed. My sister and I followed the event from the UK in horror. A former work colleague of mine, one of the most gentle and kind men one could ever know, was killed. Almost every friend I knew had a friend or a family member who died. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t only Brotherhood members who were in these sit-ins. Many people who were against the forceful removal of a democratically elected president, whether they supported him personally or not, were regularly visiting the sit-ins as well. My sister and I spent the day crying almost uncontrollably. What was more hurtful, possibly, than the fact that so many people were getting killed, was the fact that we were 33

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seeing so many Egyptians supporting the violent dispersal. Things like “They are getting what they deserve!” were being said by a significant number of people. Some people were visibly happy that the sit-ins were being dispersed in this manner. Some people were even celebrating. For me, my sister, and for so many others, the killings were one thing. The celebrations of those killings by fellow Egyptians was another thing altogether.

About the author Nadia El-Awady is a freelance journalist and novice adventurer currently based between Egypt and the UK. The major part of her career has focused on science journalism. She has a BSc in medicine from Cairo University and an MA in journalism and mass communication from the American University in Cairo. Nadia is a scuba diver―she has just recently received certification as a diving instructor, an avid hiker, and a newbie cyclist. She has four beautiful children, the eldest of whom is already in university. She has no idea how they grew up so quickly.

Unfulfilled dreams and new life We were heartbroken by our own countrymen. We felt helpless. We lost trust in the people of our country to think and to act like human beings. We felt very insecure. My family immediately got together to send my sister and her daughter to live with my brothers in the USA. The situation in Egypt had created a sense of intense anxiety among us. We needed to know that my sister and my niece would be safe. Even though she had no home in the USA, no work and no definite prospect of work there, she and her daughter left the UK to the USA. It has been and continues to be a difficult journey for my sister, but she has the help and support of our family to make things work. And she is gradually establishing herself in a new country. When I married my husband Colin, at the end of 2011 ―the year of the revolution―, our plan was that he would move to Cairo. Even though the situation in Egypt was not the best, we all still had hope that with time Egypt would prosper. As the weeks and months went by, it became clear that Egypt was moving towards an instability that would make life for Colin there very difficult. We had political insecurity, the general security situation was worsening each day and we had economic instability. How could I ask my husband to leave the secure job, home and life he had in his country to come to a completely insecure Egypt? The result has been that Colin continues to live in the UK. I have spent the first two years of our marriage travelling back and forth between my children in Egypt and my husband in the UK. I have had to give up my work to do this. My children now travel back and forth between the two countries as well. Because they are older, it has proven almost impossible for us to consider taking them out of their schools in Egypt to put them in schools in the UK. My eldest is already in university. There is no way I or their father could afford sending any of them to a university in England. My other children are in their final years of education. Switching the educational systems would probably mean losing a year or two of education for www.cat-science.cat

Fig.1. Nadia El-Awady.

them. And even if we did that, how would we manage to give them a university education in the UK, something both their parents believe they deserve to have? So I feel as if my children are stuck in that country. And I am stuck in limbo between countries. Many of my friends have been leaving Egypt in the past year. A few of them worked for Aljazeera, which has been accused―wrongly or rightly―of working too closely with the Brotherhood. From my personal point of view and from what I have seen, Aljazeera was the only channel I could turn to if I wanted to know the Brotherhood perspective on events in Egypt. I was also able to get other perspectives on events from Aljazeera. I had become unable, however, to get Brotherhood perspectives on any other channel. Journalist friends who 34

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El-Awady

and universities in order to prevent students from organizing protests. The real result, though, is that my children are not getting the education that they deserve. Our prognosis as a country seems very grim. We are looking down a gun barrel at military rule. The main issues that our country faces, those same issues that led to a revolution, remain and have even become worse. Police brutality is rampant; justice is hard to come by; security on the ground is bad; the economic situation is crumbling; corruption is widespread; healthcare is in the dumps; education needs a complete revamp; human rights and freedoms are severely lacking; press freedoms are almost non-existent. For someone like me, it almost feels like there is no hope, and that there is nothing that I can do to change things. Egyptian society is so divided at this stage that it seems impossible for people to come together again to create change. Nevertheless, my friends and I continue to give each other pep talks through social media. Things are bad now, we say, but we can work little by little to make them better. We need to create awareness. That takes years. We need to put in the time and the effort. So we go on living our lives, mainly frustrated with how things turned out, and trying very, very hard to be hopeful that we can somehow change things around. Perhaps not now. Perhaps our children will create a more permanent change. For now, we have a story to tell of an unfulfilled revolution. We have lessons learned and others that we still need to learn. We have memories, good and bad, and we have personal lives to build. And we have a country that needs saving. However that might be, whenever it might be, it will happen, in our lifetime or in someone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

worked with Aljazeera were threatened. The apartment of a friend of mine who was a journalist at Aljazeera was burned down twice by thugs. Luckily neither he nor his family was in the apartment at the time. He and many Aljazeera journalists have chosen to go live in Qatar. Other Aljazeera journalists have been thrown in jail in Egypt. One of my friends left Egypt after his brother-in-law was killed in the Brotherhood sit-in. He could not bear the way Egyptians were treating their own countrymen. Many other friends have left Egypt because they feel hopeless. They risked so much for their country to be better and now, not only is it getting worse, it seems there is significant public support for military rule. Yet others have left because they want to live somewhere they can have better security and education for their children. Egyptians are now very divided after having been very unified only three years earlier. One group talks about the need for Egyptians to be ruled with an iron hand. Another group talks about the need for democracy with all the instability it may bring. All indications are that the current head of Egyptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s military, General Al-Sisi, will run for presidency and will win. He has a huge public even cult-like following. To people like me, it seems like the main focus of many Egyptians is on the food in their bellies and the hope of a relatively stable country. How the country is run, whether we have a democracy or a dictatorship, whether human rights are upheld, does not really make much of a difference as long as none of it affects the way they go about their daily lives. In the meantime, as we speak, my childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mid-term holidays have been extended from being only two weeks long to being a month-and-a-half long. The government has probably been postponing sending students back to schools

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Competing interests. None declared.

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DISTINGUISHED LECTURES Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

OPENAACCESS

CONTRIB SCI 11:37-47 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.212

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DISPUTATIO OF BARCELONA 2014: The Mediterranean, bridge of cultures

The Mediterranean in the crossroad: Past, present and future. 2014 Lectures at the BKH-AE Nicole Skinner Journal International Microbiology

Correspondence: Nicole Skinner 23 Highbury Place N5 1QP London, UK Tel. +44-7557857728 E-mail: nicoskinner@gmail.com

Summary. Activities of the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea (BKH-AE) on 27-28 November 2014. The article describes the lectures given for the Disputatio of Barcelona 2014 on “The Mediterranean, bridge of cultures”, by Enric Banda and Maria Paradiso, at the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site, Barcelona (27 Nov.), and for the Intersection Workshop (ISW-AE) on “The Mediterranean in the crossroad: Past, present and future”, by Jean-Pierre Brun, Isabelle Anguelovski, Ricard Guerrero, Rubén Duro, Alessandro Tessari, Marc Mayer, and Salvador Giner, at the Institute for Catalan Studies (28 Nov.). The ISW-AE was followed by a visit to the CosmoCaixa museum of science, and a choral concert by Cor de Músic, from Castelldefels, which sang Medieval songs at the main auditorium of the museum. [Contrib Sci 11(1):37-47 (2015)]

“The Mediterranean, bridge of cultures”,

the Disputatio of Barcelona 2014

The Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea (BKH-AE) was set up in 2012 as the Academy’s regional office for Southern Europe and the Mediterranean. The hub’s mission is to organize scientific activities that include the perspective of the natural and social sciences and the humanities and one of its main annual events is a modern day Disputatio of Barcelona. Having originated in the Middle Age as a formalized method of debate to uncover and establish truths in theology and the sciences, the present-day Disputatio of Barcelona organized by the BKH aims rather to present two

unique disciplinary angles—scientific and humanistic—on a given topic. One is defended by a woman, and the other by a man, both of them experts in the topic discussed. The Disputatio of Barcelona 2014: "The Mediterranean, bridge of cultures” took place on 27 Nov. at the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site in Barcelona and it was organized in conjunction with the United Nations University Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility (UNU-GCM). The event was inaugurated by Anne Buttimer, Vice-President of the Academia Europaea, Ricard Guerrero, Academic Director of the BKHAE, and Parvati Nair, Founding Director of UNU-GCM. The two speakers were Enric Banda, Director of Science and Environment at “la Caixa” Foundation and Member of

Keywords: Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea (BKH-AE) · Ramon Llull (1232–1316) · Messinian salinity crisis · Mediterranean deltas · global cities ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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The Mediterranean in the crossroad

Fig. 1. (A) Main entrance of the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site in Barcelona (formerly, Sant Pau Hospital), the place where the Disputatio of Barcelona 2014: “The Mediterranean, bridge of cultures”, took place on 27 November 2014. (B) Authorites and lecturers at the Disputatio of Barcelona 2014. From left to right: Antoni Castellà, Maria Paradiso, Parvati Nair, Enric Banda, Anne Buttimer, Andreu Mas-Colell, Theo D'haen, Genoveva Martí and Ricard Guerrero. (C) Social mixing after the lectures of the Disputatio of Barcelona 2014 at the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site.

the AE, who discussed “Science as a Mediterranean bridge”, and Maria Paradiso, Professor of Geography and Planning at the University of Sannio, Italy, who spoke on “The Mediterranean: bridging, bordering and cross-bordering.” (Fig. 1) Enric Banda proposed science as a vital bridge between the Mediterranean and the European values. In his presentation, he demonstrated the important geophysical transformations of the Mediterranean Sea over time and how the planet on its own has tailored the Mediterranean region. Science was born along the Mediterranean. The exchange of ideas, through travel and commerce, encouraged Mediterranean civilizations to recognize that nature could be understood in itself and not merely listening to gods. Enric Banda explained how the Mediterranean approach was decisive because it opened the road to intellectual challenges and the idea of progress that has been crucial and has shown the way www.cat-science.cat

towards the development and the democratization of knowledge. He highlighted that science is essential for addressing the current challenges of sustainability in the region and how responsible research and innovation among scientists, in collaboration with society at large, will be the way to connect both shores of the Mediterranean. Maria Paradiso proposed to view the Mediterranean region as representative of a global, mobile reality. She argued that the idea of unitary Mediterranean is a fiction and one that has been upheld by popular visions based on cultural stereotypes. Rather than being a bridge, the Mediterranean today is a space associated with fractures, borders and securitization. She proposed instead a view of the region based on flows, on networks, the circulation of ideas, people, finances, et cetera. In her approach, the mobility paradigm is explored as an initial approach to contemporary geographies of the 38

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Skinner

Fig. 2. Programme of the InterSection Workshop on "The Mediterranean in the crossborad: Past, present and future", held at the Institute for Catalan Studies on 28 November 2014.

Mediterranean created not only by media, powers and ideologies, but also by everyday peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interethnic, intercultural and emotional interaction. The Mediterranean thus appears as a global web of confrontation, emulation, opposi-

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tion, dialectics and change. Maria Paradiso concluded that if we examined the potential of digital networks to create new solidarities and mobilities, we could reconstruct the Mediterranean as a space for the pursuit of dignity. 39

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The Mediterranean in the crossroad

“The

Mediterranean in the crossroad”, an InterSection Workshp of the BKH-AE

Tectonic plates can diverge to give ocean openings and they can also converge by subduction, producing a shortening of the plates that results in a mountain belt. Plate divergence (e.g., the Atlantic) is compensated by plate convergence (subduction, e.g., Andes). By measuring the age of the plates under the ocean we know that the oldest plate is very young compared to the age of the Earth. The age of the ocean floor is <180 million years (Ma), so we know that oceanic plates are permanently renewing. A big improvement in our understanding of the relation between the plates and the mantle below came thanks to seismic tomography. Seismologists place seismometers at different places on the surface and record the seismic waves coming from earthquakes from all around the Earth. It is a matter of calculation, converting millions of rays and then calculating the velocity that these waves have below the different places we want to study. This technique has allowed geologists to study how the African plate is going down, it is subducting below the Anatolian plate, just south of the Peloponnese. This explains all the earthquakes in the area around Greece. Geology also allows us to know the timing of events, the type and date the rocks, when volcanoes are functioning, and where the sediments are depositing, helping us to relate present-day geology to history. Thanks to paleomagnetism, the study of the record of the Earth’s magnetic field in rocks, sediments and archaeological materials, we can see if some pieces have rotated and how much they have rotated. The datasets collected from the surface help reconstruct the present-day subduction. In the Iberian Peninsula, there is a subduction of plates almost perpendicular towards Italy. It is a case called subduction rollout, where the tip of the subduction is moving in the reverse sense of the sense followed by the plate to go into the mantle. On top of the down-going plate there are backarc domains and in these domains there are high-pressure metamorphic rocks that have gone down, undergone changes and then come up again with fossils during the rollout. The process, which mimics one step of a caterpillar walk, can be summarized as follows: continental blocks are brought to great depths (70–100 km) in subduction zones, the rocks transform at high pressure forming eclogites and, finally, continental blocks detach from the down-going plate and move back to the surface in the space opened by the slab rollback and undergo stretching in back-arc domains. These high-pressure rocks, blueschists and eclogites,

The Academia Europaea currently has over 3,000 members from 37 European countries, making it a truly multicultural and multidisciplinary organization with a pan-European reach. In that spirit, and within the framework of the modern-day Disputatio of Barcelona, the BKH organized the first AE Intersection Workshop (AE-ISW) with the aim of discussing interdisciplinary issues and topics with a regional dimension. “The Mediterranean in the crossroad: Past, present and future” was held on 28 November, 2014, at the Institute for Catalan Studies in Barcelona. The speakers, all from diverse scientific backgrounds, were Jean-Pierre Brun, from the University of Rennes, Isabelle Anguelowski, from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Ricard Guerrero, from the BKH-AE, Rubén Duro, scientific photographer, Alessandro Tessari, from the University of Padua, Marc Mayer, from the University of Barcelona, and Salvador Giner, professor emeritus of the University of Barcelona (Fig. 2). Throughout seven talks, the participants were taken on a multidisciplinary journey that started with the geological origin of the Mediterranean; its early life from a microbiological perspective; the demography of the first Mediterranean global network—the Roman Empire—; a study of Catalan philosopher and writer Ramon Llull (1232–1316) as the first proto-European; a sociological view on the region’s problems and opportunities, and an analysis of Barcelona as an example of urban and environmental planning in the region.

The origins and plate tectonics of the Mediterranean The present-day Mediterranean Sea is a remnant of the western arm of the Tethys Sea, the ocean that coexisted between the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia during much of the Mesozoic era. The Mediterranean is a closed sea surrounded by mountain belts, which resulted from the shortening of plates. It appeared less than 60 million years ago, quite recently from a geological perspective, and it is still a very tectonically active area. Nowadays, Anatolia is moving westwards and Greece is moving towards the southwest up to 3 cm per year (Fig. 3). www.cat-science.cat

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Fig. 3. The Mediterranean Sea, that can be considered the largest “lake” in the world. Many cultures and most of the scientific knowledge started around its shores. (From the lecture by Dr. Ricard Guerrero at the 28 November, 2014 Workshop, in Barcelona. About Alexandria, see also the article by Carmen Chica, pp 59-74, this issue.)

by up to 1,600 m with regard the present-day level of the river. This is because if the level of the sea goes down, the river will follow, decreasing its levels as well. In other words, the demonstration of the Messinian salinity crisis was made by the rivers. It was thought originally that the slab rollback was responsible, but it actually ended before the onset of the crisis. More probably, the slab rollback prepared the crisis, but was not enough to justify it. The Gibraltar Strait is the symbol of the Messinian salinity crisis. Reflooding of the Mediterranean happened through the Gibraltar strait, with a discharge of 108 m3/s, three orders of magnitude larger than the present-day Amazon River flow. All these events reinforce the idea that the Mediterranean is a living geological system, expected to disappear in some 10 million years. The Gibraltar strait can be seen as a premonitory feature of its “retirement”.

which can be found in the Aegean, have recorded an increase followed by a decrease of pressure. Thanks to thermodynamic analysis of the minerals, scientists can measure the pressure that the rock has supported, and with the use of isotopes can date the minerals that crystallized. In other words, it is possible to know the pressure at a given time. The Messinian salinity crisis. The Messinian salinity crisis was a geological event that took place between 6.0 and 5.3 million years ago, whereby the Mediterranean went into a cycle of nearly complete desiccation. Geologists have been trying to understand this problem for the last 25 years. In the 1970s, using seismic exploration data, it was discovered that there was a layer of evaporates (salt) deposited on the Mediterranean seafloor [1]. A hypothesis was put forward of the desiccation of the Mediterranean as responsible for salt deposition. At the time, most members of the scientific community thought this was absolutely crazy, and strong disputes remain to this day. However, one thing most agree on is that there were two main successive events of evaporite deposition: gypsum– salt. Strontium (Sr) isotopes in gypsum and carbonates as a function of age show that event #1 resulted from sea water evaporation then supplied from Atlantic waters and event #2 resulted from the river waters from surrounding continents. During this 700,000-year period, rivers incised their bedrocks www.cat-science.cat

Mediterranean deltas: early life and late cultures Living beings surprise because of their diversity. The total number of current species has been estimated to be more that 30 million and we know that many more species have lived and have become extinguished [8]. Biological communities are usually stratified horizontally, because of light extinc41

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tion with depth. Tropical forests, planktonic communities, stratified lakes, and microbial mats can be considered as analogous forms at different scales. The photosynthetic layer expands for many meters in tropical forests; from a few meters to a few centimeters in multi-layered planktonic microbial communities, and for a few millimeters in microbial mats—layered communities of microbes growing on sediment–water and occasionally on sediment–soil. Microbial mats are highly diverse, physically and chemically active systems and are considered to have constituted early ecosystems, probably the earliest ones. The microorganisms in mats or in complex biofilms form coordinated functional communities that are much more efficient than mixed populations of floating planktonic organisms. Microbial mats resemble tissues formed by animals and plants in both their physiological cooperativity and the extent to which they protect the organism from variations in environmental conditions, by a kind of homeostasis provided by the matrix of the boundaries of the mat. The survival value of this strategy in the environment of the early Earth can be considered the main clue to the resilience of life against adverse environmental conditions [7].

and it was not possible to hunt or to grow anything in them, factors that played a role in culture developing very late around deltas. Approximately 200 years ago, however, it was discovered that rice could resist the salinity found in deltas. Besides, rice can grow thanks to the presence of Azolla sp., an aquatic "fern” which carries a nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria that later releases the nitrogen needed for the plant’s growth. Around the planet today, deltas are at the heart of the rice producing areas and key to the world food supply (Fig. 4). Of microbes and men. Humans live in a dynamic state of coexistence with a myriad of forms of microbial life. Nobody denies that pathogenic microorganisms have posed a threat for both humans and other forms of life. We can thus consider humans, or the human body, as an additional scale. Many diseases have been related to deltas, such as malaria, yellow fever, or filariasis. But there are other, such as the plague, that devastated the Mediterranean as a whole, killing 30–60% of Europe’s total population between 1346–1353. The Black Death, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is thought to have been carried by fleas found on the rats aboard merchant ships and to have spread from Genoa to the rest of the continent. It had profound effects on the course of European history and has been the subject numerous paintings, such as Peter Bruegel’s (1525–1569) The Triumph of Death (1562), or books such as Giovanni Boccaccio’s (1313–1375) Decameron (1351). The Black Death is probably the best known pandemy and it has been credited with ending medieval culture and thought. But another Italian city, Naples, and another epidemics, syphilis, marked the beginning of the Renaissance. Known also as morbus gallicus, hispanus or germanicus, its name is derived from the epic poem written in 1530 by Girolamo Frascatoro’s (1478–1553) Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus (his 1546 book De contagione et contagiosis morbis also provided the first description for typhus). Syphilis started abruptly at the end of the 15th century and had three distinct features: rapidly spreading epidemics, sexual transmission, and a quite visible and apparently serious symptomatology. Syphilis, caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum, was a disease that men contracted mostly through contact with prostitutes. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was still the most feared sexually transmitted disease, not only by the effects and complications it could cause in the affected people, but also because the public recognition of the disease was a social stigma [5].

The five largest Mediterranean deltas. The Rhône and the Ebro deltas, where microbial mats occur all along the coast, offer an ideal scenario to study them, and thus early life on our planet. As proposed by Prof. Ricard Guerrero, in accordance with Prof. Ramon Margalef (1919–2004), life started several times on Earth. Why is life only present in the Solar System, as we know now? It is thanks to bacterial “invention” of the ecosystem: if only one species were to be present, nutrients would disappear; but in ecosystems, bacteria are able to recycle scarce and limited chemical elements, nutrients and energy. These coordinated functional communities subsequently allowed the evolution of more diverse forms of life and the persistence of life as a planetary phenomenon. Together with the Ebro and the Rhône deltas, the Po, the Danube and the Nile rivers represent the five largest deltas in the Mediterranean. Today, these landforms have been designated as protected areas or natural parks, such as the Po or the Ebro deltas, or are considered rich agricultural regions, such as the Nile Delta. However, looking back in history, deltas were associated to the idea of being places of illness and desolation. Disease-carrying mosquitoes abounded in these areas

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Fig. 4. Detail of La Malaria (1850-1851), oil on canvas by French artist Antoine Auguste Ernest Hébert (1817–1908). Hébert’s painting conveyed admirably the melancholy of diseased country people and the blurring pestilential environment where they lived. The mala aria (bad air) can be indeed perceived in the painting, one of the best-known works of the artist. This painting was on the cover of Int Microbiol 2006, issue 9(2).

But microbes may also be responsible for certain miracles. The bacterium Serratia marcescens, which produces a red pigment, is responsible for the Miracle of Daroca (1238) and the Miracle of Bolsena (1263), where Mass hosts where found soaked in “blood,” or account for the miraculous appearance of blood on the Eucharist that led to Pope Urban IV (1195–1264) instituting the celebration of the Corpus Christi in 1264 [6]. A great majority of the species that are now or have been on Earth are microorganisms. The interactions between humans and microorganisms have very important consequences that, either positively or negatively affect our species. Microorganisms are the main agents of biogeochemical cycles of the elements of the biosphere but they also cause infectious diseases. However, all organisms have learned to coexist with microorganisms and today we know that most numerous and representative interactions between microorganisms and other organisms are not pathogenic but symbiotic. In fact, humans still inhabit the Earth because the pathogens that have attacked us can benefit of our survival. Microorganisms contribute to the biosphere with more benefits that disadvantages. The extreme metabolic and ecological variety of the microbial world represents a wide, unexplored resource for biodiversity of great value for the future [8].

subject, one that frequently gives rise to dramatic situations. The demographic study of the Roman world can provide a better understanding of this inland sea, the mare internum, in order to obtain a broader historical perspective that can clearly be projected onto the world of today. The contribution that the study of the World of Antiquity can make to all these questions is substantial even though the chronological distance might lead one to think that such a remote period is unlikely to have had much bearing on the contemporary situation. (For a full analysis on the topic, see: Mayer M, 2015, in this issue of Contributions to Science, pp. 49-58.)

Ramon Llull, the first proto-European Born in Majorca in 1232, Ramon Llull was a prolific and multifaceted writer and philosopher who wrote in Catalan, Latin and Arabic. Llull lived in the period of the late Middle Age, considered historically as irrationalistic times, but together with Roger Bacon, Grossatesta, and the Calculatores of Oxford, he was one of the men who announced what was to come a few centuries later: the scientific revolution. The heart of Llull’s contribution resided in what he called the Art, a general system for the interpretation of visible and invisible reality, which made use of semi-mechanical techniques, symbolic notation and combinatorial diagrams. The Art provided a single methodological basis for all fields of knowledge in the 13th century, from theology to the natural and the human sciences, and many people consider this was the start of modern computer science (Fig. 5).

The Roman Empire, the first Mediterranean global network The present-day situation of the Mediterranean Sea and the conflicts that arise in its proximity are undoubtedly a topical www.cat-science.cat

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ure of the industrial revolutions. Some cities such as Venice, managed to maintain prosperity during the long period of decline in the Mediterranean. And areas such as Catalonia and Piedmont, around their capitals, Barcelona and Turin, evolved to become bourgeois societies and then advanced more naturally towards an industrial capitalism. But this was not usually the case [4]. All of southern Europe shares a very similar process of modernization. Over the past 200 years approximately, there has been a sequence of stages of economic and political development taking place in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, that present incredible synchronicity despite taking place in such diverse countries. In all these countries, an initial stage of elitist, oligarchic government was followed by imperialist wars and later fascist dictatorships. If we look at Lisbon, Madrid, Rome and Athens, the state was, whether it wanted to or not, interventionist, but not in a truly modern sense. In people’s opinion, the capital embodied certain negative traits. It was distant, frightening and guilty of many national ills. At the same time, it was also a powerful pole of attraction generating employment, power and prosperity. But the growth of commercial and industrial empires, far from the political capital, illustrated the divorce between the political and the civil society. We can even say, with due caution, that in some Mediterranean countries a proverbial “Tale of Two Cities” took place reproducing this important dichotomy. Until very recently, and to a lesser extent today, many observers considered Spain and Italy as two-headed countries, each with two metropolises. Milan and Barcelona, Rome and Madrid became paradigmatic examples of industry and bourgeois society on the one hand, and political and administrative power on the other. The culture and attitude of the bourgeois cities was based on the flourishing of their civil societies, the cult of private enterprise, competition and progress without any further state support than protectionism, in some concrete cases. In the political capital, however, oligarchic governments and the mentality of class privilege dragged the state machinery and promoted state-ism and bureaucratic parasitism. This urban, metropolitan dichotomy that developed in Italy and Spain during most of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century could easily be extended to Turkey, with the polarity represented by Istanbul and Ankara, to Greece, with Athens and Thessaloniki and, to a lesser extent, to Portugal, with Lisbon and Porto [4]. Any consideration of any important facts of Mediterra-

Fig. 5. Logotype of the research project “Ramon Llull. Vida i obres” (RL. Life and Works) developed under the direction of Dr. Pere Villalba at the Institute for Catalan Studies, with the collaboration of the Elsa Peretti Foundation.

Modernity and the Mediterranean The history of the Mediterranean is the history of its cities, and the modern world owes its origin, to a large extent, to Mediterranean cities. French poet Charles Baudelaire is credited with coining the term modernity to designate the ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis. Modernity arose in post-Medieval Europe, with academics still disputing whether it started in the 14th or 15th centuries. However, some argue that, from an urban point of view, modernity was already underway the 12th century in the Mediterranean cities of Florence, Milan, Genoa and Barcelona. Modernity was later triggered by the creation of the stock exchange, an Italian invention and today a pillar of ultramodern capitalism in Wall Street and in the City. Private limited companies and currency exchange, both Catalan inventions, were also elemental, exemplified by double entry books, debit and credit, the application of rationality to accounts, accounting tables, and the invention of balance. As the initiative of the modernizing era was being displaced towards north-western Europe, the south did not follow the pattern of the mostly protestant, industrialized north. The Mediterranean arc remained stagnant and backwards in a peculiar situation which later led to its countries to the failwww.cat-science.cat

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nean societies must address the reality of their dualism, their ambiguities, and even their duplications. These countries have historically represented an obstacle to modernization, but they have also been a stimulus for what was once called progress, in that they have constructed or implemented industrialism, capitalism, literacy, socialism and many other forces of modernity.

erty in very close spaces, like the case of Beirut. In rapidly urbanizing mega-cities, transnational flows of investment, information and production are transforming the urban space. Developers and real estate actors put strong pressure on urban lands and territories. On the one hand you have informal settlements (such as favelas) and very close new areas of wealth and luxury housing can be found. One of the most acute forms of vulnerability in cities today is linked to the right to housing. Over the past decade, housing has become an object of speculation and of wealth creation rather than a right. Between 2002 and 2007, Europe experienced a housing bubble with prices rising 6% per year. In Spain, particularly, real estate rocketed, with the national average house price increasing by 250% between 1996 and 2007. Furthermore, housing equity policies declined, as did government support for housing subsidies. This situation led to the “Right to the City Movement”. Also known in Spain as the “15M”, this citizen movement claimed that cities are not meant to be for the profit of developers but for people, demanding the right to housing, the right to participation and transparency in decision making, as well as environmental and economic justice.

Urban planning in the Mediterranean Urban planning in global cities is influenced by different sources and investments that create different patterns of revitalization and inequalities. In the 21st century, cities are not necessarily seen as the main actors of globalization, but just as nodes around which real estate companies, banks and industries move, looking for the most attractive one, the one with the best tax breaks or better conditions to develop their projects. Thus cities become mere tools for those stakeholders. Spatial concentration of resources and uneven development due to investments moving from place to place in cycles of growth, devaluation, destruction, reinvestment, and mobilization mean there is great spatial inequality between areas of land that will be abandoned and others that will be used as new spaces of regeneration, with the emergence of greater patterns of equality, but also patterns of inequality due to gentrification.

Urban planning and the rebirth of Barcelona. The city of Barcelona offers and interesting case study as to how do urban revitalization policies create new conditions for socio-spatial inequalities and furthermore, how urban residents can challenge these inequalities and attempt to create new planning practices. As the first democratic government came to power in 1977, it tried to respond to residents’ demands for improvements on living conditions that had been neglected during the Franco’s dictatorship: housing, transportation, safety and public space. The idea was to transform the image of the city as a “Catalan Manchester” into that of multi-dynamic, multisectorial city with a new physical structure, economic base and social composition [11]. This was accomplished by creating new monument designs, increasing the cultural and architectural visibility of the city and improving the image of Barcelona through marketing of its touristic, cultural, and recreational, architectural attractions. The city was redeveloped around the 1980s Special Plans for Interior Reform (Planes Especiales de Reforma Interior, PERI) in five stages (Table 1) and a lot of emphasis was placed in the regeneration of public spaces (libraries, community centers, gyms, schools) and investment in degraded areas of

Urban planning in global cities. Cities are nodes within a global network of financial services and corporate headquarters that attempt to efficiently organize the internationalization of production, finance and information. If we compare Barcelona to other contexts, we see that, in the USA for example, the growth of suburbanization sprawl has turned into decreased job opportunities and neighborhood degradation for the people who live in the inner city [10], combined with a recent revaluation of inner city life and amenities. Cities such as Philadelphia, Boston or Houston, for example, are all seeing an influx of younger people coming back to the city. In Europe, there tends to be a mix of traditional working-class residents in central neighborhoods with professionals seeking to move to the urban cultural centres and with new immigrants overpopulating deteriorated districts, for example, the Raval neighborhood in Barcelona [2,3]. And in the Global South, there are extreme patterns and extreme contrasts of wealth and development and pov-

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The Mediterranean in the crossroad

Table 1. Stages of development of Barcelona’s redevelopment Stage

Description

The Barcelona of the neighborhoods (1978–mid-1980s)

150 projects transformed the quality of public spaces and neighborhood plazas with attention to social needs. Urban planning was done in conjunction with the residents, using their knowledge and the power of the community.

Olympic Games preparation (1986– 1992)

Massive transformation. The city turned towards the sea (the waterfront was revitalized, sport and recreational installations appeared, waterfront was rebuilt). The city became a space for recreation. It created a whole new neighborhood.

Post-Olympics era

Improvement of international markets and promotion of the city. Promotion of fairs and congresses. “Barcelona more than ever”. Promotion of the city as a center of design and knowledge.

Barcelona new projects

Rebuilding of poor areas that led to social inequality in the city. Emphasis on sustainability, new transportation and creation of new spaces through Agenda 21 program.

Knowledge city and smart city [8]

New forms of knowledge-based growth through the deployment of information, communication technologies and green technology. A more efficient and less resourceconsuming city.

two new community centers were built. Most importantly, perhaps, priority was placed in improving the wellbeing and quality of life, especially in marginalized or vulnerable populations, by targeting both physical health (clean air, soil, nutrition, places for play, recreation, education, physical activity, healthy homes) and mental health (nurturing, healing, protecting, wellness). As a result of these community initiatives, it became a socially, ethnically and economically vibrant neighborhood. Why did the residents put so much energy into revitalizing this area? The years of neglect and destruction from the city had created a form of loss and trauma that led to community engagement. This was reinforced with the positive place connection and attachment to the neighborhood, not only as a motivator for the residents, but also a goal, meaning people were very attached to the “village” relations the neighborhood had created, to the landmarks, and to the history of the area. As many of them stated, they “wanted to have a say, at the local level, of the way our city is changed.”

the city. The problem is that this was accomplished often on a huge scale and with block demolitions, in the end becoming very criticized and controversial projects, as they affected the social fabric of the city. Community-based regeneration. There are, however, examples of residents coming together to try to have a voice in the decision-making process of a neighborhood to be regenerated. This is the case of the “Ciutat Vella”, or old town, in Barcelona. In the 1980s and 1990s, 2,000 residents were displaced and 1,078 buildings destroyed during the initial revitalization of the old town. While big parts of the neighborhood were being destroyed, there was no longterm, sustainable and equitable vision in the process. In 2001, 175 buildings were in bad shape, including 35 of them in ruins, and they had poor sanitation conditions on top of inferior waste collection and management. Several street corners in the area were abandoned with debris and waste accumulation. There was high drug consumption, the health centers were high in demand and usually overcrowded, and in addition, there were fewer opportunities for recreation or to practice sports. In response, the residents rebuilt the neighborhood, using do-it-yourself (DIY) techniques and thanks to their own capacity to raise funds, materials, trees, etc. The Municipality had no choice but to pay more attention to this space, and a 2.8€-million investment in water, light, gas, a sewage infrastructure followed. There were also education campaigns about recycling practices to improve waste management and www.cat-science.cat

Visit to CosmoCaixa: exhibit on the Medi terranean and choral concert After the sessions in the IEC, the participants in the workshop went to the “CosmoCaixa” science museum to visit the exhibit “The Mediterranean as you’ve never seen it before”. Afterwards, to end the celebration of the 2014 InterScience Worshop, the choral “Cor de Músic”, under the direction of 46

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Skinner

C Contrib Sci

Fig. 6. Activities of the BKH-AE on 28 November 2014. (A) Lectures in the InterSection Workshop at the Institute for Catalan Studies. Alexandro Tessari is speaking of Ramon Llull (1232– 1316), showing the influence that this medieval writer had on European philosophy and architecture even centuries after his death. One exemple is El Escorial Monastery, by Juan de Herrera (1530–1597), inspired in Llullian’ conceptions. (B, C, D) Activities at the CosmoCaixa science museum: (B) Visit to the exhibit on the Mediterranean. (C) Choral concert by “Cor de Músic”, from Castelldefels. (D) Social mixing after the concert.

Manel Cubelles, interpreted several Medieval songs from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat. (The 14th-century manuscript was compiled in and is still located at the monastery of Montserrat, Barcelona.) (Fig. 6).

References 1. Auzende JM (1971) Upper Miocene salt layer in the western Mediterranean. Nat Phys Sci 230:82-84 2. Borja J, et al. (2004) Urbanismo en el siglo XXI. UPC, Barcelona 3. Borja J, Castells M (1997) Local y global: la gestión de las ciudades en la era de la globalización. Grupo Santillana Ediciones 4. Giner S (2004) Ciudad e historia en la Europa Meridional. Algunas reflexiones sociológicas. La Ciudad Viva [http://www.laciudadviva.org/opencms/export/sites/laciudadviva/recursos/documentos/Salvador_Giner 5. Guerrero R, Berlanga M (2007) Microbis d’amor i mort. Omnis cellula 15:46-49 6. Guerrero R, Berlanga M (2014) Miracles i miratges. Mètode 81:106-107 7. Guerrero R, Berlanga M (2013) An integrate ecogenetic study of minimal ecosystems: The microbial mats of Ebro Delta and the Camargue (Western Mediterranean). Contrib Sci 9:117-139 8. Guerrero R, Berlanga M, Massana R (2012) Les microbiologies i els canvis de paradigmes. Treballs de la SCB 63:161-181 9. March H, Ribera-Fumaz R (2014) Smart contradictions: The politics of making Barcelona a Self-sufficient city. European Urban and Regional Studies. doi:10.1177/0969776414554488 10. Massey DS, Denton NA (1993) American Apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Harvard University Press 11. Nel·lo O (2004) Las grandes ciudades españolas en el umbral del siglo XXI. In Papers: Regió Metropolitana de Barcelona: Territori, strategies i planejament 42:9-62

Coda As Enric Banda, director of the Science and Environment Area of the Foundation “la Caixa”, aptly concluded in his presentation for the Disputatio of Barcelona 2014, after decades of intense research we have acquired considerable knowledge about the present state of the Mediterranean Sea and its large number of serious problems: pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, decreasing flux of elements, among many others. These problems are not due to the nature or origin of the Mediterranean, they were caused by human intervention. Science is needed not only to identify these problems but also to solve them, to sustain the Mediterranean area and to ensure that it will remain sustainable. In order to achieve sustainability we have to promote a closer dialogue between science and the humanities, for only shared scientific and humanistic knowledge can allow us to move towards a really integrated view of the Mediterranean. Competing interests. None declared.

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DISTINGUISHED LECTURES Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

OPENAACCESS

CONTRIB SCI 11:49-58 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.213

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DISPUTATIO OF BARCELONA 2014: The Mediterranean, bridge of cultures

The demography of the first Mediterranean global network: The Roman Empire Marc Mayer i Olivé* Department of Latin Philology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia

Correspondence: Marc Mayer Departament de Filologia Llatina Facultat de Filologia Universitat de Barcelona Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585 08007 Barcelona, Catalonia Tel. +34-934035597

Summary. The study of the demographic characteristics of the first Mediterranean global network, the Roman Empire, is not an easy task. There are a lot of aspects to consider and an almost equal number of factors affecting them. In addition, the possible sources of information used to be incomplete and biased. Although methodology for conducting this kind of studies has evolved through time, allowing us to extract and to interpret the data in a better way, some aspects remain still obscure. [Contrib Sci 11:49-58 (2015)]

E-mail: mmayer@ub.edu

Introduction The present-day situation of the Mediterranean Sea and the conflicts that arise in its proximity are a topical subject, one that frequently gives rise to dramatic situations. Forced population movements and also large-scale migrations are taking place without any real possibility of balance or a decided search for solutions being seen for the moment in this situation, which may seem confusing from a general standpoint, but which actually reflects the sum of many far more localized and focused circumstances, which, considered in global terms, appear to have the same characteristics. Hence the lack of proposals and the ambiguity to be found in analyses, which often, as a result of seeking out common features,

distort or even trivialize the situations and conflicts being studied since they are unable to detect specific patterns of behaviour. Priorities such as those under the heading of “societal challenges” have been established within the EU H2020 programs as a result of awareness of this insufficiency. Among them, we can mention the lollowing: health, demographic change and well-being; food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy; and, to a lesser degree, secure societies (protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens). The contribution that the study of the world of Antiquity can make to all these questions is substantial even though the chronological distance might lead one to think that such

*This article is based on the lecture presented by the author at the InterSection Workshop held at the Institute for Catalan Studies on 28 November 2014, as a contribution to the Disputatio of Barcelona 2014.

Keywords: Roman Empire · Antiquity · demography · slavery · urban life ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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Demography of the Roman Empire

a remote period is unlikely to have had much bearing on the contemporary situation. Nevertheless, the settings are the same, military action is taking place in the same places and the geopolitical situation seems to be repeating itself. It is evident that this might simply lead us to the well-known commonplace that history repeats itself, but in fact nothing could be farther from the truth. It is apparent that history does not repeat itself although the conditioning factors sometimes continue in existence even if somewhat modified; the most obvious are territory, climate and production; in short, everything that shapes an environment, if we do not wish to speak of ethnic characteristics or territorial expansion phenomena. In both the ancient world and in the present-day one, external influences that open up otherwise unforeseen horizons are frequently responsible for triggering off such events. All these factors lead us to adopt a holistic approach to the subject dealt with here, one that does not endeavor to look for patterns that can be extrapolated to the contemporary world and which, insofar as possible, avoids resorting to comparisons with distant historical contexts other than purely methodological ones. Only in this way can a certain degree of objectivity be obtained in our analysis of ancient society, in our case Roman society, which in itself already had serious difficulties as a consequence of its diversity, its timespan and its not always easily identifiable substrates and adstrates. Only from a viewpoint obtained with these analytical variables will we obtain a product that might be extrapolated to other moments and circumstances by other analysts, without the current circumstances under which our observations are being made having had undue influence, even though it is to a certain extent inevitable, on our own analyses and reconstruction.

in works referring to the Roman world. Thematic emphasis on certain key points has barred the way to a more general overview; such analyses have obviously developed since Beloch’s contribution, but have failed to advance insofar as a broader interpretation is concerned beyond the important works by Parkin [39] and Frier [19], to give but two examples of studies that aimed, at least in part, to cover the scope of Beloch’s work, taking into account advances in our knowledge of the sources and methodological improvements. The Cambridge School has been one of the main driving forces in the development of these studies, and its contribution defines the current state of knowledge. In brief, and without analyzing the methodology [15,31], this can be a succinct list of the subjects that need to be covered in a study of this type for which we currently have abundant data and even sufficient information for in-depth analysis: • Birth: child mortality, contraception, infanticide. • Life expectancy: population growth and decline, fertility. Population structure. • Morbidity: common pathologies, pestilence, endemic plagues in many periods. • Food supply: foodstuffs are always a scarce commodity in Antiquity. Roman evidence for this fact; agricultural produce and herding; advances in production techniques, and the arrival of new products. In the Roman world, food supply was a decisive factor for population movements. • Natural disasters: earthquakes and tsunamis (well-studied and documented), floods, volcanic eruptions, droughts (in the field of agricultural production). • The impact of warfare: war as a growth factor both as regards territory and the subject population, and especially the number of slaves; calculation of the number of soldiers in the Roman army in different periods; calculation of human losses in wars and battles; territorial growth and frontiers. Life expectancy within the army [34,46], the recruitment age and the length of service are other frequently studied aspects, although they have limited consequences for a relatively small sector of the population. • Social aspects: slavery; rigidity of the class system; differences between rural and urban life; property ownership; the position of women; family structures. Geographical location is an inevitable conditioning factor. • Economic aspects: land ownership; quantitative studies of production; consumer goods; agricultural production; artisan and semi-industrial production; prices and transport and distribution costs (both as regards raw materials and finished products).

Factors affecting demography At the moment, the demographic study of the Roman world is one of the principal contributions that can be made for a better understanding of this inland sea that is the Mediterranean, the mare internum, in order to obtain a broader historical perspective that can clearly be projected onto the world of today. Despite the existence of earlier attempts, it is widely accepted that the start of this interest has its modern precursor in Karl Julius Beloch (1854–1929), whose Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (Leipzig, 1886), a work that many scholars still consider to be valid; in spite of the advances in demographic studies, they have been only partially reflected www.cat-science.cat

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Fig. 1. Low relief in the Roman Empire representing a birth. (From Ostia, now in the Welcome Collection of Medical Objects.)

• Administrative aspects: the structure of the administration and its development; juridical statutes and population settlements; administrative determination of land distribution. Specific elements such as the familia Caesaris and interaction with the army are also conditioning factors to be taken into account. • Urban aspects: spectacles; assessment of the sizes of cities and their population densities; population movements between countryside and city; town-planning features and structures. In this context, it should be emphasised that public baths and buildings for spectacles have long been considered as fundamental sources of information.

Researchers depend on documents and inscriptions that simply mention free men and women and hardly ever refer to slaves. It cannot be proved that Malthus’ theories on the increase or decrease in population are valid for the ancient world, but the simplicity of his approach can lead to their application. In addition, it is difficult for us to consider these aspects separately in any consideration of life expectancy. We can be certain that child mortality reached considerable proportions, particularly in the first year of life, as has been the case almost down to the present day. Furthermore, there are specific phenomena that deserve to be considered: contraception and abortion, well studied taking the case of the Imperial household as an example [16,33,41,42], the exposure or abandonment of new-born infants and infanticide [14,28], particularly frequent for girls. It should be mentioned that the seasonal birthing cycle has led to interesting research, once again based on the example of the Imperial household itself, the domus divina, which provides a large amount of information [50]. The age at which young people got married and reproduction started has also been another important question when evaluating fertility [32]. The studies of Parkin [39] can be of great use in this field. His approach, consisting of analyzing the four types of evidence (epigraphic, Egyptian, Ulpianic and skeletal) available for this category of observation, could not be more appropriate.

The order in which these different aspects have been presented is not that of importance; instead, it reflects criteria that may seem arbitrary, depending on the different questions and interests that have led to this general analysis.

Birth and life expectancy It is self-evident that the subject of birth rate is linked to female fertility (Fig. 1). It is a subject of great significance, in which, however, it will only be possible to make advances if new evidence is found. In contrast, we are almost totally ignorant of a substantial sector of the population: slaves. www.cat-science.cat

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Demography of the Roman Empire

Fig. 2. Probability of dying between age x and age x + n [qx] in the Roman Empire. (Modified from Frier.)

Fig. 3. Age by which a cohort of age x may be expected to be dead, according to the Ulpianic and costumary tables.

The epigraphic evidence. Considering the meaning and relative significance of each of these forms of evidence, the epigraphic evidence is perhaps the most widely used, but the information so derived is of limited value for several reasons: (i) the chance nature of finds, the varying state of knowledge to be found in different geographical areas; (ii) the extent of what is known as the epigraphic habit [38]; (iii) the variations in the amount of information in different periods; and (iv) in particular, the fact that, at the most, it is indicative of only one sector of society at any given moment. Factors that favor the extensive use of such evidence include the simplicity of the calculations feasible. In addition, the distinction between men and women is perfectly clear and quantifiable in the epigraphic record and even the length of life can be easily calculated by adding the number of years lived by the individuals in the sample and dividing the total by the number of individuals concerned.

birth rate. One distinctive feature of Egyptian society, brother-sister marriage, has also been a frequent subject of study [48]. Despite these limitations, our demographic knowledge is greater and better founded that the information that we have for other regions. W. Scheidel has insisted on the validity of applying modern parallels from the same area in order to evaluate death caused by plagues, seasonal mortality and the influence of food production on the population [47,48]. The Ulpianic evidence. The Ulpianic evidence (for the Roman jurist Domicio Ulpiano, 170â&#x20AC;&#x201C;228 AD) is the information arising from a legal text contained in the Digest, in which, when the XX hereditatium and its consequences are considered, a gradual application of the lex Falcidia is proposed, depending on life expectancy. It is an element of general value as it can be applied to the Roman Empire as a whole, and it seems to reflect a degree of experience as regards the average lifespan. However, like all legal texts, it reflects one moment in time and a specific period, and, in all likelihood, the Italic context. Nevertheless, it is a relatively trustworthy source that can be extrapolated for analyzing the lifespan, and even more so when compared with other tables for the death rate in Antiquity [18]. (Figs. 2 and 3.)

The Egyptian evidence. The Egyptian evidence is valid for Egypt alone but not for the whole roman Empire, since the evidence is derived from the existence of censuses drawn up for tax-collection purposes. Consequently, they reflect only one sector of society and a very specific geographical area reliably. Furthermore, the number of censuses is insufficient to allow extrapolations outside Egypt itself. The demography of Egypt has been well studied [3,4], and excellent statistical data have been obtained as regards to female fertility and www.cat-science.cat

The skeletal evidence. The skeletal evidence is the most reliable way of evaluating this information for a group. However, it does require a multidisciplinary approach that is not 52

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always applied, and specific knowledge which archaeologists do not always possess. Once again, as in the case of the epigraphic evidence, the chance factor plays an important role, together with the diversity of our knowledge depending on the zone. Funerary rituals are also decisive as it is far easier to interpret a set of inhumations that a group of cremations. As Parkin recognized [39], it is clear that this is the most reliable indicator and the results thus obtained for the length of life are comparable with the standard charts or average pattern for the west that are habitually used as a comparative guideline. And Salmon similarly preferred this source of evidence over that of epigraphy [46]. The skeletal evidence allows us to carry out paleopathological studies and analyze child morbidity or mortality and gender differences. Literary sources and also epigraphic references to events tell us of the existence of pestilence and plagues. To take but one example, we might recall the long plague in the Antonine period (138–180 AD), which brought about the death of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 AD) [46]. Fig. 4. Distribution of bread in Pompeii (found at the “House of the Baker”).

Food supply Food is a factor of vital significance in modern demographic studies in order to be able demonstrate whether life is sustainable or not in a particular area for a specific number of inhabitants; if this number is exceeded, the result may well be shortages, population decline and population movements caused by famine. Frier has stated cum mica salis that more is worse [17]. Surely famine was an endemic factor in the Roman world, and there is no doubt that food resources were always scarce or limited. It can be added that these circumstances were increased and verged on the extreme insofar as the slave population was concerned. It might be recalled that, as a model Roman matron, Cicero’s mother exercised rigid control over food in her household, particularly in order to prevent slaves from gaining access to food supplies and, moreover, both Roman and Greek comedies represent slaves as being permanently obsessed with the possibility of eating (Fig. 4). The Roman public authorities are also known to have established a supply system for the city of Rome and, by extension, for the area of modern-day Italy as a whole. Individual cities would seek out secure and constant sources of food supply, and it is widely asumed that needs might have been less serious in rural contexts because of the proximity of resources. Some historians would like to replace the term of famine by that of Versordgunskrise (supply crisis) [35], and there are no www.cat-science.cat

doubts that such difficulties did occurr. To provide just one example, an inscription from Hispania makes this very clear in straightforward terms (IRC II, 32), but, at the same time, there can be no doubt that we are far from sure that food resources were adequate in all the area covered by the Roman Empire and that prolonged periods of famine did not take place [20– 22,29]. It is apparent that health depended to a great extent on these food possibilities, and hence population also increases or decreases did occurr. The care taken in supplying drinking water or water for the public baths in largely urban areas and military bases formed part of this concern. The annona militaris, the supplies provided to the army, which received oil from Baetica or wine from Italy in distant lands, is an example of this concern for supply, which was carried out with such a high degree of efficiency at certain times that it came to modify the eating habits of the areas in which the Roman army was based, as was the case of Britannia.

Warfare and natural disasters Rises or falls in population can also be due to factors external to the natural increase in population, such as wars. Brunt [10] emphasized how the population of Roman Italy fell by almost 450,000 citizens between 225 BC and 90 BC because of wars. 53

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Fig. 5. Plaster casts of human bodies at the “Garden of the Fugitives” from Pompeii, after the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD.

the free peasantry, and for this reason we cannot calculate their significance in agricultural production [22]. According to Alföldy, in contrast, the capture of slaves in conquered lands and their swift manumission would have been an efficient way to increase the free population and thus also income through taxation. As has already been mentioned, it is impossible to calculate the number of slaves for many reasons; whereas some scholars tend to maximize their numbers, others would reduce them to a minimum. Spartacus’ revolt (70 BC) involved at least 200,000 slaves in Roman Italy. The evidence of Livy (ca. 60 BC–17 AD) enables us, for example, to make a calculation as regards the number of slaves obtained as a consequence of the conquest of Hispania. The conclusions that can be drawn from all these sources are partial and in no way is it possible to make generalizations on their basis. A scholar of the stature of Brunt [10] has calculated a population of some 3,000,000 slaves out of a total population for Roman Italy that cannot have been greater than 7,500,000. In contrast, as Brunt himself also points out, for the free population of Roman Italy we can point to considerable growth between 508 BC and 14 BC, a period during which the census went from 130,000 to 4,937,000 [30,34]. However, this increase did not take place without fluctuations as a result of innumerable factors outside the natural biological increase. We do

Natural disasters, earthquakes and especially tsunamis produced a particular impact on late Roman society, as Ammianus Marcellinus (ca. 330–ca. 400 AD) reminds us [24–26]. We should not forget the disaster that suposed for cities such as Pompeii and Herculaneum the eruption of the Vesuvius in 79 AD (to mention the best known example of a natural phenomenon of this type) (Fig. 5). Finally, reference has already been made to the shortages that arose from the dependency of crops on climatic conditions and the inadequate measures available to alleviate the effects of such circumstances.

Social, economic and administrative aspects The slave population is very difficult to quantify and also complicated to place it within the structure of society. Against the position adopted by the scholar G. Alföldy (1935–2011), who believed in the social mobility of the slave population by means of frequent manumission processes [1] (see the frequent reprints and translations of his Römische Sozialgeschichte [2]), at least in the urban context, there are divergent opinions based on the limitations for manumission and the need for a slave workforce for agriculture, animal herding and industrial production. It is very difficult to identify www.cat-science.cat

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not know exactly what the sources are referring to when they speak of population or census figures, and even in the case of the free population, they are likely to have excluded those who had the least weight, to a certain women and children. Population density calculations are a frequent point of comparison when it comes to evaluating population figures in Antiquity. The density of 22–28 inhabitants/km2 for Sardinia in 1881 was used by Beloch (1854–1929) as a variable for his calculations, increasing or reducing it in accordance with other factors such as terrain, soil fertility or the data derived from the sources for a particular moment. Similar calculations have been applied to Roman society taking advantage of the more sophisticated present-day knowledge of demography although with uneven results. The size of military contingents and the establishment of new cities together with the resulting migrations are further factors to which particular attention has been rightly paid. However, it should be taken into account that these phenomena are unlikely to have taken place in hitherto empty regions and that they also had a noticeable impact on the pre-existing populations, who had to be displaced unless reduced to the condition of slaves. The Roman procedure of territorial planning and structure by means of centuriatio undoubtedly led to such effects, and in areas where there were no newly-established foundations, the establishing of divisions necessary for Roman government must have had traumatic consequences. Social structure is a factor of particular importance. It is not only a question of the problems presented by a slaveowning society such as the Roman one, but also of the vectors that arise within such a society as a consequence of living alongside slaves [23]. Compared with the characteristics of most ancient societies, the rigid social structure that conditioned even marriages allowed relatively swift social promotion, particularly between the 1st and 3th centuries AD, with the result that within barely three generations a family might rise from the lowest ranks of society to the highest. As Alföldy pointed out, this mobility was not to be found again until the Early Modern period (ca. 1500–1789). In this context, we should remember the willingly-accepted strict social immobility of Byzantium as a paradigmatic case. Neither are we aware of the relative weight of the social classes, that is to say, for example, the ordo senatorius, the ordo equester and the Roman citizens with full rights, as well as the freedmen, so as to be able to establish their relative proportions. In addition, social mobility in itself did not have a decisive or direct impact on population growth even though the impression may be given that there was an increase in the www.cat-science.cat

numbers recorded in censuses as a consequence of some inhabitants obtaining their freedom and autonomy. The same situation arose as a result of the constitutio Antoniniana, by which the Emperor Caracalla (188–217 AD) gave all the free inhabitants of the empire Roman citizenship under certain conditions. Once again, the accumulation of property in a small number of hands, the limited possibilities for female autonomy and, in particular, broad family structures in rural contexts make it very difficult to assess population figures unless we are prepared to resort to models based on density (inhabitants/km2). We are aware of elements leading to agricultural development, but we are unable to evaluate their precise impact on population growth [8]. The same situation arises as regards the production of goods, whether in artisan or pre-industrial contexts; we might suppose that both free and slave labor were being used at the same time, but we are unable to quantify it. Information is available on aspects such as production costs, transport and distribution costs, thus we can even calculate production times, but we are not able to evaluate effectively the human role in the process [9,13,49]. An example in order to better understand the problem is that of marble quarrying. For the Romans, marmor was any stone that could be used for decorative purposes by means of working and polishing it and, consequently, it was a widespread and necessary activity throughout the empire. The main quarries are well known to have been Imperial property. Diocletian (ca. 244–311 AD) and Maximian’s (ca. 250–311 AD) Edictum de pretiis maximis (301 AD) provides us a production rate per cubic foot and the price of transport. The production inscriptions on the surviving unworked marble blocks show how production was organized, its dates and the names of those responsible for organizing it, with a considerable proportion of military personnel being present. Archaeological examination of the quarrying points, such as, for example, those where the so-called cipollino marble was quarried near the modren-day city of Karystos (Greece), enables us to become familiar with the quarrying places themselves. We indeed know the structures to house the military personnel stationed in the area, but there is no evidence whatsoever for the number of people present in the area and necessary for the extraction process, or for preparing, sometimes roughing out and transporting the stones. The cost of and the time required to produce the final product can therefore be calculated [5,43], but for the moment, we are unable to verify the number of individuals involved and their condition although we are aware of the presence of imperial slaves and freedmen. There is somewhat more information 55

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about Egypt once again, more precisely on the production of porphyry and granite at the quarries near the Red Sea [37]. Confusions such as those that have been noted are almost always to be found whenever an attempt is made to quantify production processes from the point of view of human involvement. And the same occurs when any attempt is made to relate population to monetary circulation and the changes in the value of money under the empire, where inflation and devaluation were constant features, balanced by the circulation of gold coinage in the late Roman period [6,11,12]. The working of the Roman administration and its development are fairly well known, but once again we are faced with the difficulty of quantifying the number of civil servants. It may seem paradoxical that the uppermost levels are better known than the lower ones. We are aware of who succeeded whom in posts among the ruling classes, but not how their subordinates were organized and, above all, we are almost totally ignorant of their numbers. The family of the Caesars, that is to say the slaves and freedmen within the Imperial household, provided service for it, but at the same time they were in charge of the administrative bureaucracy of Imperial estates in distant territories and civil servants at the service of not only the Imperial administration. Their marriage union customs do not appear to have been ruled by the same factors that made the union of a free woman with a slave impossible, and, in spite of the many studies of the family of the Caesars at different moments, we cannot even be certain of its real structure. If this administrative interaction might also involve the army, the situation in which we find ourselves can easily be imagined if we seek to quantify the number of members and relate it to overall population figures, a detail that could turn out to be extremely meaningful. The Notitia Dignitatum, which is essential for an understanding of the later period leading up to the break-up of the Roman Empire, is once again a relatively detailed organizational list of administrative and military structure, but does not enable us to progress beyond overall numbers, higherranking civil servants and military units, which makes it possible to propose likely approximations but does not allow great security in our calculations. The passage from Late Antiquity to the medieval world presents the same problems of quantification as those of the Classical period [44,45].

especially regarding the number of inhabitants, not only because of their dimensions, but also because of the availability of land in the area in which they were located and their strategic or logistical importance. No effort will be made here to define what was understood as a city in the ancient world, but I will underline the importance of the existence of a series of public buildings that identified the cities in general terms. In addition, attention should also be paid to the structure of private residences, which in the case of the Roman Empire were basically domus and insulae, together with some mixed forms. For this purpose, considerable archaeological knowledge of the city being studied is required, a situation that is rarely found. As a result, assumptions as regards insulae are largely guesswork. Even when we possess ample archaeological knowledge, there will always be the question of the calculation of the slave population, to which the same variables for the occupation of space as the rest of the population cannot be applied. Public buildings for spectaclesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the theatre, amphitheater and circus, as well as the stadium and odeon in the eastern part of the empireâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;are one of the most widely used variables or tools for population measurement through calculations based on the number of spectators they could hold. These results are indeed valid for these buildings, but they cannot be used in a directly proportional way to estimate the population of the cities where they stood [40]. Every city of a certain status or size had one or more buildings of these characteristics, although archaeology may not have brought it to light. Such is the case, for example, of Barcino (Barcelona). Public spectacle buildings would have served not only the city, but also an entire zone, and the inhabitants of its hinterland used to attend performances, as well as inhabitants of other cities. In Calagorri, modern-day Calahorra in La Rioja, Spain, the home-town of Quintilian (ca. 35â&#x20AC;&#x201C;ca. 100), around the year 100 AD pottery vessels associated with spectacles taking place in the theatre, amphitheater and circus were manufactured. The products, all from the same workshop, that of Gaius Valerius Verdullus, allude to the spectacle and even provide a date. The distribution of this pottery is thus significant, as it was carried by spectators when they returned home. If this distribution is examined, we will see that the distances travelled were occasionally over three hundred kilometers, which gives us an idea of its power of attraction for spectators from distant areas. However, not all the population could attend the spectacles and women, children and slaves were often excluded for various reasons. The consequence is clear: although these structures offer many possibilities for quantification, the results are not directly ap-

Urban life Urban and rural life in the ancient world were very different. And differences appear also when comparing different cities, www.cat-science.cat

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Mayer i Olivé

Fig. 6. Roman theatre in Bosra (southern Syria), capital of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.

the case of Rome, when the so-called Gracchan colonies, named after the Gracchi brothers (Tiberius and Gaius) who promoted them in the 2nd century BC, were established. Similar reasoning is used by historians to explain expansions, migration and colonial foundations. The results of urban population figure assessments are thus very varied and confirm one point that is widely seen in this type of calculations: in essence they are opinions with a greater or lesser degree of scientific value and methodological basis. Finally, a rarely mentioned subject in the field of demographic studies which is still a pending and unquantified subject is literacy. This variable should be related to population volumes even though the data in this case are almost exclusively epigraphic. It is a subject for which a specific methodology will have to be established, one that cannot be found in the previous contributions to the field, such as that of Harris [27], the results of which have gradually been modified or even refuted as knowledge has advanced.

plicable to the cities where they are located, and they must have had a floating population of no small size (Fig. 6). The calculations carried out on the basis of the cemeteries adjoining the city suffer from the same limitations, depending on the extent of our archaeological knowledge. There are also unusual superimpositions of sites, such as the case of the circus of Segobriga, in the central plateau of Spain (currently, province of Cuenca, Spain), which was built over a cemetery that had been in use until a few years earlier. This situation is a perfect illustration of the difficulties involved in this type of calculation. There are specific problems when calculating the urban numbers in the great cities of the empire―with Rome, Alexandria, Athens and Antioch heading the list―because of the large number of buildings and urban spaces depending on their extent and the number of inhabitants. In all cases, the system of calculation is based on an estimate of the population density (inhabitants/ha), which in principle should reflect archaeological criteria, also taking into account uninhabited or unoccupied urban spaces. In addition, the existence of these great cities led to their becoming a pole of attraction for the migratory population looking for a better or easier life, a need that the great city may not have been able to answer with its services. Consequently, there could be a large mass of jobless inhabitants, for whom some way out had to be sought in one way or another. An explanation of this type has been given, for instance, in www.cat-science.cat

Conclusion The different levels to which knowledge of writing penetrated may provide an explanation for the bias of our data when they do not depend on calculations of density nor on skeletal evidence. Generally speaking, written sources refer to a population that is capable of being the subject of legal business, 57

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and not to the population as a whole. For this reason, it is both difficult and risky to extrapolate from this sort of data. Looking at the subject as a whole, we are thus faced with calculations of limited reliability, whatever the quantification methodology might be, and with almost informed opinions to all extents and purposes. As Scheidel stated [47], only by means of cross-disciplinary embeddedness is there a future for the study of the demography of the Ancient World.

deprivation. Oxford, UK, pp 126-146 22. Garnsey P (1998) Food and society in classical Antiquity. Cambridge, UK 23. George A (2013) Reflections on slavery and the constitution. Lexington Books, Idaho, USA 24. Guidoboni E (1989) I terremoto prima del Mille in Italia e nell’area mediterranea. Storia Archeologia Sismologia. Bologna, Italy 25. Guidoboni E, Comastri A (2005) Catalogue of earthquakes and tsunamis in the Mediterranean area from the 11th to the 15th century. INGV. Rome, Italy, pp 403-434 26. Guidoboni E, Comastri A, Traina A (1994) Catalogue of ancient earthquakes in the Mediterranean area up to the 10th century. Bologna, Italy 27. Harris M (1991) Cultural anthropology. Harper Collins, New York, NY 28. Harris WV (1982) The theoretical possibility of extensive infanticide in Graeco-Roman world. Classical Quart New Series 32:114-116 29. Harrison GA (ed) (1988) Famines. Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK 30. Hin S (2013)The demography of Roman Italy. Population dynamics in an ancient conquest society. 201 BC – AC 14. Cambridge, UK 31. Holleran C, Pudsey A. (ed) (2011) Demography and society in the Greek and Roman worlds. New insights and approaches. Cambridge, UK 32. Hopkins K (1964) Contraception in the Roman Empire. Comp Stud Soc Hist 8:124-151 33. Hopkins K (1966) On the probable age structure of the Roman population. Pop Stud 20:245-264 34. Kay P (2014) Rome’s economic revolution. Oxford, UK 35. Kohns HP (1988) Hungersnot und Hungerbewältigung in der Antike. In: Kloft H (ed) Sozialmassnahmen und Fürsorge. Zur Eigenart antiker Sozialpolitik, Grazer Beiträge Suppl. III. Graz, Austria, pp 103-121 36. Lo Cascio E (2001) Recruitment and the size of the Roman population from the third to the first century BCE. In: Scheidel W (ed) Debating Roman demography. Leiden, the Netherlands, pp 111-137 37. Maxfield V, Peacock D (2001) Survey and excavation - Mons Claudianus, 1987–1993. Vol II: Excavations: Part I. Cairo, Egypt 38. Meyer C (1992) Glass from Quseir al-Qadim and the Indian Ocean trade. Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Chicago, IL, USA 39. Parkin T (1992) Demography and Roman society. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MA, USA 40. Potter DS, Mattingly DJ (1999) Life, death, and entertainment in the Roman Empire. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA 41. Prioreschi P (1995) Contraception and abortion in the Greco-Roman world. Vesalius 1:77-87 42. Riddle JM (1992) Contraception and abortion from the Ancient world to the Renaissance. Cambridge, UK 43. Russell B (2013) Roman and late-antique shipwrecks with stone cargoes: a new inventory. J Roman Archaeol 26:331-361 doi:10.1017/S1047759413000184 44. Russell JC (1958) Late ancient and medieval population. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA, USA 45. Russell JC (1985) The control of late ancient and medieval population. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA, USA 46. Salmon P (1974) Population et dépopulation dans l’Empire romain. Latomus 137, Brusels, Belgium 47. Scheidel W (ed) (2001) Debating Roman demography. Leiden, the Netherlands 48. Scheidel W (1996) Measuring sex, age and death in the Roman Empire: Explorations in ancient demography. J Rom Archaeol, Suppl Series 21, Ann Arbor, MI, USA 49. Scheidel W, Morris I, Saller R (eds) (2007) The Cambridge economic history of the Graeco-Roman world. Cambridge, UK 50. Shaw BD (2001) Raising and killing children: two Roman myths. Mnemosyne 54:31-77

Competing interests. None declared.

References 1. Alföldy G (1961) Geschichte des religiösen Lebens in Aquincum. Acta Arch Acad Sci Hung 13:103-124 2. Alföldy G (1975) Römische Sozialgeschichte. Wiesbaden, Germany 3. Alston R (2001) Urban population in late Roman Egypt and the end of the Ancient World. In: Scheidel W (ed) Debating roman demography. Leiden, the Netherlands, pp 161-204 4. Bagnal RS, Frier BW (1994) The demography of Roman Egypt. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 5. Barresi P (2002) Il ruolo delle colonne nel costo degli edifici pubblici. In: I marmi colorati della Roma imperiale. Marsilio, Roma, Italy, pp 69-82 6. Bastien P (1981) Numismatique romaine et coopération internationale. In: Hommage à Hans-Georg Pflaum. Numismatique Romaine, essais, recherches et documents. , Wetteren, Belgium, pp 127-140 7. Bowman A, Wilson A (2011) Settlement, urbanization and population. Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK 8. Bowman A, Wilson A (2013) The Roman agricultural economy: organization, investment, and production. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK 9. Bowman A, Wilson A (eds) (2009) Quantifying the Roman economy: methods and problems. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK 10. Brunt PA (1971) Italian manpower. 226 BC – AC 14. Oxford, UK 11. Callu JP (1969) La politique monétaire des empereurs romains de 238 á 311. Ed. E de Boccard, Paris, France 12. Corbier M (1985) Fiscalité et dépenses locales. In: P. Léveaud (ed) L’origine des richesses depensées dans la ville antique. Actes du colloque Aix-en-Provence, 11–12 May 1984, pp 219-232 13. Duncan-Jones RP (1979) Variation in Egyptian grain meassure. Chiron 9:347-375 14. Engels D (1980) The problem of female infanticide in the Graeco-Roman world. Classical Philology 75:112-120 15. Engels D (1984) The use of historical demography in ancient history. Classical Quart New Series 34:386-393 16. Fontanille MT (1977) Avortement et contraception dans la medicine greco-romaine. Paris, France 17. Frier B (2001) More is worse: some observations on the population of the Roman Empire. In: Scheidel W (ed) Debating roman demography. Leiden, the Netherlands, pp 139-161 18. Frier BW (1983) Roman life expectancy: the Pannonian evidence. Phoenix 37:328-344 19. Frier BW (2000) Demography. In: Bowman A, Garnsey P, Rathbone D (eds) The High Empire: AD 70–192. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 787-817 20. Garnsey P (1988) Famine and food supply in the Graeco-Roman world. Responses to risk and crisis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 21. Garnsey P (1989) Responses to food crisis in the Ancient Mediterranean world. In: Newman L (ed) Hunger in history: food shortage, poverty and

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DISTINGUISHED LECTURES Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

OPENAACCESS

CONTRIB SCI 11:59-74 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.214

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DISPUTATIO OF BARCELONA 2014: The Mediterranean, bridge of cultures

Alexandria: Lighthouse of science and humanities Carmen Chica* Journal International Microbiology

Correspondence: Carmen Chica International Microbiology Poblet, 15 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia Tel. +34-933341079 Email: cchica@microbios.org

Summary. Alexandria has been one of the most important cities throughout history. Born from the mixing of two of the major cultures of Antiquity―Greek and Egyptian― the city has been a melting pot allowing the development of human knowledge from its origins. It was the city where some renowned figures of the Antiquity, and recently several celebrated contemporaneous writers, worked. Hit by the hazards of the history, often violent, nowadays Alexandria seems to reborn, to become again a lighthouse for the science and humanities of the 21th century. Nevertheless, it will be necessary to remain watchful to overcome misunderstanding, intolerance and fanaticism, which threatens almost the entire planet Earth [Contrib Sci 11:59-74 (2015)]

Introduction There are cities that become destinations and goals even before knowing them, walking their streets, exploring their nooks and crannies and contemplating their monuments or what is left of them. Art in all its forms has a lot to do with this as, alongside the memory of reality, it introduces elements perceived by some who have captured the essence, feeding on their own feelings. Alexandria is one of those cities, and a great deal of that essence is distilled in the works of Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) and his Alexandria Quartet [1],

Edward M. Forster’s (1879–1970) travel guides Alexandria: A History and Guide and Pharos and Pharillon (A novelist’s sketchbook of Alexandria through the ages) [6], Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933) and his poetic works [11], and more recently Terenci Moix (1942–2003) and his books devoted to Egypt and, especially, to Alexandria [13]. Plunged in the depths of the city, they left us a portrait of a city that they knowingly mythologized. But there are more, much more: historical characters who modelled the city with their fights and ambitions, but also their desire to establish a place that―beginning with an

*This article is a contribution to the InterSection Workshop held at the Institute for Catalan Studies on 28 November 2014, as a part of the Disputatio of Barcelona 2014, devoted to “The Mediterranean, bridge of cultures”.

Keywords: Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) · Hypatia (ca. 355–415) · Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933) · Terenci Moix (1942–2003) · Bibliotheca Alexandrina ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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Alexandria

Fig. 1. Alexander the Great, a mosaic at the Naples National Archaelogical Museum.

idealized Greek culture―could become a shared homeland for knowledge, in which philosophy and science could light up the known universe like a beacon, although this universe was constrained mostly to the Greek one. Alexandria can boast of having sheltered and bequeathed to us a wealth of knowledge through well-known characters who belong to the universal thought, philosophy—if we could separate them—, and history and science. In the course of time and occurrences, Alexandria, either as a reality or as an idea, can once again relight the flame that defined it for centuries. In 2002, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated; what better achievement to attract and unfold what the best of human mind is capable of achieve?

He carried out currency unification, built highways and irrigation canals, and opened the doors to commercial development with geographic expeditions such as the descent of the Indus River and the Persian coast of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the mouths of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was in one of those expeditions when he thought he fulfill his desire to discover the sources of the Nile. This was a confusion because explorers observed similarities in both rivers: crocodile population and similar kinds of bean growing on their banks. He believed that both, Indus and Nile rivers, were the same which changed its name, Indus in India, and Nile when crossing the desert through Ethiopia and Egypt [5]. The cultural fusion initiated by Alexander and continued his successors imposed Greek knowledge and spirit (koiné) as the common language and thought. Also a large number of cities were founded, most of them called Alexandria―the main one being in Egypt. Alexander’s early death at 33 might have been due to malaria, although many other causes have been suggested, including poisoning, and not excluding excesses in food and drink, quite usual at those times. The empire he created fell to pieces shortly afterwards. In the succession fights, Alexander’s wives and heirs died and the empire was divided among his generals (the Diadochi): Seleucus (359–281 BC), Ptolemy (267–283 BC), Antigonus (382–302 BC), Lysimachus (360–281 BC) and Cassander (ca. 350–297 BC). The resulting nations were the so-called Hellenistic States, which, for the following centuries, maintained Alexander’s ideal of transferring Greek culture to the East as eastern cultures were penetrating the Mediterranean [6].

Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) Alexander III of Macedon (Fig. 1), was born in Pella, Macedon, in 356 BC, and died in Babylon in 323 BC. He was very young when he succeeded his father Philip II of Macedon (382–336 BC), murdered by “friends”. Philip had ensured that his son received an exacting military preparation, although he did not neglect his son’s intellectual training, charged to Aristotle (384–322 BC), also a Macedonian. His short life was a constant and successful struggle against the Persian Empire. After the conquest of great parts of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, he proclaimed himself emperor and began new campaigns which were to make him the owner and master of Central Asia and what is now Afghanistan. www.cat-science.cat

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Chica

Alexandria’s foundation: dream and reality The Greek presence in Egypt had been a constant for centuries. The country sheltered several well-established Greek colonies. By the 7th or 6th centuries BC, Naucratis, located 72 km southwest of Alexandria, was one of the first commercial Greek settlements. The Jewish community had settled in the area that later became Alexandria after Jerusalem was taken, in 586 BC, by Nebuchadnezzar II (ca. 634–562 BC), and possibly before. The Jews set up in the city protected by the pagan world’s tolerance for religious diversity, and created an intellectual focus with a centre for Hebrew studies. They had civil rights, like any Greek citizen and made up an independent and autonomous political community, limited only by the subordination to the Ptolemies first and the Romans later. In 332 BC, Egypt was under Persian dominion, although about to fall, vanquished by the liberating troops of Alexander the Great. With some interruption, Egypt had been under Persian rule from 525 to 332 BC [4], and the last Persian period was marked by numerous insurrections until the arrival of Alexander. His success was due to his showing respect and tolerance towards Egyptian civilization, religion, gods and customs while maintaining his devotion to Greek culture and his zeal in propagating Hellenism [6]. Conquering the country, added to his war triumphs, meant a cultural and intellectual expansion inserted into what is known as the Hellenistic period (323 BC–30 AD)―some historians extend this period up to the death of Theodosius I the Great (347–395 AD). In April 331 BC, Alexander reached the coast by going down the Nile. In the delta he chose the little fishing village of Rachotis to found the city that was to have his name (Fig. 2). It was a very good choice because the place was sheltered from the river’s variations and close enough to allow for the arrival of merchandise to the port. Back in much earlier date (ca. 600 BC) the construction of a canal had been started to link the Red Sea with the Mediterranean through the branches of the Nile River. Darius I (522–486 BC) had rebuilt it, and it was again extended to the Red Sea by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (308–246 BC). (Actually, the modern Suez Canal is in itself also an amalgam of political and economy interests. Works began in January 1856 and the finished canal was officially inaugurated in November 1869.) The construction of the city of Alexandria was in charge of Alexander’s architect, Dinocrates of Rhodes (4th century BC). The nearby isle of Proteus, who was called Pharos, was joined to the city by a dike seven stadia long (1285 m) and was,

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Fig. 2. Supposed plan of the ancient city of Alexandria.

therefore, known as the Heptastadium (Επτασταδίων). The construction of the dike gave rise to two ports, the Portus Magnus or great port, the most important of the old city, and the Portus Eunostos or port of good return, which is now the port of Alexandria. Ships from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic docked in the great port, with riches, commodities piled up on the wharves: bronze, tin, cotton, silks. The construction of the lighthouse was initiated after Alexander’s death by his successor Ptolemy I Soter, and finished by the latter’s son Ptolemy II Philadelphus on the isle of Pharos about 280 AD. Its architect was Sostrates of Cnidus. Two earthquakes, one in 1303 and another in 1323 destroyed the lighthouse. Underwater explorations in the last few years seem to confirm that many of the remains found at the bottom of the sea belong to the lighthouse. The place is occupied now by the Qaitbay fort, a robust and beautiful Arab construction of the 15th century built as defense and surveillance system. Dinocrates designed the city according to a hypodamic plan, a system which had been in use since the 5th century BC. This is an urban design characterized by a distribution of streets in straight lines that cross at right angles. It consisted of a grand square, a main street thirty metres wide and six kilometres in length that went through the city, with parallel and perpendicular streets which had water pipes along them.

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Alexandria

Administratively, the city was divided into five districts given the names of the first five letters of the Greek alphabet (α, β, γ, δ, ε). Palaces were built along the coastline and public buildings in the centre [5]. But Alexander left Egypt to continue his fight against the Persians and died far away. His city which he never saw finished, became a prosperous metropolis during the reign of his successors, the Ptolemies.

Ptolemies, mercenaries that had been part of the army of Alexander arrived from different places [4]. With their families settled in the city and in the country, Persians, Syrians and Jews retained their own characters. Ptolemy I Soter showed some good qualities as a governor. Besides establishing political alliances, he set himself to the construction and improvement of communications and, most especially, to the magnificence of Alexandria. Apart from the great palace building, work began on the construction of the Musaeum (Μουσείον), which was to house the Library, a project entrusted to Demetrius of Phalerum (350– 280 BC) and which gathered all the knowledge of the time. In the centre of the city there were the Assembly, the squares, the markets, the religious centres, the baths, the gymnasiums, the stadiums and other public buildings necessary for

The Ptolemaic period (323–30 BC) After Alexander’s death in June 323 BC, there was a succession of disputes about governing the conquered territories. His generals won, Egypt being assigned to Ptolemy, son of Lagos, who reigned with the name Ptolemy I Soter. With the

Table 1. Several scholars who developed all or part of their activities in Alexandria Name

Epoque*

Main contributions

Euclid

ca. 330–ca. 270 BC

One of the great mathematician. His work Elements is a mathematical synthesis that includes theorems, constructions and mathematical proofs. He established that, for a point outside a line it is possible to draw only one parallel.

Herophilos of Chalcedon

335–ca. 255 BC

Founder of the medical school of Alexandria. Important anatomical discoveries. He described bloodstream and brain anatomy.

Aristarchus of Samos

310–230 BC

He advanced the heliocentric model and, consequently, was precursor to Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). He devised a method to calculate the distances from Earth to the Sun and the Moon.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene

ca. 276–194 BC

Chief librarian of the Library. He measured the tilt of Earth’s axis, made geographic maps and made a precise measurement of the Earth’s circumference.

Hipparchus of Nicaea

ca. 190–ca. 120 BC

He is credited with the calculation of the precession of the equinoxes and the first catalog of stars classified by the magnitude of its brightness. Developed charts of the movements of the Moon and the Sun. He is considered the father of trigonomety.

Hero of Alexandria

ca. 10–ca. 70

He wrote on mechanics, mathematics and physics. He invented mechanical devices as the aeolipile (steam engine) and the dioptra (geodetic instrument). In pneumatics, he gives details of self-moved machines (which would be described today as “robots”) with performance by hydraulic pressure.

Claudius Ptolemy

90–168

His major work in 13 volumes known as Almagest had great influence in astronomy up to the Renaissance, with the figures of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) and Johannes Kepler (1571–1630).

Claudius Galen

130–200

In Alexandria, he learned anatomy and physiology. In Rome he was physician of Marco Aurelio (121– 180). He wrote many treatises and described the “Antonine plague” (smallpox or measles?), a pandemics that was spread in Rome by soldiers of the campaigns in the Near East.

Theon of Alexandría

ca. 335–ca. 405

Director of the Museum. His knowledge of astronomy and mathematics allowed him to write comments about the Almagest of Ptolemy, Euclid’s works and theories that combined astronomy and music. Father of Hypatia, who received his teaching and collaborated with him.

Hypatia of Alexandria

ca. 355–415

Mathematician, astronomer and philosopher. None of her works, Astronomical Canon, Commentary to Arthmetica by Diophantus nor the Conics of Apollonius have been preserved. She collaborated with her father on the comments on the Almagest. She is credited with the design or construction of an astrolabe and a hydroscope.

*Due to lack of data, there are discrepancies between authors on the years of birth and/or death of those scholars.

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Fig. 3. Erathosthenes’ estimation of the dimensions of the Earth. During the summer solstice he observed the sun shadow projected on two sites in Egypt (a gnomo in Alexandria and a pit in Aswan), distanced approximately 800 km and located in the same meridian. His calculation was rather accurate, taking into account the actual circularity of the planet, ca. 40,000 km. (Sketch by M. Berlanga.)

The Roman period

the customs of the time. Some of these grandiose buildings were finished during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, responsible for the general aspect the city. Alexandria soon became the centre of Greek culture and contributed to the Hellenization of the rest of the country. When the Romans took power, all Egypt was bilingual. Only art and architecture were still uniquely Egyptian. In Forster’s words, “the Museion was the greatest intellectual achievement of the dynasty” [4]. It was an enormous edification with lecture halls, laboratories and anatomy wing, observatories, library, refectory, park and botanic and zoological gardens. The most important part was the Library. There, Alexandrian grammarians who determined the laws of rhetoric and grammar, geographers who designed maps of the world, and philosophers studied and investigated (Fig. 3). Characters as famous as Archimedes (ca. 287–ca. 212 BC), Euclid (ca. 330–ca. 270 BC), Hipparchus of Nicaea (ca. 190–ca. 120 BC); Aristarchus of Samos (310–230 BC); Eratosthenes (ca. 276–194 BC); Apollonius of Perga (ca. 262–ca. 190 BC), and many others were tightly connected to Alexandria (Table 1). www.cat-science.cat

Julius Caesar (100–44 BC) took Alexandria in 46 BC, to end the dynastic war between Cleopatra (69–30 BC) and her brother and co-regent Ptolemy XIII (63–48 BC). There are data based on an estimate of Diodorus (90–30 BC) that by that time (60 BC), the population of Alexandia was about 300,000 inhabitants [10]. However, it appears that these data included only those who had the status of citizens and therefore slaves were excluded. Neither popular or low classes nor craftsmen classes enjoyed citizenship, although they were Egyptians. The whole population, besides Egyptians and Greeks, was formed by Macedonians, Phoenicians, Jews, Romans, Syrians, Persians, Arabs and visitors from other parts. Caesar attacked the city from the sea, and during the sea-battle a fire started that burned warehouses of books in the port. After assuring Cleopatra on the Egyptian throne, and married her off to her younger brother Ptolemy XIV (ca. 59–44 BC), Caesar returned to Rome where war broke out 63

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Catholicism, although the struggles among the different factions did not end. Theodosius I the Great (346–395) had made Catholic Christianity the religion of the state by the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, imposing Nicene orthodoxy. This provoked a reaction from both the pagans and the different interpretations of Christianity, all of them officially considered heresies to be prosecuted and eradicated. In the following decades, great controversies continued among the different factions of Christians, which became very violent. At the same time, neo-platonist philosophers, such as Hypatia, were subject to great pressure. The Coptic Church came about as the result of a schism in which the Patriarch of Alexandria, Timothy Aelurus (?– 477), excommunicated the rest of the patriarchs in 457. Once separated from the rest of the patriarchies, Alexandria preserved Christian belief and doctrine in its oldest form, handing it down from generation to generation, according to the apostolic doctrine and rites. Currently, in Egypt the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria makes up 9% of the population. A joint declaration by Shenouda III (1923–2012) (Coptic Pope) and Pope Paul VI (1897–1978) (Catholic Pope) in 1973 was the key to trying to overcome the differences between both churches. Since 1954 there is a Coptic Institute of Higher Studies in Cairo.

after his death. Marc Anthony (83–30 BC) travelled to Egypt to get the queen’s support, but this only fuelled the conflict. Octavius (Caesar Augustus) (63 BC–14 AD) was proclaimed victor after the battle of Actium in 31 BC. Egypt was made a Roman province and became the Empire’s granary, increasing the importance of Alexandria. It was compulsory to deposit the entire wheat crop in the storehouses of the city, and to send to Rome the equivalent to the third of its stock every year. Later, the city became capital of the Roman diocese of Egypt, a prosperous and cosmopolitan metropolis with several hundred thousands of inhabitants, and also a financial centre. Imperial representation was in charge of a prefect who governed the country and was named by Rome. During the Roman period, the city went through wars, sackings and earthquakes. In 297 the revolt undertaken by the usurper of the Roman Empire Lucius Domitius Domitianus (?–297) against Diocletian (244–311) brought about the taking and sacking of Alexandria by the troops of Diocletian. Natural catastrophes such as the earthquake in 365 made that a good part of the city disappeared under the waters. Religious power was represented by the patriarchs. Once established Christianity, Egypt became the center of one of the most important Christian communities of the Empire. The Patriarch of Alexandria had the maximum prestige and influence, together with his counterparts in Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople and Rome. But Rome’s power in the hands of the prefect seemed conditioned by struggles and intrigues from the religious hierarchy. During the 4th and 5th centuries, the doctrinal conflicts and power struggles among the patriarchies, especially between Alexandria and Constantinople, were constant. According to tradition, it was Mark the Evangelist (?–ca. 68), author of the Second Gospel, who in the year 61 began the task of spreading the Christian religion in Egypt at the time of the Emperor Nero (37–68), under whose orders he suffered martyrdom and death. As in other places, in Alexandria, the Christians suffered persecution in the early days of their faith until it was tolerated, spread across the Nile valley and, later, proclaimed official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine I the Great (272–337). Along the years, many heresies and divisions occurred in Egyptian Christianity, and different doctrines of the same religion cropped up. Being Constantine emperor there were enormous dissensions in the north of Africa and in Alexandria, probably due to the mixture of its followers, which led to schism with the introduction of Arianism. In the year 325 the emperor called the Council of Nicaea to restore peace among the different beliefs and established the bases of www.cat-science.cat

Hypatia (ca. 355–415) Hypatia was born, lived and died in Alexandria. A year of birth initially proposed for 370 has been revised to 355. Her death happened in March 415. A member of the Neo-Platonist School of Alexandria, she stood out in philosophy, mathematics and astronomy and led an ascetic life. She formed a select school of Christian and pagan aristocrats, many of whom later occupied high offices, among them the philosopher Synesius of Cyrene (373–414), the grammarian Hesychius of Alexandria (4th century), and Orestes, prefect of Alexandria. Daughter and disciple of the astronomer Theon of Alexandria (ca. 335–ca. 405), also a prominent scholar, Hypatia wrote on geometry, algebra and astronomy, improved the design of a primitive astrolabe and invented a densimeter. She died at 45 or 60 (depending on the correct date of her birth), lynched by a mob in the framework of christian hostility against declining paganism and political struggles between different factions of the church, the Alexandrian patriarchate and imperial power, held in Egypt by the prefect Orestes. In her profusely documented study, Maria Dzielska [3] offers a relation of works on the philosopher, indicating the ad64

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miring focus of some of them. The main, if not only plausible historical references, are attributed to the letters of Synesius of Cyrene. In the historical context, we must consider the strength of Hellenistic culture as supremacy of reason, thought and scientific rigor. Damascius (ca. 460–540), Neo-Platonist philosopher and last leader of the Athenian School, forbidden and shut down by Justinian I (483–565) in 529, said of Hypathia that she was fair and wise besides possessing the highest virtue in the art of teaching.

them, after a series of extremely violent riots, Cyril expelled the Jews, allowing the crowd to rob them of all their goods. At that time, the two confessions hated to each other and there were aggressions in both senses. The rupture between the Patriarch and the imperial representative was complete. Hypatia had been “respected” during the frequent disturbances between pagans and Christians in Theophilus’ day, even during the destruction of the temples and sculptures of the gods. But when Cyril rose to the patriarchy, everything changed.

Hypatia’s School. About the year 400 AD Hypatia became leader of the Alexandrian Neo-Platonists, centering her teaching on Plato (ca. 427–347 BC) and Aristotle. Her house was a school where students from all parts of the Roman world arrived, either pagan or Christian, attracted by her fame. Among them was Synesius of Cyrene (future Bishop of Ptolemaida, from 409 to 413). We have data on Hypatia thanks to his correspondence, both with her and with his fellow-students. Hypatia’s friends and disciples venerated her. Despite her paganism, she had the esteem and protection of these intellectual Christian elites. Orestes allowed himself to be advised by her in political and municipal affairs, and the Suda confirms that Hypatia was popular as counselor of the highest magistrates of Alexandria. “Dressed in a philosopher’s mantle, walking through the centre of the city, she publicly explained the writings of Plato, of Aristotle, or of any philosopher, to any who wished to listen. The magistrates used to consult her in first place for their administration of city affairs...” [3,7]. Theophilus (?–412), Patriarch of Alexandria between 385 and 412, had as much influence among the city’s upper classes as Hypatia herself and had immense power. In 391 he ordered the destruction of the city’s pagan temples, among them the Mithraeum and the Serapeum, which caused bloody disturbances between pagans and Christians. Most of the 4th century had been full of bloody riots. Theophilus died on 17 October 412, and Cyril (ca. 370–ca. 444) reached the patriarchy. He continued Theophilus’ policies, i.e., pressure against pagans, heretics and Jews, support to the great monastic communities, cultivating the alliance with Rome and opposition to the growing influence of the Patriarchy of Constantinople, intimately allied to the imperial throne. Different acts, such as the Patriarch’s persecution of the Novatians, caused confrontation and hostility between Theophilus and Orestes, the prefect (maximum imperial military authority) on the city. There were also riots against the Jews during those years. Although Orestes wished to protect

Death of Hypatia. It seems that a rumour began to spread among the Christians of Alexandria that the cause of the discord between Cyril and Orestes was the influential Hypatia. During Lent, a group threw itself on the philosopher while she was in her carriage. The historian closest to the facts, Socrates Scholasticus (ca. 380–450), does not make Cyril directly responsible but does link him to the murder of Hypatia [3]. In his own words: “envy sharpened its arms against her… as she quite often met with Orestes; this caused against her, in the Christian community, the calumny that it was she herself who did not allow Orestes to approach friendship with the bishop” [7]. And so some belligerent individuals led by Peter, a reader, conspired to stalk the woman when she was coming home from somewhere: “they dragged her out of her litter and hauled her to the church called Caesareum and, after stripping her, they killed her with pot shards, quartered her limbs and took her to the place named Cynaron, where they set fire to them” [7]. Christopher Haas concludes that, with the available sources, it is not possible to know if it was Cyril who organized the attack, or if his followers took the initiative as they had done in a previous attack on Orestes [9]. María Dzielska, however, notes that even if Cyril was not directly responsible of the crime, he did instigate the campaign against her, to fight the imperial prefect and his political faction, contrary to the Patriarchy [3]. The sources coincide that the philosopher’s murder was a great discredit for the Christians and reduced the political influence of the Alexandrian Patriarchy. The Neo-Platonist School of Alexandria continued to be active, although becoming progressively Christianized until the 7th century, uninterrupted even by the closing of the Athenian Academy in times of Justinian I in 529. No works by Hypatia have been preserved: instruments, designs, and writings. All we know of them, and of her life, we know from her contemporaries, mainly the above-mentioned correspondence of Synesius and the Suda enciclopædia. Synesius attributes to Hypatia the invention of the astro-

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labe, an instrument to determine the position of the stars, although earlier astrolabes preceded Hypatia’s model and her own father was famous for his treatise on them. In fact, in the 2nd century, Claudius Ptolemy (90–168 AD) wrote his 13-volume work, the Almagest, in which astronomical explanations, descriptions of astral positions, and the calculations for the construction of the astrolabe appear. Later, Hypatia and her father worked to correct the calculations in the Almagest and the first astrolabe (Figs. 4 and 5).

ment exploded in Alexandria which extended to other cities in the Nile Delta, and during which some 200 foreigners were murdered. The people as well as the army, were annoyed at foreign interference—England, France, Turkey—mainly due to financial and political problems. The conflict had its origin in the arrival of English and French ships at the port of Alexandria to oppose a coup against their governor, the Khedive Tewfik Pasha (1852–1892) who, in fact, had been named under the influence of foreign countries. The British fleet bombed the port in July 1882, which caused a great fire and the sacking of the ruins by the population. The later landing of a large British army restored order, giving rise to the British protectorate over Egypt in September that same year, a situation that was kept up until 1946. The step from kingdom to republic was taken after a coup d’état in 1952 and the proclamation of Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) as president in 1953.

Muslim Egypt The conquest of Egypt by the Muslims under Amr ibn al-As (?–663) starting in 641 had several periods until it was definitely installed in 646, and Alexandria was still one of the major Mediterranean metropolises. An inventory attributed to the commander Amr ibn al-As [6,12], on entering the city, and sent to Caliph Umar ibn al-Jattab (581–644), describes that he found in Alexandria “4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 12,000 oil merchants, 12,000 gardeners, 40,000 Jews and 400 theatres and places for entertainment”. Ibn al-Qifti (ca. 1172–ca. 1248) asserts in his Chronicle of the wise that the Great Library was destroyed at that moment, but that was not so. Although the Arabs destroyed many books, neither the Great Library nor the smaller Serapeum library existed at that time, they having disappeared because of the civil wars between Romans, natural disasters and fanaticism of the different doctrines. An imperial fleet landed in Alexandria at the beginning of 645 to re-conquer Egypt, but that army was defeated by the superior Arab forces, and in the end retreated. After a new, long siege, the Arabs took the city for the third time in 646, destroying it mostly to avoid the Byzantines entrenching themselves by way of the sea. This was the end of 975 years of Alexandria’s belonging to the Greco-Latin world [6]. After a long decline, Alexandria had a rebirth as a great metropolis during the Crusades and enjoyed a flourishing period thanks to commerce. In 1365 the city was taken and sacked by the Crusaders led by king Peter of Cyprus (1328– 1369). It was to become the centre of spice distribution until the Portuguese opened the Cape route in 1498, which marked a commercial decline, aggravated by the Turkish invasion. When in July 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) entered the city, what he found was a semi-ruined town of only 7,000 inhabitants. Mehmet Ali (ca. 1769–1849) reconstructed it in the 19th century, turning it once again into the great Egyptian port. The 11th of June 1882, a xenophobe movewww.cat-science.cat

Father Nile The Nile is fed by two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile, which originates in Rwanda, runs through the great African lakes, flowing north from Lake Victoria. The Blue Nile starts in Ethiopia, in Lake Tana, and flows through southern Sudan. Both White and Blue join in Khartoum, in the south of the Great Rift Valley. The total length of the river is about 6,800 km and for many years has been considered the largest river in the world. In recent times, this category seems to be discussed in favor of the Amazon. The Nile empties its water and sediment into the Mediterranean, forming one of the largest deltas covering an area of about 22,000 km2. Woodward et al. state that the course of the Nile is submitted to the influence of the large structures, either natural or artificial, including dams, faults and geological contacts [19]. This fact is common to all large rivers. The coastal zone of the Nile Delta goes from Alexandria to Port Said, a distance of 240 km. The current configuration of the Nile dates from the Cenozoic Era. It is suggested that initially there could have been a number of separate continental basins, each taking one of the main Sudanese cracks, including the White Nile and Blue Nile cracks. The basins would not be interconnected until the sinking was concluded and sediments could fill the basins. The search for the sources of the Nile inspired imagination and action of explorers that did not hesitate to undertake the adventure despite difficult conditions, both natural and sociopolitical because of the authorities and governments, kings, hierarchs and native populations of the sur66

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Fig. 4. The School of Athens, one of the most famous frescoes that Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520) and his school made for the Pontifical Palace in the Vatican between 1509 and 1511. While art historians had generally accepted that the figure wearing in white and standing behind Pythagoras represented Francesco Maria della Rovere, a nephew of Pope Julius II, other more modern scholars, mainly mathematicians, have considered that an illustration evoking Alexandria between the 4th centuries BC and AD (Ptolemy and Euclid are represented there) should include also Hypatia, and have identified her with the figure in the square [Abbott KS, Abbott S (2011) Conjecture and proof: A case of shifting identities in Raphael's School of Athens. In: Sarghangi R, S'equin C (eds) Proceedings of Bridges: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture. Tessellations Publ., Phoenix, Arizona, pp 527-530].

rounding. Two persons are considered the first Europeans to have reached these sources. One of them is the missionary Pedro Páez (1564–1622), a Spanish Jesuit that after suffering a long captivity in Arabia went to Ethiopia, reaching its objective, Lake Tana and Blue Nile, around 1621 [16]. The second one was James Bruce (1730–1794), a Scottish that served as British consul in Algiers. This was the starting point for his passion as an explorer: he arrived in Alexandria in 1768 on his own, and with great difficulty, like his predecessors, proposed himself to reach the sources of the Blue Nile, which he would reach around 1770 [14]. Regardless of its physical and geological characteristics, the Nile has been considered more than a river. Its location, behavior and function, providing life with its periodic floodings, that allowed a well-needed agriculture, and ripping those same lives with catastrophic floods. The Nile, then and now, is often described as a living being that is born, lives and dies, but throughout an erratic life. There are accidents that force it to dizzying jumps, to overcome obstacles, turn its course; it would seem to expand and contract waging battles against nature that created it. There are spaces in which it www.cat-science.cat

enjoys freedom and runs fast polishing black granite ridges. In other parts, it is relieved in desert barrenness or it is constrained between constructed walls. Finally, it finds serenity spreading its arms to be embraced by the Mediterranean. That is the end, where, since millennia, landslides have been pushing ahead the immense wetlands forming the Delta. The ancients knew of seven or more arms of which two remain near Rosetta and Damietta. Rosetta—the Delta city where the famous stone was found with an engraving text in Demotic, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Greek—, was threatened after the construction of the Aswan Dam, which interrupted the regular supply of Nile silt. Various projects were undertaken to find solutions. Otherwise, life in Egypt and Sudan without the Nile would not have been possible. Two authors, Alan Morehead [14] and William Golding [8], wrote their experiences traveling along the Nile. Morehead emphasizes the poetic vision in the description of the river and its landscape, even in the most adverse situations. Golding offers a perspective that covers his journey down the Nile recalling his trip honestly and humorously, and shares his feelings about Egypt’s past and present. Despite the 67

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of textile and chemical industries, mechanical and naval construction and banking centre. The construction of the Aswan Dam in 1964 gave Lake Nasser, a vast reservoir with a maximum water level of 183 m over sea level. In 1978 another canal was built, which was given the name Sadat, NW of Lake Nasser through Wadi Toshka [18]. The idea was that levels of water higher than 178 m, which had given rise to the formation of several lakes, were to drain into a depression at the southern end of the Eocene’s limestone plateau. At the end of 1990, water began to flow through Sadat Canal in the Western Desert. With a length of 320 km from its origin to the lakes in the Toshka valley, it continues through the Sahara Desert connecting several oases, diverting a total of 10% of the Nile’s water. The project considered allowing for irrigating a surface of near 5,000 km2. To solve the problems derived from large losses due to evaporation, the canal was lined with layers of cement, sand, concrete and polymer. The water from Lake Nasser does not fall naturally into the canal, but must be pumped from the Mubarak Pumping Station, north of Abu Simbel [8,18]. Fig. 5. Instruments for astronomical measurements were created in Antiquity, such as the astrolabe, which were drifting to modern devices. (Photographs courtesy of the Maritime Museum of Barcelona.)

Four modern authors inspired by Alexandria Many artists and scientists, from painters, sculptors and musicians, to architects and engineers, have lived and worked in that inspiring city. It is enough here to mention the four most significant (in my opinion) for modern literature: Cavafy, Forster, Durrell and Moix.

20-years difference between both works, the sound impression produced on both authors was the same.

Egypt and Alexandria today

Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933). Born and

died in Alexandria―he was the youngest of seven brothers― Cavafy is considered to be the best modern Greek poet, his family’s nationality. He was nine years old when, after the death of his father, a cotton trader exporter, the family moved to the UK, to Liverpool and London. There he began his studies and improved his knowledge of the English language. He also lived in Constantinople, where his mother was born, and definitely in Alexandria from 1885 on. His father’s business problems and premature death diminished the family’s economic situation. A civil service position, which he kept all his life, allowed him to live on that income and have a reasonable retirement or at least with a dignified poverty [11]. In his lifetime he did not achieved fame as a poet, although he was known in the Greek cultural environment. He never published a book, only notebooks or libretti with his poems, which he himself sent to those he considered could understand them. His international recognition came

In 2013, the population of Egypt was estimated to be about 84 million, with a density of 84 inhabitants/km2. The two main cities are Cairo and Alexandria, with about 11 and 4.5 million inhabitants respectively. Egyptian economy is based on agriculture, mainly cotton, livestock, rice, and other products. It has deposits of oil and gas. Tourism is a major source of income for the country. The Nile River runs nearly 1,600 km through Egyptian territory and represents the most important contribution to agriculture. There are more than sixty universities in the country, either public or private teaching and doing research in virtually all scientific, technological and humanistic disciplines. Notable is the Egyptian presence in the literature with famous authors, Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) being the highlight to have received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, but there are many others. The Alexandria of the 21st century is a modern city that still has its hypodamic layout. It is a commercial centre, hub www.cat-science.cat

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ters are stripped of their magnificence, and common people and objects appear to which he gives symbolic value. He underwent a tracheotomy in 1932 because of larynx cancer, and died the following year. He is buried in the Greek cemetery of Alexandria, next to his mother and brothers (Fig. 6).

about because of his friendship with Edward M. Forster, during Forster’s stay in Alexandria. Lawrence Durrell also contributed to Cavafy’s fame in his “Alexandria Quartet”. The work Cavafy shows his contestatory attitude to traditional values and he uses his knowledge of history to show up current aspects. Perfectionist to the bone, he composed poems on the decadence that often follows great historical periods, reflected in God abandons Anthony or Ithaca, both written in 1911, and Awaiting the barbarians (1904). His erotic poems have also regained interest, singing as they do about the sensuality of furtive love (he did not denied his homosexuality), such as Remember, body.... (1918). In these poems, he reflects on weakness, sexual attraction often linked to Christian feelings of guilt and the fear of the passing of time. He contributed to the rebirth of modern Greek, although his poems were not published until 1948, with the 154 canon poems. The English version of these poems was published in 1951. Cavafy was especially interested in the Greek reigns after Alexander, the subjection to Rome, Byzantium, the rise of Christianity and how pagans and Christians had lived together. He thiught that, as Greeks believed, history is cyclical, and fills his evocations with feelings of nostalgia and fear of the unknown. He possessed the secret of recreating the everyday atmosphere of times long gone. In his poetry, historical charac-

Edward M. Forster (1879–1970). Forster

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was born in London, where he studied classics and history at King’s College, took part in debating groups from a young age and was related to the Bloomsbury Group. His travels through Italy and Greece allowed him to learn about the Mediterranean culture and to admire the lifestyle which he found spontaneous and alive, in contrast to the rigidity and conventionality of Victorian society. He also travelled to various European cities and lived in India, which inspired him his novel A passage to India (1924). During World War I, Forster served in the Red Cross in Alexandria, where he spent three years and fell under the spell of the city, the real and the imagined, which seduced him. In a lecture at Aldeburgh, England, in 1956 he asserted “the city [Alexandria] symbolizes for me a mixture of bastardy, an idea with which I sympathize and which opposes this sterile idea of being a hundred percent something, that impresses the modern world… Possibly nobody can speak of a hundred percent Alexandrian and partly

Fig. 6. The grave of Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933) in the Greek cemetery in Alexandria. A special and emotional visit to the scene evoking the poet and his poems by representatives from the Institute for Catalan Studies, directed by Ricard Guerrero, and from the Autonomus University of Barcelona, directed by Pere Villalba. (The author of this article is the second woman from the left.) (Photograph by M. Piqueras.)

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Fig. 7. (A) Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933). (B) Edward M. Forster (1879– 1970). (C) Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990). (D) Terenci Moix (1942–2003).

for this I was happy in that place, of which I consider Cavafy representative. It has been a miscellany, a bastardy, during almost two thousand years—since it was founded by a Macedonian who believed in miscegenation and believed his father was an Egyptian god” [6] (Fig. 7). Forster published novels and travel books, as well as journalistic articles. Several of his novels have been adapted as films, including A passage to India and Howards End (1910). In both there is the presence of social barriers and difficulties in understanding and communicating between the characters. Forster was a convinced humanist, a free character, despite the constrictions of times. His novel Maurice (1971), in which he faced homosexuality, was published after his death. Forster largely contributed to disseminate Cavafy’s poetry, virtually unknown outside Greece and Alexandria.

and zoologist, wrote about these feelings with noticeable irony and wit in the book My family and other animals (1956) [1]. Lawrence’s long contact with Greece, on the island of Corfu, could have been the beginning of his assimilation to the Mediterranean, which found its literary high point in Alexandria. Author of biographies, travel books, poetry, theatre, and novels, he was a great traveller, for both professional and personal reasons. Besides Greece and Egypt, he travelled in France, Cyprus, Argentina, and Yugoslavia. In 1955 he settled in Sommières, in Provence, where he died of pulmonary emphysema in 1990. In Cyprus, in 1952, he worked as an English literature lecturer when the conflict broke out between Greek Cypriots, who wanted union to Greece, and Turkish Cypriots, who wanted partition. Durrell had left his position as teacher and worked in Nicosia, at the British Government public relations office. In this context, he had threats from both factions and the experience of those years was reflected in his book Bitter Lemon, published in 1957. It was also in Cyprus that he began Justine, the first volume of what would be his masterpiece, “The Alexandria Quartet”: Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958) and Clea (1960). “The Quartet” deals with topics that are common in literature: love, hate, revenge, death, betrayal, loneliness and

Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990). British writer

(but Mediterranean at heart), Durrell’s stay in Alexandria was due to World War II. He held a position as a diplomat in the Foreign Office. He was born in India, where his father worked as an engineer, and was sent to school in the UK as a child. Later, the family returned to India, but he was never comfortable there. His brother Gerald (1925–1995), writer, naturalist www.cat-science.cat

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despair. The beauty is in the author’s wit and his masterly literary treatment. And the main thing is that, despite the different characters who have starring roles, it is the city, Alexandria, which is the lead, the real city, evoked, imagined and loved. A city seen as a crossroads of cultures, where East and West could live in an attainable Mediterranean temperance. Love in all its forms and passages of great beauty are melded [2].

declared his homosexuality and this was perhaps the best contribution he made to help people with the same sexual orientation. His extreme personality made him enjoy life, but also suffer in a most anguishing, painful way. Moix never denied his “vices”, such as smoking, which he kept until the last consequences despite being aware of the real risk to his health. He lived, loved, suffered and died (2 April 2003) in his city, Barcelona. But he had more than his physical life, all things gave life to his life. Smoking must have been the direct cause of his disease―obstructive pulmonary disease―and death, but he was not a victim of smoking, nor a victim of anything. It was life that killed him. In 2005 his ashes were scattered in various parts of Egypt. About this ritual, the Spanish newspaper El País, in its issue of 19 December 2005, said: “Terenci Moix is already part of Alexandria and of the immortal myth of the city. Yesterday, the ashes of the writer, died in April 2003, were scattered by relatives and friends in the bay of the old Egyptian city, not far from the legendary lighthouse, and his books were donated to the modern library of Alexandria, granddaughter of that which was the pride of antiquity. The writer, who was a great lover and good connoisseur of the history of Egypt, was the subject of an emotional tribute framed in the intense program of events that are taking place these days in Alexandria and Cairo, organized by the Ramon Llull Institute, with the collaboration of the Instituto Cervantes”.

Terenci Moix (1942–2003). Terenci Moix was

the pen name of Ramon Moix Messeguer, a writer―both in Catalan and Spanish―columnist, and communicator. He had an inquisitive personality toward all the subjects of his interest, which explored with fervor and passion. He became fascinated by many things including Barcelona, cinema, Egypt—especially Alexandria and Cleopatra—, literature, and theater. Moix published more than thirty books, including fiction, travel, cinema and Egypt and won numerous awards. He worked in various media; in television, he was the host of the show “Más estrellas que en el cielo” (More stars than in heaven) and had the opportunity to interview famous international idols, including those from the star system of Hollywood. He conveyed his love for films in “Mis inmortales del cine” (My immortals of the cinema), four books comprising the 1930s,40s, 50s and 60s, published between 1996 and 2003. His knowledge of the history of Egypt is reflected in the novels in which he inserted his sensitivity towards and about characters who subdued him. So much so that he became the guide of his friends who wanted to visit that country. Among those novels are Terenci del Nilo (viaje sentimental a Egipto) (Terenci of the Nile, sentimental journey to Egypt), 1983; No digas que fue un sueño (Marco Antonio y Cleopatra), (Don’t say it was a dream, Antony and Cleopatra), 1986, which won the Planeta Prize; El sueño de Alejandría, (Alexandria’s dream), 1988; La herida de la esfinge (The wound of the Sphinx), 1991; and El arpista ciego (The blind harpist), 2002. In his communication through different media, humor and irony were inseparable. And also in his private relations, as stated by the many friends he had throughout his life. Even those who did not enter into his private circle, or that left it, apreciated Moix’s personality out of the ordinary. Terenci was loved and recognized in his lifetime and by his fellows, most of them outstanding figures in all fields of culture―artists, writers, publishers, journalists, with whom he shared a close friendship. And of course, by his readers and audiences. His friends considered Moix to be charming, bright, boundless, a good friend, profound, yet with studied frivolity. A free spirit, he exercised the gift of laughter and openly www.cat-science.cat

The Library Begun along with the Museion, toward 290 BC, under the orders of Ptolemy I Soter (367–283 BC) after a proposal from Demetrius of Phalerum (350–280 BC), it was completed by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (data uncertain). He added an annex to the Serapeum and furnished with almost 44,000 volumes. Demetrius himself managed to collect some 200,000 volumes and it is estimated, although the numbers vary, that the Great Library could have contained 400,000–700,000 rolls. Stories or legends, or some combination of the two, tell that every ship landing at Alexandria was searched and, if a book was found, it was confiscated and after being copied it was registered and the copy returned to the owner. The same was done with single travelers. This fact is attributed to Ptolemy III Euergetes (ca. 282–222 BC). The Alexandria Library attained the highest prestige as a centre of knowledge of ancient times. Scholars from all over the Mediterranean arrived to carry out investigations and plunge into studies of philosophy and the sciences (mathematics, geometry, astronomy). The memory of the Library 71

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Fig. 8. Two views of the modern Library of Alexandrina. (From the booklet Bibliotheca Alexandrina, published by the institution itself.)

It has been said that the Library of Alexandria represents one of the most ambitious projects in Antiquity. Gathering, coding and organizing universal knowledge and making it available to scholars, thus allowing the meeting of cultures, meant a manifestation of openness of spirit, tolerance and respect, together with a logic that promoted discussion and the search for knowledge. But there might be more interested motivations as other authors have suggested [17]. For example, the accumulation of deeds and documents and translations followed a plan of control and propaganda of the Hellenistic splendor and Ptolemaic patronage.

survived its destruction and disappearance as it was a standard for knowledge. The Ptolemaic dynasty made great efforts to turn the city into a focal point where science, art, literature and philosophy could flourish; for this, they attracted anyone interested in studies from every place in the known world, offering them accommodation at what were to be two unique and unprecedented environments to study, the Musaeum and the Library. The Musaeum, or “shrine of the Muses”, was the equivalent to research center of the ancient world, and the Library, the first entity with global reach. The position of the librarian was one of the highest ranks and was named directly by the king. Among the people who occupied that position were Zenodotus (?–260 BC), Erathosthenes of Cyrene (ca. 276– ca. 194 BC), Aristophanes of Byzantium (ca. 257–ca. 185 BC), Apollonious of Rhodes (ca. 295–ca. 246 BC) and Aristarchus of Samothrace (220–143 BC). An important task done in the Library was translation. It was in Alexandria where the first translation of the Old Testament was carried out, from Hebrew to Koine Greek, what is known as the Septuagint. The destruction of the Library has never been cleared up and sources are inconsistent. It has been said and also refuted that, during the course of one of his naval battles, in 48 BC, Caesar torched the Alexandrian fleet, whose flames extended to land, burned the Musaeum and the Library; but there is no certainty, though obviously damage would be produced. Emperor Theodosius prohibited, in 391, non-Christian religions, and Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria between 385 and 412, destroyed the Serapeum and the Library annex, as he considered them nests of pagan doctrine. www.cat-science.cat

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina: here and now Established with the intention to be a worthy successor to the ancient Library, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina [15] is located in a privileged place, opposite the Corniche facing the Mediterranean, in a magnificent building of eleven plants (Fig. 8). Recent archaeological studies suggest that this location is close to that of the ancient Library, where the Royal Quarter was then. It comprises also a conference center, a science museum, a planetarium, a study center and Calligraphy Institute and Museum. It covers an area of 85,000 m2 and houses 8 million books, 100,000 ancient manuscripts and 10,000 rare books, as well as electronic, audiovisual material and databases. The international community, through Unesco, funded the revival project of the ancient Library of Alexandria. Unesco, under the direction of Federico Mayor Zaragoza, orga72

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Fig. 9. Group representing the Institute for Catalan Studies and the Autonomous University of Barcelona that were received at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, on 31 December 2003 by members of the Library. Among the group, Mostafa El-Abbadi (standing, fifth person from the right), a leading figure in the project, execution and functioning of the Bibliotheca. Lynn Margulis is the woman with the red shirt.

nized a contest in 1987 in which numerous architectural centers participated. In the words of its first and current director, Ismail Serageldin, we must say that carrying out this project was making a dream come true, and this dream cannot be just the construction of a building, but also the pursuit of the ideal that inspired its creation, converting the Library into an ecumenical centre of knowledge. Today, we must add the current need for respect and acknowledgement of the contributions of the cultures that enrich the world and, again in the words of its director, “a centre for dialogue between people and civilizations”. Construction began in 1995, and in August 2001 the first book was placed in one of the shelves. The official inauguration took place on 23 April 2002, the International Day of the Book. Ismail Serageldin was appointed Director General. Besides a Ph.D. in sociology and economics, Prof. Serageldin has extensive experience in environmental issues and sustainability studies. On 3 July 2014 he gave a lecture in Barcelona, in the series “La Ciutadella, the first science park in Barcelona”, co-organized by the Natural Science Museum of Barcelona and the Barcelona Zoo. “See the world, know thyself” was the title of his lecture, in which he dealt with the social and scientific challenge of museums and heritage institutions and knowledge. In its presentation, the new Library states its purpose as “a center of excellence for the production and dissemination of knowledge, and to be a place of dialogue and understanding between cultures and people”. And the first article of the law that governs it states, “[t]he Library of Alexandria is a www.cat-science.cat

public juridical person headquartered in the city of Alexandria, attached to the president set. It is an Egyptian center radiance of cultural, a beacon for thought, culture and science, encompassing all the products of the human mind in all languages, from all cultures, ancient and modern”. As a symbol and as a reality, it is beautiful that Bibliotheca Alexandrina may be the meeting point of cultures and civilizations, past and present, most of which have as a cradle the calm waters of the Mediterranean. In December 2003, a team consisting of fourteen people, including Ricard Guerrero on behalf of the Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC), and commissioned by Federico Mayor Zaragoza, visited the new Library of Alexandria (Fig. 9). Previously, the members of the group had contacted the responsible of the Library, who organized a private guided tour and introduced them to Mostafa El-Abbadi, a man of great knowledge that has played a significant role in the project, development and functioning of the Bibliotheca. In addition to visiting the various museus in the premises of the Library, the visitors had the opportunity to know the internal parts, facilities, offices, administration, which are not open to the public, and were given detailed explanations about the functioning of the institution, as well as historical information and data. Especially moving was listening, directly from Mostafa ElAbbadi, the effort made for the “recovery” of the Library. It involved a huge effort to have the collaboration of experts in the history of the ancient library, the city and of the country, to discuss the appropriateness of the project, both with those who agreed, and with those who for various reasons did not 73

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agree. The magnitude of such an initiative and its purpose had to be tackled internationally and Unesco would be the appropriate institution. Therefore, before submitting the proposal it was necessary to consider all the reasons and offer a comprehensive, viable and powerful project. The project succeeded and the twentieth-century library could look in all its splendor. Today, despite multiple problems of all kinds, it offers the opportunity to revitalize and expand the fundamentals that allowed the passage from idea to reality. It would be nice and useful to seize the opportunity for the benefit of all, regardless of beliefs, political systems and partisanship. One of the members of the group in this trip was Lynn Margulis, the renowned North-American biologist who, besides her extraordinary knowledge and contribution to science, has been an example of an open mind and encouragement to attract young people and adults into the adventure of knowledge and its dissemination. It was her first and only visit to Egypt and she was asked to sign some of her books that she donated to the Library. She appears in Fig. 9. Lynn Margulis passed away in full intellectual youth, 73-years old, on 22 November 2011. Ricard Guerrero, on behalf of the IEC, donated several books and documents, some of which are representative of the high publishing capacity of the IEC, while telling the history of the Institute and its role as the Catalan academy of sciences and humanities. The IEC covers all branches of knowledge and contributes to its spread both locally, nationally and internationally. Science, inserted in culture, is a bridge that approaches and joins distances, and makes it through the contribution of so many people, past and present, who have bequeathed to the society a precious good treasure, the fruit of their knowledge and wisdom. The visit to the Library of Alexandria was the highlight of that trip to Egypt, which had been organized just with that intention: to know the recovery and continuation of the idea, represented by the Library. The spread of culture without borders for the benefit of humankind and peoples. This can be achieved regardless of differences and peculiarities of humans and nations, recognizing the value of knowledge to contribute to peace and to strengthen ties of mutual friendship and respect. On this Mediterranean shore where the Nile abandon its water, Alexandria wakes every morning to the chant of the muezzin calling to prayer. The far-distant traces of so many who shaped its history and made up our culture remains intact, perhaps increased by the gaze and the poetry of those who centuries later captured the essence of a city that had sheltered the wisdom of all times. And while it was wise, it www.cat-science.cat

was rich in the most outstanding talents. Never again should intransigence It would be fervently desirable that never again intransingence bury, under water and sand, the overhelming memory of stones, papyrus and parchments, and everlasting ideas.

Acknowledgements. Author thanks the collaboration of Sandra Young, Mercè Berlanga, Ricard Guerrero, and Mercè Piqueras, from the journal International Microbiology, in the preparation and final form of this article. Competing interests. None declared.

References 1. 2. 3. 4.

Dzielska M (2004) Hipatia de Alejandria. Ediciones Siruela, Madrid Durrell G (1959). My family and other animals. Penguing Books, London Durrell L (1957–1960) The Alexandria Quartet. Faber & Faber, London Eggebrech E (1984) Historia del imperio faraónico. In: Eggebrecht A (ed.) El antiguo Egipto: 44-116. Plaza & Janés, Barcelona 5. El-Abbadi M (1992) Life and fate of the ancient Library of Alexandria. Unesco, Paris, 2nd ed 6. Forster EM (2008) Alejandría historia y guía. Almed, Granada 7. García Romero FA (2013) Venerable Hipatia. El testimonio de Sócrates Escolástico (HE VII 15). Asidonense 8 8. Golding W (1986) Diario egipcio. Ediciones del Serbal, Barcelona 9. Haas C (1997) Alexandria in late antiquity: Topography and social conflict (ancient society and history). The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland 10. Iskander Z, Badawy A (1965) Brief history of ancient Egypt. 5th ed. Madkour Press, Cairo 11. Lagoudis J (1977) Alexandria still. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 12. Luminet JP (2004) El incendio de Alejandría. Ediciones B, Barcelona 13. Moix T (1986) No digas que fue un sueño. Editorial Planeta, Barcelona 14 . Moorehead A (1986) El Nilo Azul. Ediciones del Serbal, Barcelona 15. Piqueras M (2004) La Bibliotheca Alexandrina, far de la cultura del segle XXI. Avui 31.1.2004:34 16. Reverte J (2001) Dios, el diablo y la aventura. Plaza & Janés, Barcelona 17. Riaño JJ (2005) Poetas, filósofos, gramáticos y bibliotecarios: origen y naturaleza de la antigua Biblioteca de Alejandría. Trea, Gijón 18. Stanley DJ, Wame AG (1993) Nile Delta: recent geological evolution and human impact. Science 260:628-634 19. Woodward JC, Macklin MG, Krom MD, Williams MAJ (2007) The Nile: Evolution, quaternary river environments and material fluxes. In Gupta A (ed) Large rivers: Geomorphology and management. John Wiley & Sons, London

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RESEARCH REVIEWS Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

OPENAACCESS

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CONTRIB SCI 11:75-83 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.215

Four decades of research on the Medes Islands Joandomènec Ros,1 Josep Maria Gili2 Departament of Ecology, Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia. 2Institut of Marine Sciences (CSIC), Barcelona, Catalonia 1

Correspondence: Joandomènec Ros Department of Ecology University of Barcelona Av. Diagonal, 643 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia Tel. +34-934021511 E-mail: jros@ub.edu

Summary. It has been over thirty years since the publication of the first major study about the natural environment of Medes Islands. The data collected in that first study entitled Els sistemes naturals de les illes Medes (The natural systems of Medes Islands) and the conclusions drawn from its analysis revealed the biological characteristics of this archipelago and led to a proposed set of measures to ensure its preservation as a natural area of extraordinary importance. One of these adopted measures was the creation of the Medes Islands Marine Protected Area in 1990. Protection rules derived from this measure have allowed researchers to develop a number of studies on several species inhabiting these islands (mostly in the submerged parts of the ecosystem) and to continuously monitor the evolution of the associated natural systems and the impact of human activities (fishing, diving, nautical tourism, etc.), both to the whole ecosystem and to very important and characteristic species including Neptune grass (Posidonia oceanica), Mediterranean violescent gorgonian (Paramuricea clavata), red coral (Corallium rubrum) and Mediterranean dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus). The results of these studies performed on Medes Islands during the four previous decades suggest that only through continuous monitoring and data collection, and further analysis, is it possible to define the appropriate regulations to ensure the protection and preservation of natural areas at risk of being altered by human activities, preservation measures that promote the development of new studies and the improvement of the knowledge of the functioning of natural systems. [Contrib Sci 11:75-83 (2015)]

Introduction In 1984 the book Els sistemes naturals de les illes Medes (“The natural systems of Medes Islands”) was published [32]. It was a very extensive volume of more than 800 pages, fortytwo chapters, and around twenty plates and unfolding maps.

The book , compiled from the work of fifty-four authors, explained the whole body of knowledge to date on the physical environment, botany, fauna and communities, both terrestrial and marine, of the small archipelago of the Empordà region (Catalonia) at that time.

Keywords: Medes Islands · reserve effect · frequentation effect · benthic communities · demersal communities ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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their surroundings, and discovering their patterns of organization in the communities and the terrestrial and marine landscapes. It was only in the 1980s that the study of the dynamics (biological, ecological) of those organisms started in full, largely through the scientific monitoring of the Marine Protected Area (MPA). This monitoring began in the 1990s with the help of experimental approaches, mainly in situ and sub aqua, aimed at resolving specific questions. During the thirty years that have elapsed since the publication of the book, and with a view to the future, many of the scholars that assembled the first monograph as well as new ones added throughout the period, have studied the functioning of some of the most representative species and communities of Medes Islands, particularly the marine ones, with an emphasis on benthic and demersal communities. Investigations into functional ecology have exceeded the initial scope and have been integrated into broader contexts, both geographic and scientific. The results of these studies have been published on a regular basis on over half a hundred research papers, and a summary of some of these were published on a monograph on Medes islands thirty years after the first one [14].

Fig. 1. Front cover of the book Els sistemes naturals de les illes Medes (â&#x20AC;&#x153;The natural systems of Medes Islandsâ&#x20AC;?).

The monitoring of the Medes Islands Marine Protected Area

That work, promoted by the Catalan Institution of Natural History (ICHN) and published by the Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC), was an absolutely and completely new experience for the time and was a notable achievement contributing to the knowledge of Mediterranean nature, especially of its marine benthic communities. Els sistemes naturals de les illes Medes raised the knowledge of the Catalan Mediterranean coastal biological populations to the same level of that of other countries of the region (France, Italy, the former Yugoslavia), and was the model for new studies developed in other Iberian coasts. This work was widely distributed to the main researchers on the Mediterranean benthic communities who, in a general way, praised its scope and comprehensiveness. But the book was almost exclusively a descriptive catalog because only some incidental references were made to the functioning of the communities, and in these scarce instances, they were based on studies from other researchers, mainly from those studying similar communities in the French coasts. During the decade of 1970 studies were mainly focused on identifying the organisms of Medes Islands and describing

Besides the rich land- and seascape and biodiversity of Medes Islands, other no less important aspects must be also considered as a stimulus for research during these years. First, the creation of the Fishing Reserve (1983) and the Marine Protected Area (1990). Second, the scientific monitoring of the results of the protection measures (and the effects of the visit to the protected area); this monitoring is, surely, the longer one done in a Marine Protected Area of all the Mediterranean Sea. And third, the synergistic effect of this monitoring on other research centered on the area of the Medes Islands and its surroundings. A preserved area, whether marine or terrestrial, is a piece of biosphere relatively free of some of the impacts that human activities inflict on areas without protection, so it is possible to design some experiments with a reasonable expectation that their results will not be biased by the human influence. Also, when human pressures disappear, nature tends to quickly return to an almost natural state depending on the demographic dynamics of species, although this state has been questioned because of the many centuries of exploitation of the marine and coastal resources that have altered

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Fig. 2. View of Medes Islands archipelago from the coastal line of Montgrí. (Author: Vincent van Zeijst CC).

the communities [16,17]. That was why the continuous monitoring through time of the preservation effects quickly rendered dramatic results concerning the population recovery of some species previously exploited (mainly fish). The synergistic aspect is related to the scientific monitoring of the preserved area. The logistical organization of the monitoring activities was used to develop most of the activities of several research projects centered on the preserved area; and vice versa. Since it is not possible to manage a protected area when the results of the protection are unknown, repetitive and sustained scientific studies will be necessary to allow researchers to recognize potential problems and to inform about them to the protected area managers in order to modify the management if needed. Since 1990, and for fifteen years, a team of researchers basically from the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona developed an annual monitoring of the ecological dynamics of selected species and communities of the Medes Islands Marine Protected Area. In addition to the reports of the monitoring to the administrative authorities [7,30,41] and the management recommendations included in these reports, the members of the monitoring team regularly advised the preserved area managers about several other related issues. Since 2005, monitoring has been made in a sporadic way and not always by the same researchers, so the methodology has been altered and, surely, also the usability of the time series data obtained until then. Recently the first team has begun again the monitoring in the area and the old and useful methodology applied anew. Since the beginning, the monitoring of the Medes Islands Marine Protected Area has focused on determining the “zero point” (the situation before the protection, almost always referred to coastal non-protected areas ecologically similar to the islands) and to study both the potential changes resulting from protection (the so-called preservation effect) and the www.cat-science.cat

impact on biological communities from the increased number of boats, cruises, and especially scuba divers visiting the area (frequentation effect). This monitoring is essential to determine if the management of the preserved area is yielding the expected results as well as to offer to the managers of the area the recommendations to improve it based on scientific studies [11,23,26,31,41]. The effects of the fishing and shell fishing ban since the Fishing Reserve and the Marine Protected Area were established should be apparent soon after and should also be easy to define. Both the relatively small size of the Medes Islands archipelago (21.5 ha) and its accessibility from the continental coast (only at about 1 km from the l’Estartit shoreline) attract large numbers of scuba divers from around the world every year. The number (both absolute and relative) of dives into these waters is the greatest of any Marine Protected Area in the Mediterranean, which generates a very high frequentation pressure. As a result of this large number of visitors, the erosive process (intentional or unintentional) of the sessile communities (such as gorgonians and the coralligenous in general) and the alteration of the behavior of fish to which food is often offered become very important. This frequentation effect, to which it must be added the anchoring of boats on fragile bottom (coralligenous, Posidonia beds) and, more recently, the poaching of fish and coral, must be adequately quantified.

Quantification of the effects The Marine Protected Area monitoring design was made by considering several groups of studies and by planning a multilevel approach. On the one hand by analyzing species and communities that are important from the ecological and/or 77

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Fig. 3. Underwater image of prairies of Neptune grass (Posidonia oceanica) (Author: Yoruno CC).

emblematic point of view, or that can work as biological indicators of general effects on the community and, on the other hand, trying to clearly differentiate the two aforementioned effects (preservation and frequentation) or some others if they exist. Since the program’s inception, uninterrupted studies have been ongoing and supplemented by more limited shortterm studies of the following organisms and communities: seagrass prairies, especially the Neptune grass itself (Posidonia oceanica) and some associated species of animals; the macrophytic community (macroscopic seaweeds); the violescent sea-whip or chameleon sea fan (Paramuricea clavata); sea urchins (especially Paracentrotus lividus); fishes, mainly the vulnerable species (Epinephelus marginatus, etc.); Mediterranean lobster (Palinurus elephas); red coral (Corallium rubrum); bryozoa or moss animals (especially Pentapora fascialis) as indicators of the erosive process in the coralligenous community; and, during the first years, before the official data on submarine frequentation being available, also their estimates. Of these organisms and communities, the species composition, abundances, sizes, age distribution and other demographic and biological variables were ascertained, always using bloodless methods. The results of the monitoring during these years have been offered to the managers of the protected area in the form of annual reports and have been also published in several scientific articles. www.cat-science.cat

Negative effects. Some submarine areas of the Medes Islands are being overwhelmed by the direct and indirect effects of massive numbers of visitors. They have been literally trampled, and the most emblematic benthic communities and species (coralligenous, sea fan communities, caves, red coral, calcareous algae, bryozoans) show clear signs of degradation. For the most visited areas, it has been estimated that damage caused to the violescent sea-whip (P. clavata), a very slow growing cnidarian, by voluntary uprooting or by involuntary “trampling” could eliminate their populations in one or two decades. The permanent boat-traffic, dumped garbage, pollution, the anchoring effect on the prairie of P. oceanica —a system of anchoring buoys has been in place for some years, though it has been inadequately used—, the underwater poaching and illegal collecting of red coral, C. rubrum―although collecting this species is not legal inside the preserved area and, in any case, its size is clearly smaller than allowed elsewhere―are also threats to the integrity of this protected area that is suffering the effects of its fame. Positive effects. The number of fish species—especially the more vulnerable to fishing—, the sizes of their populations as well as those of individual fish and the size of most species have increased, in some cases dramatically. The fish are less elusive, do not flee divers and even come close in search of food. The Mediterranean dusky grouper (E. marginatus), European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) and gilthead 78

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Fig. 4. Detail of red coral (Corallium rubrum). (Author: SUBnormali Team CC).

bream (Sparus aurata), among many other species that had become rare due to overfishing, are as abundant as they probably were before the practice of traditional fishing and underwater spearfishing and have reached sizes that veteran divers do not remember ever have seeing. Protected species therefore thrive. Some studies have found that the ratio between large- or medium-size to small fish is too high and, although there are no reliable studies of this effect, this could indicate that the reserve is acting as disseminator of young fish to adjacent waters by the process of liberating larvae and juveniles to the surroundings of the protected area. These positive effects, however, have another aspect perhaps more problematic. The recovery of territorial populations of species such as the Mediterranean dusky grouper (E. marÂginatus), implies that the carrying capacity of the area has been reached: all territories are already occupied, and older males are evicted by the younger ones. Gilthead breams (S. aurata) exploit the mussels (Mytilus edulis) that grow on the rocks with higher effectiveness than humans did (when there was no ban on harvesting). Also, populations of sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus), quintessential herbivores, are reduced by predator fish, and their action on the algal mats has decreased to the point that the previous barren areas (areas depleted of carnose algae, where only calcareous and encrusting algae resisted the attack of sea urwww.cat-science.cat

chins) are now luxuriant prairies of algae in much of the bottom on the Medes Islands, and are colonized by the host of invertebrates facilitated by its three-dimensional structure. But protection also helps herbivorous cow bream population (Sarpa salpa), which has the opposite effect on algal communities.

Other research on Medes Islands A new bionomic map (natural communities) of the submerged area of the Natural Park has been done, thirty years after the first one, and knowledge of the bottom has greatly improved due to the ongoing activities of research and monitoring throughout these years. While, in general, the available resources for exploration of the seabed of the islands have allowed a more precise knowledge of the natural heritage, it can also be said that the underwater landscape has changed relatively little, if the mentioned changes as a result of protection and the effects of mass mortality episodes are excluded. Indeed, the comparison of photographic transects made along bathymetric gradients of the seabed of Medes Islands for over two decades has enabled us to detect some of these changes [21]. The Medes Islands archipelago has become, over these four decades and due to the good knowledge of its biological 79

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Fig. 5. Bionomic cartography of Medes islands. (Courtesy of B. Hereu, et al., 2012).

communities, a reference point for research on marine ecology in the Mediterranean and other places. Among these areas of research, we can mention the following: 路 Distribution of certain species, both to small- and medium scales, and over time, in response to environmental factors.

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路 Trophic ecology (diet, prey capture, and feeding in different groups of invertebrates and vertebrates). 路 Trophic interactions among groups, cascade effects, and developmental models. 路 Complete energy balance (reproductive effort, growth rate, food, excretion, respiration) of different benthic species. 80

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Fig. 6. Image of Mediterranean dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus). (Author: Parent Géry CC).

· Integrated studies of unique ecosystems, including caves and seagrass beds. · Biomass and production at the scale of the ecosystem. · Production and physiology of macrophytes. · Demography: growth, natural mortality, changes in the size structure (age), reproduction and recruitment, partial mortality, fusions and fissions (in colonial organisms) demographic control in situ, demographic models. · Population structure, feeding, reproduction and recruitment, demography, genetics, etc., of selected species: red coral (C. rubrum) and the violescent sea-whip (P. clavata). · First stages of the ecological succession; dynamics of the communities in the long term. · Photographic series of permanent plots: sequential comparison for short periods (annual). Long-term analysis of photographic series (decadal). · Characterization of the environment (physics, chemistry, geology and biology of the water column; interaction with currents; studies at very high resolution, in time and space, to understand environmental characteristics at micro-scale). · Biochemical composition (identification of molecular signals as indicators of the state of health: stress proteins). · Episodes of mass mortality of suspensivores (gorgonians, sponges, bryozoans, bivalves, etc.), at Medes Islands www.cat-science.cat

and in other Mediterranean locations. Monitoring of thermal change. · Recovery of populations (gorgonians, coral) · Ichthyoplankton in the surroundings of the islands. · Approach to the integrated knowledge of the underwater caves of the islands, with original experimental designs to study both its physical and environmental frameworks and the organisms inhabiting them [9,42]. · Work on populations of Mysidacea daily entering and leaving the caves and collaborating to the transport of organic matter into them [4,5,27]. · Studies on the so called midlittoral trottoir, where very detailed studies were made on a small scale of its inhabitants [3]. · Use of biochemical techniques to determine the biological status of some species, such as sea fans [35]. · Detailed studies on the biology and ecology of some species of gorgonians and hydrarians [1,2,36]. · Structure and dynamics of the population of key marine reserve species (fishes and lobsters) [16,18,19]. · Assessing the effectiveness of Marine Reserves [38,63]. · Comparative studies with populations of sea fans, sponges and algae from other localities, either Mediterranean or not [8,12,15,18–20,24,25,28,29,33,39]. The scientific monitoring of the protected area of Medes Is81

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Research on Medes Islands

lands has not only acted synergistically to promote the development of research, but has also been serendipitous in the sense that has allowed unexpected findings. One is the episode of red coral (C. rubrum) poaching, precisely in one of the monitored plots, which allowed to estimate the damage done and advise authorities; another is the observation for the first time in such a northern latitude of the Mediterranean as Medes Islands, of the spawning behavior of the Mediterranean dusky grouper (E. marginatus) [43,44], probably caused by the warming of water due to climate change. While it can be said that benthic communities and fish have been well studied in the Medes Islands Marine Protected Area, it has not been the same with planktonic communities and biological processes in the water column. There are, however, some studies of particular interest because they are related to aspects studied in other areas, such as planktonic larval stages of fish [37]. Much remains to be done to improve the knowledge of the dynamics of particulate matter, of organic matter and its transport and deposition, although some preliminary studies indicate that Medes Islands is a high productivity area in a Mediterranean context [34]. Recently, we have considered the islands and the protected area as a model for managing other marine protected areas in the Mediterranean, either from increases in fish populations and biomass [13] or as an artisanal fisheries zone [38,39] and, even with a broader perspective, considering the continental shelf outside the islands [6,10,22].

Competing interests. None declared.

References 1. Barangé M, Gili JM (1988) Feeding cycles and prey capture in Eudendrium racemosum (Cavolini, 1785). J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 115:281-293 doi:10.1016/0022-0981(88)90160-8 2. Cardell MJ (1990) Ecological characteristics of a population of Fabricia sabella (Ehrenberg) (Polychaeta, Sabellidae) in the “trottoirs” of Lithophyllum tortuosum Foslie. Sci Mar 54:305-310 3. Cardell MJ, Gili JM (1988) Distribution of a population of annelid polychaetes in the “trottoir” of the midlittoral zone on the coast of NorthEast Spain, Western Mediterranean. Mar Biol 99:83-92 doi:10.1007/BF00644980 4. Carola M, Coma, R, Riera T, Zabala M (1993) Fecal pellets collection as a method for assessing egesta of the marine cave-dewlling mysid Hemimysis speluncula. Sci Mar 57:51-63 5. Coma R, Carola M, Riera T, Zabala M (1997) Horizontal transfer of matter by a cave-dwelling Mysid. PSZN I Mar Ecol 18:211-226 doi:10.1111/j.1439-0485.1997.tb00438.x 6. de Juan S, Demestre M, Thrush S (2009) Defining ecological indicators of trawling disturbance when everywhere that can be fished is fished: A Mediterranean case study. Mar Policy 33:472-478 doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2008.11.005 7. Departament d’Ecologia (1990-2005) Seguiment temporal de la Reserva Marina de les Illes Medes. Informes anuals. Subdirecció General de Conservació de la Natura. Departament de Medi Ambient, Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona 8. Ereskovsky A, Boury-Esnault N (2002) Cleavage pattern in Oscarella species (Porifera, Demospongiae, Homoscleromorpha): Transmission of maternal cells and symbiotic bacteria. J Nat Hist 36:1761-1775 doi:10.1080/00222930110069050 9. Gili JM, Riera T, Zabala M (1986) Physical and biological gradients in a submarine cave on the Western Mediterranean coast (north-east Spain). Mar Biol 90:291-297 doi:10.1007/BF00569141 10. Goñi R, Adlerstein S, Álvarez-Berastegui D, Forcada A, Reñones O, Criquet G, Polti S, Cadiou G, Valle C, Lenfant P, Bonhomme P, Pérez-Ruzafa A, Sánchez-Lizaso JL, García-Charton JA, Bernard G, Stelzenmüller V, Planes S (2008) Spillover from six western Mediterranean marine protected areas: evidence from artisanal fisheries. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 366: 159-174 doi:10.3354/meps07532 11. Goñi R, Harmelin-Vivien M, Badalamenti F, Le Diréach L, Bernard G. (eds) (2000) Introductory guide to methods for selected ecological studies in marine reserves. GIS Posidonie. Marseille 12. Gori A, Linares C, Rossi S, Coma R, Gili JM (2007) Spatial variability in reproductive cycle of the gorgonians Paramuricea clavata and Eunicella singularis (Anthozoa, Octocorallia) in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Mar Biol 151:1571-1584 doi:10.1007/s00227-006-0595-7 13. Harmelin JG, Bachet JG, García F (1995) Mediterranean marine reserves: Fish indices as tests of protection efficiency. PSZN I Mar Ecol 16:233-250 doi:10.1111/j.1439-0485.1995.tb00408.x 14. Hereu B, Quintana X (2012) El fons marí de les illes Medes i el Montgrí. Quatre dècades de recerca per a la conservació. Recerca i territori, 4. Càtedra d’ecosistemes litorals mediterranis 15. Hughes RG, Johnson S, Smith ID (1991) The growth patterns of some hydroids that are obligate epiphytes of seagrass leaves. Hydrobiologia 216/217:205-210 doi:10.1007/BF00026463 16. Jackson JB, Sala E (2001) Unnatural oceans. In: A marine science odyssey into the 21st century. Gili JM, Pretus JL, Packard TT (eds) Sci Mar 65: 273-281

The future The research carried out on the seabed of Medes Islands and their environment, gradually changed from biotic inventory to bionomic cartography, and this, to monitor the response of some selected species and communities to the protection measures (and some of their social and economic consequences, such as the dramatic increase in the appeal of the islands to local and foreign divers and tourists in general). Meanwhile, several studies had been started trying to elucidate the biology and ecology of selected species, the dynamics of populations and communities, and the interaction between organisms and their environment. Has the potential of the area to supply new lines of research (or old ones, but with a different approach) been exhausted over these four decades? We do not think so. Research in the protected area of Medes Islands (and, for some years, also of the immediate Montgrí coast) will not end. By definition, scientific research is the permanent replacement of paradigms, all of them with a limited validity. www.cat-science.cat

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Ros and Gili

17. Jackson JBC, Kirby MX, Berger WH, Bjorndal KA, Botsford LW, Bourque BJ, Bradbury RH, Cooke R, Erlandson J, Estes JA, Hughes TP, Kidwell S, Lange CB, Lenihan HS, Pandolfi JM, Peterson CH, Steneck RS, Tegner MJ, Warner RR (2001) Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems. Science 293:629-638 doi:10.1126/science.1059199 18. Lombarte A, Cruz A (2007) Otolith size trends in marine fish communities from different depth strata. J Fish Biol 71:53-76 doi:10.1111/j.1095-8649.2007.01465.x 19. Maldonado M, Uriz MJ (1995) Biotic affinities in a transitional zone between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean: A biogeographical approach based on sponges. J Biogeogr 22:89-110 doi:10.2307/2846075 20. Martí R, Uriz MJ, Ballesteros E, Turón X (2005) Seasonal variation in the structure of three Mediterranean algal communities in various light conditions. Estuar Coast Shelf S 64:613-622 doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2005.04.009 21. Martínez-Ricart A, Linares C, Ballesteros E, Romero J, García M, Weitzmann B, Zabala M, Ros JD, Hereu. B (2012) Cambios a largo plazo en las comunidades bentónicas de la Reserva Marina de las islas Medes: Comparación con el litoral catalán. XVII Simposio Ibérico de Estudios de Biología Marina. Donosti-San Sebastián 22. Merino G, Maynou F, Boncoeur J (2009) Bioeconomic model for a threezone Marine Protected Area: a case study of Medes Islands (Northwest Mediterranean). ICES J Mar Sci 66:147-154 doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsn200 23. Múgica M, Gómez-Limón J (eds) (2002) Plan de acción para los espacios naturales protegidos del Estado español. Fundación Fernando González Bernáldez. Madrid 24. Pérez-Portela R, Durán S, Palacín C, Turón X (2007) The genus Pycnoclavella (Ascidiacea) in the Atlanto-Mediterranean region: a combined molecular and morphological approach. Invertebr Syst 21:187-205 doi:10.1071/IS06015 25. Pisera A, Vacelet J (2011) Lithistid sponges from submarine caves in the Mediterranean: taxonomy and affinities. Sci Mar 75:17-4033 doi:10.3989/scsimar.2011.75n1017 26. Polunin VC (ed) (2000). Papers from the ECOMARE Project. Environ Conserv 27:95-200 27. Riera T, Zabala M, Peñuelas J (1991) Mysids from a submarine cave emerge each night to feed. Sci Mar 55:605-609 28. Rius M, Zabala M (2008) Are marine protected areas useful for the recovery of the Mediterranean mussel populations? Aquat Conserv 18: 527-540 doi:10.1002/aqc.887 29. Ros JD (1985) Els poblaments d’opistobranquis de coves submarines mediterrànies: noves dades i comentaris sobre llur afinitat faunística. Butll Inst Cat Hist Nat 52 (Zool 6):87-94 30. Ros JD (1999) Una década de seguimiento ecológico de la reserva marina de las islas Medes (Girona). In: I Jornadas internacionales sobre reservas marinas. Murcia, pp 91-92 31. Ros JD (2001) Vora el mar broix. Problemàtica ambiental del litoral mediterrani. Empúries. Barcelona 32. Ros JD, Olivella I, Gili JM (1984) Els sistemes naturals de les illes Medes. Arxius de la Secció de Ciències 73. Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, 825 pp

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33. Rosell D, Uriz MJ (2002) Excavating and endolithic sponge species (Porifera) from the Mediterranean: species descriptions and identification key. Org Divers Evol 2:55-86 doi:10.1078/1439-6092-00033 34. Rossi S, Grémare A, Gili JM, Amouroux JM, Jordana E, Vétion G (2003) Biochemical characteristics of settling particulate organic matter at two north-western Mediterranean sites: a seasonal comparison. Estuar Coastal Shelf Sci 58:423-434 doi:10.1016/S0272-7714(03)00108-2 35. Rossi S, Gili JM, Coma R, Linares C, Gori A, Vert N (2006) Temporal variation in protein, carbohydrate and lipid concentrations in Paramuricea clavata (Anthozoa, Octocorallia): evidence for summer-autumn feeding constraints. Mar Biol 149:643-651 doi:10.1007/s00227-005-0229-5 36. Rossi S, Gili JM, Garrofé X (2011) Net negative growth detected in a population of the temperate gorgonian Leptogorgia sarmentosa: quantifying the biomass loss in a benthic soft bottom gravel suspension feeder. Mar Biol 158:1631-1643 doi:10.1007/s00227-011-1675-x 37. Sabatés A, Zabala M, García-Rubies A (2003) Larval fish communities in the Medes Islands Marine Reserve (North-West Mediterranean) J Plankton Res 25:1035-1046 doi:10.1093/plankt/25.9.1035 38. Stelzenmüller V, Maynou F, Bernard G, Cadiou G, Camilleri C, Crec’hriou MR, Criquet G, Dimech M, Esparza O, Higgins R, Lenfant P, Pérez-Ruzafa A (2008) Spatial assessment of fishing effort around european marine reserves: Implications for successful fisheries management. Mar Pollut Bull 56:2018-2026 doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2008.08.006 39. Stelzenmüller V, Maynou F, Martín P (2007) Spatial assessment of benefits of a coastal Mediterranean Marine Protected Area. Biol Conserv 136:571-583 doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2007.01.002 40. Tsounis G, Rossi S, Aranguren M, Gili JM, Arntz W (2006) Effects of spacial variability and colony size on the reproductive output and gonadal development cycle of the Mediterranean red coral (Corallium rubrum L.). Mar Biol 148:513-527 doi:10.1007/s00227-005-0100-8 41. Zabala, M (1993) Efectos biológicos de la creación de una reserva marina: El caso de las islas Medes. In: La gestión de los espacios marinos en el Mediterráneo occidental:55-103. Instituto de Estudios Almerienses. Almería 42. Zabala M, Riera T, Gili JM, Barange M, Lobo A, Peñuelas J (1989) Water flow, trophic depletion and benthic macrofauna impoverishment in a submarine cave from the Western Mediterranean. PSZN I Mar Ecol 10: 271-287 doi:10.1111/j.1439-0485.1989.tb00478.x 43. Zabala M, García-Rubies A, Louisy P, Sala E (1997) Spawning behavior of the Mediterranean dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834) (Pisces, Serranidae) in the Medes Islands Marine Reserve (NW Mediterranean, Spain). Sci Mar 61:65-77 44. Zabala M, Louisy P, García-Rubies A, Gracia V (1997) Sociobehavioral context of the reproduction in the Mediterranean dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834) (Pisces, Serranidae) in the Medes Islands Marine Reserve (NW Mediterranean, Spain). Sci Mar 61:79-98

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RESEARCH REVIEWS Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

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CONTRIB SCI 11:85-94 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.216

The bones of our ancestors. The end of burials in churches in the late 18th century Correspondence: Ana Dexeus Pg. Sant Gervasi, 30 08022 Barcelona Email : nectimide@movistar.es

Ana Dexeus Director, IANUA 1967 Publ., Barcelona

Summary. In an attempt to improve the quality of life of their subjects, the monarchs of the late 18th century in many countries of Europe actively promoted the end of the burial within the churches. In most European countries, the burial in cemeteries, which should be located outside of urban areas, was promoted. In Spain, the measures for that purpose found an unusual resistance because they damaged the interests of privileged groups and confronted entrenched beliefs. [Contrib Sci 11(1):85-94 (2015)]

Introduction The search for the remains of Miguel de Cervantes (1547– 1616) in the crypt of the convent of the barefoot Trinitarians, in Madrid, throughout several months in 2015 revealed a common feature of Spanish society before the French revolution: burials in churches located in urban areas. Cemeteries established on the outskirts of a town are relatively recent, dating to the 19th century. Although the rules of the catholic church clearly prohibited burials inside churches, over the years, due to custom and tradition, churches became actual cemeteries. Wealthy people were buried in their family pantheons―located in the vaulted basements of chapels―or in the assigned places if they were members of a brotherhood or guild. Everyone else was buried in a grave somewhere be-

low the church―away from the high altar, which was the most prized location―or, in some cases, in the cemetery that surrounded the church. The growth of large cities accelerated the problem of space in churches, commonly located in the heart of the cities. Small attached cemeteries were eventually used only by those who could not afford another kind of grave, losing their status of sacred places and, ultimately, becoming dumping grounds. In Barcelona, the “corralet” (little yard) of the Hospital de la Santa Creu (Hospital of the Holy Cross), located adjacent to the building which is now the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia, was the common grave for hundreds of unclaimed deads. The premises, located around the Hospital, is a place nowadays of high-concentration of health-related buildings. Almost next one to each other there are: the gothic hospital

Keywords: burials in churches · cemeteries · funeral services income · epidemics 18th century · public health ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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Burials in the 18th century

(from early 15th century), the baroque Convalescence Home (Casa de Convalescencia, built in mid 17th century), and the neoclassic Royal School of Surgeons (late 18th century). Those magnificient buildings are now the library of Catalonia (formerly, the Hospital, the largest one), the headquarters of the Institute for Catalan Studies (formerly, the Convalensce House), and the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia (formerly, the Royal School of Sugeons) (Fig. 1). The first cemeteries were small and malodorous places. Now and then, heavy rains exposed the human remains. Besides, they were located in the middle of densely populated urban areas, where street vendors set up their stalls and children played. Sometimes, their grounds served as dance floors and meeting places. Other burial sites were in remote areas, such as the “carneros” (charnel ground). These were used as ossuaries but also to bury the victims of major epidemics. Burials in churches and parishes were shallow and many corpses were not buried in coffins, which until the 18th century were considered a luxury. This allowed the periodic removal of ancient remains, “mondas”, to make room for new burials. It is well known that in a careless —as usual— removal made in the parochial church of San Sebastián de los Reyes, near Madrid, the remains of Lope de Vega (1562– 1635) disappeared. Indeed, the list of illustrious masters of arts and letters everywhere in Spain, whose remains have also disappeared, is a long one. The removal of remains from churches was extremely unpleasant and was conducted when attendance was low and preferably in the winter. Also, during the removals, the church could not be used. The frequency and extent of these operations were subjected to regulations. However, especially inside the churches, despite rules governing the excessive movement of gravestones, the high mortality and population growth made any specific precautions useless. Thus, church grounds were frequently dug out to allow new burials, gravestones fit poorly in the earth, and the stench was often unbearable, which discouraged the faithful from attending religious services.

with voluntarism, characteristic of an 18th century faith in the goodness of reason and the virtue of the fight against ignorance and superstition. The problem of insalubrious burials in churches had become obvious. In mid 18th-century Europe, the need to construct cemeteries outside urban centers, in open areas, was considered. Corpses were to be buried as had been done in the early days of the christian era, before a biased interpretation of the protection of the martyrs above that of the deceased provoked the migration of the deceased into religious sites. What some historians have defined as cohabitation between the living and the dead [1], reached its peak during the last third of the 18th century, to do after the way backwards toward cemeteries away from the town center. This process, which altered ancestral uses, caused great controversy and involved all sectors of the population [2]. In addition to the public’s resistance to change—the issue affected deeply held religious beliefs about the salvation of the soul—it damaged the economic interests of thousands of parishes and, at least in Spain, was eventually identified with political trends that would make the 19th century a battlefield where liberals and conservatives fought. In Spain, the measures adopted by the government were implemented slowly; it took more than 70 years from the royal decree of Carlos III (1716–1788; king of Spain between 1759 and 1788) until the opening of municipal cemeteries in all the main villages and towns. The regulations, aimed at improving public health and human welfare, encountered many difficulties as well as passive resistance and intense religious controversy. In fact, the 18th century history of cemeteries is an example of the limitations and contradictions of Spain’s age of enlightenment.

Public hygiene as a principle of urban health Although the pathogens causing major infectious diseases would not be identified until the end of the 19th century, in the late 17th century the role of water pollution in the transmission of diseases was already recognized. Based on empirical findings, French and British scientists and physician became the first advocates of a health policy of far-reaching effects. The 18th century’s hygienism, while supported by the ancient theory of the corruption of air, was based on new methods for the observation of nature. The idea that the atmosphere and the environment determined human health was corroborated by measurements with new instruments

Burials in cemeteries, an abandoned ancient practice By the mid 18th century, these practices were standard in all Europe, but the overcrowding of towns, which were enclosed by walls, the saturation of church burial sites, and a marked increase by town governments to improve hygiene were new. Rulers sought to improve the living conditions of their citizens www.cat-science.cat

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Dexeus

Fig. 1. (A) Former Hospital of the St. Cross, built ca. 1403, currently the library of Catalonia. (B) Convalescence house, built ca. 1650, currently the Institute for Catalan Studies. (C) The Royal College of Surgery, ca. 1763, currently the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia. (D) Former loacation of part of the “corralet”, the burial place of unclaimed corpses. (Photographs by R. Duro.)

and the development of basic sciences such as chemistry. The environmentalist vision tended, therefore, to combat environmental putrefaction. The writers and physicians who were at the forefront of this movement, including the Scottish physician John Arbuthnot (1667–1735), author of the widely disseminated treatise An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies (1733), did not know how to cure epidemic diseases that decimated the population but he knew how to prevent them [3]. To clean up the environment became the target of rulers, as part of and together with an enlightened minority. The prevention of epidemics was a constant concern in 18th century policies since all governments shared the theory that a strong state was a state populated by numerous and healthy individuals who would work the land, colonize other countries, and supply the armies. Cities were of par-

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ticular concern, since there the conditions for the development of diseases occurred: the infection of the atmosphere. Scholars from Barcelona identified them in the 1784’s document entitled Dictamen de la Academia Medico-Practica de la Ciudad de Barcelona dado al mui Ilustre Aiuntamiento de la misma, sobre la frecuencia de las muertes repentinas y apoplegias que en ella acontecen (Opinion of the Academy Medical-Practical of Barcelona reported to the Most Illustrious Municipality of the city, on the frequency of sudden deaths and apoplexy that occur in it). The report stated that diseases were caused by the coexistence of humans and animals, rotting excrements, primitive outdoor open sewers, the stink of latrines, manure heaps, and, above all, urban cemeteries. Bad odours were a feature of 18th century life. They emanated from poisonous fumes, stagnant water, decomposed 87

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Burials in the 18th century

http://vrcultura.uv.es/cultura/colecciones/v/ficha.asp?ID=UV000085

practice of burials inside churches and the need to change funeral customs. Throughout Europe, governments undertook the task of building cemeteries on the outskirts of villages and towns. In France, burials in churches were banned in 1776; in Sardinia, in 1777; in Austria, in 1783. Periodicals such as the Mercurio histórico y político and the Gazeta de Madrid gave full accounts of these measures. These two publications were instruments of the government of José Moñino y Redondo (1728–1808), the first count of Floridablanca, and they aimed to create a climate of opinion. These periodicals, read by high society, the administration and the clergy [4], highlighted the most tragic aspects of the problem: sudden deaths while opening graves and serious diseases in children attending catechism classes. In Spain, physicians such as Francisco Bruno Fernández, who was also a priest, were convinced of the risk related to burials. Bruno Fernández authored the 1783’s Disertacion fisico-legal de los sitios, y parages, que se deven destinar para las sepulturas (Physical-legal dissertation on the sites and places designated for burials). The mathematician Benito Bails (1730–1797) also contributed to disseminating these ideas [5]. Antonio Ponz (1725–1792), who devoted the fifth volume of his Viage de España (Journey around Spain) [12] to Madrid, paused in his description of the city to consider the matter of burial practices and offered hygienic and historical arguments supporting the construction of cemeteries [6]. The edict of Paris banning burials in churches raised large protests. The highest ecclesiastical hierarchy, headed by the Archbishop of Toulouse, Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne (1727–1794), highlighting “the dignity of the temples, the interest of the people and the glory of the church” directed a campaign against priests opposed to the edict. The measure to forbid burials in churches was approved in the royal decree of Paris of 1776. In Spain, special attention was paid to these events. Reformers were aware of the consequences of such a radical change to society’s values. Promoters of the measure continuously insisted on linking it with tradition, arguing that, the rule sought to restore the burial customs of the early christians, who had adopted the Roman custom to bury their dead outside urban areas. A part of the Spanish high clergy agreed with the government reform plans. They sincerely believed in the need for a more authentic religiosity, connected with that of early christianity and away from formalities that, in the case of burial practices, had reached dramatic baroque excesses (huge burial mounds, multifarious funeral corteges, psalmodies). Several prelates associated with Valencia’s enlightenment

Fig. 2. Portrait of Josep Climent i Avinent (1706–1781). (Main hall of the University of Valencia. Attributed to José Vergara.)

organic waste, and the effluents produced by gilders, apothecaries, and tanners in the practice of their trades. To protect themselves, pedestrians wrapped themselves in capes, a garment that later in the same century would play a great role in the Esquilache riots (March, 1766). The olfactory boundary determined a change of mindset that served to separate the world of the living from that of the dead.

Tradition and modernity: living near vs. far from the dead Among the elite, which included learned nobles, civil officers, magistrates, professionals, priests, and members of a new middle class, there was no doubt about both the harmful www.cat-science.cat

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Dexeus

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Enfo/Wikipedia Commons. Creative Commons 3.0

took the first steps. In 1773, the bishop of Barcelona, Josep Climent (1706–1781) (Fig. 2) acquired, at his own expense, land on the outskirts of the city, next to the beach of Mar Bella, and, in September 1775, he consecrated the first cemetery conceived as such. He justified the measure by “the horror of seeing the bones of your ancestors removed from the churches and deposited in filthy places, at risk of being walked on and even eaten by beasts” [14]. The initiative was fraught with difficulties. Climent was confronted by Ambrosio de Funes Villalpando Abarca de Bolea (1720–1780), Count of Ricla and captain general of Catalonia, and was driven out a few days later. Thus, that first cemetery, known as Climent’s cemetery, or the Mar Bella cemetery, had an ephemeral existence. Moreover, despite having been officially publicized before the release of the real cedula (royal decree) of 1787, an overwhelming majority of locals were reluctant to be buried far from their living loved ones. Prominent citizens, including illustrious physician Fran cisco Salvá y Campillo (1751–1828), publicly expressed their desire to be buried in distant cemeteries. Climent’s Cemetery served too as the burial place of unclaimed corpses and, in autumn 1802, received the remains that had been removed from the ancient cemetery of Santa Maria del Mar, whose proximity to the royal palace threatened to disturb Carlos IV and his court during their visit to Barcelona. That cemetery languished until 1813 when, during the French occupation, was seriously damaged due to its location close to the city walls. Several years later, the bishop Pau Sitjar (1747–1831) expanded the premises by adding neighboring lands. However, it was the epidemic of yellow fever in 1821―which resulted in 6,000 deaths―that converted Climent’s cemetery into the general cemetery of Barcelona, renamed the eastern cemetery, because at that time urban cemeteries were closed (Fig. 3). Climent was not the only one whose initiatives preceded official ones. In 1780, confronted with a serious outbreak of malaria, the military physician Mauricio Echandi (1732–1785) requested that a cemetery be constructed in Algeciras. The bishop of Orihuela, José Tormo (1721–1790), in l782 wrote to the count of Floridablanca, the chief minister of King Carlos III, on the inevitable need for burial sites outside the town. Fierce debates took place in both the scientific and medical environments of several cities, especially Seville, Madrid, and Barcelona. Supporters of the ending of burials in urban areas argued with those who proposed maintaining the practice, albeit with some changes, such as digging deeper graves and covering them with a layer of lime.

Fig. 3. Eastern Cemetery of Barcelona. Angel by Federico Fabiani (1835– 1914), Italian sculptor born in Alexandria. (Source: Enfo/Wikipedia Commons. Creative Commons 3.0)

The real cedula (royal decree) of 1787 Among academics, it is widely agreed that the end of burials inside the churches or around them (ad sanctos) was brought about by the Pasajes epidemic, which led to several official measures. At the end of 1780, in Pasajes de San Juan, located near the basc city of San Sebastian, a serious epidemic occurred that was attributed to the stink emanating from the many corpses buried in the church. People from that area still remembered the plague that, in the late 16th century, halved the population. King Carlos III, “moved by the fatherly love for all his subjects” [13], commissioned Floridablanca—the powerful chief minister— to request the consejo de Castilla (council of Castille), through its governor Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes y Pérez (1723–1802), first count of Campomanes, to adopt a position on whether burials should be 89

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banned in churches. Floridablanca, driven by the French experience, tried to involve in the request as many leading religious and scientific figures as possible. The council therefore requested reports from the archbishops and bishops of the kingdom as well as from major institutions [3], including the Royal Academy of History, where Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744–1811) brilliantly intervened, and the Royal Academy of Medicine. During the years between the beginning of the consultation and the publication of the royal decree of 1787, opinions, reports, and communications were released. The voluminous file of documents contains the replies of the bishops of all dioceses in the country and is an exceptional record of both the social reality of the 18th century and the attitudes of the prelates. Its content reveals, above all, the practical difficulty of undertaking a change of such magnitude. More than half of the consulted bishops openly manifested their support of the measure, but a significant minority was reluctant to ban the practice of burials in churches; a further eight out of the 55 reports were ambiguous, recognizing that although it was a undoubtedly harmful practice, the barriers to its eradication would be insurmountable. Documentation from other countries, including the ordinance of empress Maria Theresa of Austria (1717–1780), was collected. José Nicolás de Azara (1730–1804), ambassador of Spain in Rome, close to pope Pius VI (1717–1799), wrote about the conditions of cemeteries in Rome. In addition, news about the constructions of new cemeteries around Milan, Modena, and Venice arrived and was carefully followed by king Carlos III, who before inheriting the crown of Spain had been the king of Naples and was thus deeply interested in the events in a country he knew very well. His interest in the construction of cemeteries was made obvious by the fact that, before the council reached its final conclusions and faced with the proposal to construct a cemetery in the royal site of San Ildefonso, Segovia, Carlos III himself chose the site and offered to finance the cemetery’s construction. The cemetery was blessed on July 8, 1785, but like Climent’s cemetery in Barcelona, it was abandoned shortly thereafter. The resistance of the population had worsened into repugnancy, an attitude that would be overcome only many years later due to the difficult circumstances in the country. Another cemetery was built in El Pardo, Madrid, but it had a similar ending. The promulgation of the real cedula of the 3rd of April, 1787, the restoration of cemeteries, was the first regulation to address burials since the Siete Partidas (Seven-Part Code) of king Alfonso X of Castille (1221–1284). The drafting of the Carlos III’s decree took six years and involved long discuswww.cat-science.cat

sions. However, the council of Castille, despite the favorable opinions of the three magistrates, ruled against it. Nonetheless, the opinion of the king in favor of the change, prevailed. The decree was comprehensive but also vague in its conclusions. The reform would be implemented gradually and would start in the most populated areas. Cemeteries would be built in well-aired sites, away from houses and on the outskirts of the cities, where already existing hermitages could be used as chapels. The cost of the construction of the cemeteries would be covered by the church, with a percentage coming from the tithes and the rest, if necessary, provided by public funds. The uncertainty in the financing of the reform was one of the reasons for its failure. There were exceptions to the rules, with burial inside the church allowed for people with proof of their exceptional virtue. Moreover, as it was necessary to guarantee vested rights, burial in churches would be allowed for those who had owned a grave there before the date of the decree’s promulgation. Of course, these exceptions became a convenient loophole for those who opposed the measure.

The passive resistance to burial outside the church Eighteenth-century society was a sacralized one, in which death was present at all times. Because life was uncertain and its passing was fraught with dangers of all kinds, christians were always preparing for the afterlife, which would be eternal. A good death was the goal, and those who were seriously ill preferred a good confessor over a good physician because after the confession, and as death occurred, the soul would be judged. Anything helpful in predisposing the supreme judge in favor of the deceased was, therefore, desirable, which meant a high demand for immediate inter cessions and masses for the souls of those who had just died. This explains the preference for burial in churches, where daily communion was celebrated and, during the time of Carlos III, prayers for the souls in purgatory were one of the most popular devotions. Neither the granting by the Pope of a plenary indulgence for the altars of chapels in the cemeteries nor the pastoral by cardinal Lorenzana (1722–1804), the first ecclesiastical authority in the country, that those buried in cemeteries would also be resurrected in the final judgment had little effect on the population. Removing the deceased from nearby grounds was perceived as an act of profound wickedness. In 1802, Rafel Amat de Cortada y Sentjust (1746–1819), 90

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the fifth baron de Maldá [5] (Fig. 4), wrote on behalf of the great conservative mass. He complained about the abandonment of the dead, exiled in cemeteries, and criticized the opinions of modern physicians. He pointed to the irreligion of the times, that is, the secularization of ideas, which, together with the disappearance of graves, blurred the concept of death. Conservative arguments included the political explanation, indeed xenophobic, claiming that the ideas of the French philosophers had led to the revolutionary catastrophe and had ultimately brought about the change in funeral customs. In the ideological polarization of the 19th century, the proposal for the construction of cemeteries was a constant in all progressive governments. Another very important point was not lost on enlightened reformers: in a class society, as was the Spanish one in the 18th century and would be until well into the 19th century, social recognition was of great value, such that burial acquired paramount importance. Inside churches and convents, the faithful could see the pantheons and chapels of the local notables. The information engraved on the stones could be appreciated by all and testified to family continuity. It has also been pointed out that a burial in the church was possible for the new rich, who while not reaching the rank of the founders and members of leading families could pay for access to eternal life as well as social prominence [10]. Their numbers rose throughout the years of economic prosperity during the reign of Carlos III. Although they could not be compared with those who were socially above them, they were able to distinguish themselves from the less well off, who were buried without distinction. In the churches, they acquired a relevance that they would never have had in the cemetery. Within an episcopate largely docile to the will of the crown and acting almost as an agent thereof, the opinions of the clergy on the reform of church burials were far from unanimous. Most members believed in the undisputed value of the suffrages for the souls of those who were buried in the temples. The physical presence of the deceased was also a pedagogical argument of great significance for the living, who should always think of the afterlife. Moreover, the reform had serious economic consequences for the clergy, who were traditionally subject to significant imbalances in income. The construction of cemeteries by the church implied disbursements that most priests could not afford. The bishops, who saw their tithes reduced, had to pay for the cemeteries, while the priests would be devoid of direct payments for services in the church itself such as alms, masses, offerings, and responses, all of which supplemented their salaries

Fig. 4. First pages of the manuscript of Calaix de sastre, a work by Rafel Amat de Cortada y Sentjust (1746–1819), the fifth baron de Maldá.

but which would disappear when burials were moved to cemeteries. It is not surprising therefore that the lower clergy had little interest in a change in burials that directly threatened theirs and their parishes’ income. Despite the efforts of bishops who published pastoral letters seeking to accomplish the new rules, most of the population viewed the measures with intense aversion. There were few violent reactions but the resistance was strong enough so that, during the reign of Carlos IV (1748–1819, king of Spain from 1788 to 1808), the royal order of April 1799 reiterated the ban and ordered the burial of people of all kinds in the cemeteries. To escape the banning, the interest in burial in the churches of religious communities, less dependent on governmental authority, redoubled. In imitation of the royal family itself, the upper classes and those who could afford it traditionally chose to be buried in the convents of regulars, most likely because of the lack of exemplary priests. The neglect of the authorities joined the inaction of parishioners and clergy. From the issuance of the 1787 decree until the early 19th century, not a single cemetery was constructed.

The first cemeteries In 1800 there was an outbreak in Cadis of an until then hardly known contagious disease, yellow fever, which caused vomiting, bleeding, and other symptoms. It spread throughout Andalusia in 1801, ravaged Malaga and Alcoi in 1803, and reached Alicante in 1804. Due to the high mortality caused by yellow fever, Carlos IV again entrusted the council of Cas91

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cas y apologéticas para la historia del reynado del Señor Don Carlos IV de Borbon (the English version was entitled “Memoirs of Don Manuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace”), that he had eliminated “the old error that established the reasons for misunderstood piety” [9]. But he was overly optimistic because, as would happen again and again, laws were enacted only in response to an emergency. Once the outbreak was overcome and mortality returned to normal levels, the cemeteries were abandoned and burial in churches continued. The orders were reiterated but exemptions continued, such as that of 1806, which allowed bishops and archbishops to be buried in churches, and that of 1818, establishing special cemeteries for professed religious women. Although the ennoblement of the grave was guaranteed in the common cemetery, the desire for a more distinguished destination among the dead persisted. Thus, the cemeteries for sacramental association appeared in Madrid; those cemeteries were for members of certain brotherhoods and more luxurious burials were allowed there. The first one was that of San Isidro in Madrid, in 1811, built at the other side of the Manzanares, the small river that limits the city in its north-west territory. During the liberal triennium (1820–1823), and as would continue to happen under progressive governments, an advanced health code was prepared. It again mandated that, in the case of death from infectious diseases, burial had to be in cemeteries far from urban areas. But this effort failed and the restoration of absolutism by Fernando VII (1784–1833; king of Spain, with interruptions, between 1808 and 1833) did away with subsequent initiatives. However, the efforts of William Mark (1782–1839), British consul in Malaga, led to the authorization by Fernando VII of the first protestant cemetery in Spain, in 1831. The first person to be buried there was Robert Boyd (1805–1831), a young Englishman executed by a firing squad for his role in the conspiracy led by the army general José María Torrijos y Uriarte (1791–1831) against Fernando VII, on the 2nd of December of that year.

Fig. 5. Portrait of Felipe Monlau (1808–1871), impulsor of the Health Act, (ley de sanidad) from 28 November 1855. (Source: wwwbancodeimagenesmedicina.es)

tille with the immediate action to build cemeteries. The circular order of April 1804 essentially reiterated the contents of the failed decree of 1787. This time, the rules were more specific and the construction of cemeteries was assigned to officials able to build them, who were requested to enclose the cemeteries within walls and to ensure a capacity for a three-year period of functioning. The rules also defined that a section would be set aside for the graves of parvulos (infants) and another one for those of priests. Vanities were also considered because, as in the churches, distinctions between graves could be made. Cemeteries were built in areas that had suffered from the epidemic, although in Alcoy, one of the main phocus, there was no cemetery until 1812. In Madrid, the cemetery of Fuencarral was not immediately put into service. Manuel Godoy (1767–1851), chief minister of Spain (1792–1797 and 1801–1808), wrote in his memoirs, published in 1838 under the title Cuenta dada de su vida política por don Manuel de Godoy, Príncipe de la Paz; memorias crítiwww.cat-science.cat

Cholera epidemics and the liberal regime In the 1830s, yet another frightening disease emerged: cholera. It was carried by the troops that had invaded Poland and advanced inexorably towards southern Europe. Harbors were controlled and quarantine lines were established to confront the arrival of the disease. However, these measures did not prevent the epidemic from reaching Spain through Vigo (a large port in northwestern Spain). In 1833, coinciding 92

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Fig. 6. The Barcelona Montjuïc cemetery today, viewed from the sea shore. (Photo by Emily Prachthauser CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

with the difficult circumstances of the start of the first carlist war following the death of Fernando VII, cholera spread across the country. It was a previously unknown disease that replaced scourges such as malaria and smallpox and caused extreme panic due to its virulence. Poor diet, a lack of hygiene and safe water, and hesitation to implement measures ensuring prevention of the disease and allowing its treatment were the breeding grounds for cholera’s contagiousness among the masses. After the death of Fernando VII, on the 29th September 1833, the queen regent María Cristina (1806–1878) gained the support of the Liberals to maintain the rights of her daughter Isabel II (1830–1904) and the country entered a period of modernization. The first outbreak of cholera was followed by the royal order of June 1833, implemented by mayors and city councils: In the towns and villages that had cemeteries, all the deceased were to be buried there, regardless of the cause of death. Towns and villages without cemeteries had to report their situation to the government. To solve the chronic problem of financing, the Order included the possibility of using municipal funds to construct cemeteries, although the church would remain responsible for their custody. The liberal political system is identified with efforts to improve hygiene. One of the most prominent advocates was the spokesman and propagandist Felipe Monlau (1808–1871) www.cat-science.cat

[6], one of the impulsors of the Health Act (ley de sanidad) from 28 November 1855 (Fig. 5). As proposed many years earlier by 18th century physicians and scientists, the aim of a health policy was to move the population away from areas where the air was full of “miasma”. Orders and regulations coincided with outbreaks of cholera and not only addressed the need for extramural burial [14]. In the interest of public health, both burials and the transfers of corpses were regulated, and corpore insepulto funerals were banned. Beginning with the war of 1808 and throughout the 19th century, the Spanish church had lost much of its manpower as well as its economic power. In addition, with increasing secularization, the administration gradually assumed competences previously performed by the church. At the beginning of the progressive biennial (1855–1857) there was a resurgence of cholera, which led to the appearance of civil cemeteries and an increase in funeral-related materials. These advances, however, were not sufficient for the needs of the population, since, as acknowledged by the Royal Order of June 1833, there were still 2,655 villages in Spain without a cemetery. The fear of cholera was more effective than legislation and during the second half of the 19th century the country intensified its efforts to construct cemeteries, which were then managed by the municipalities. The cemetery arose as a new urban typology, reflecting the tastes and artistic forms 93

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of their times. In contrast to the austerity and asceticism of the first cemeteries in the 19th century, with their spartan doric columns and reliefs with skulls, the empire style emphasized ornamental details such as laurel crowns and Egyptian motifs with beetles and sphinxes [11]. Since then, both historicism and modernism have prevailed in Spanish cemeteries. Even more than during burials in churches, the space available in cemeteries has enabled vanities and fantasies in stone, showing that death does not make us all equal. To prevent such displays of wealth, regulations require that the decoration of pantheons be reviewed by the ecclesiastical authority so that it does not contain elements inconsistent with christian doctrine. The concept of a cemetery has also changed, such that, following the French model, a cemetery is perceived as a garden of melancholy and a bittersweet place to remember those who have left us. In Barcelona, this model inspired the design of the extant cemetery of Montjuïc (built in 1882). This large cemetery, which occupies great part of the south-east slope of the hill (Mont-Juïf, “the mountain of the Jews”), is one of the first and placid views that sea travellers have of Barcelona, when their ship is going to enter the port, in most cases without knowing what they are seeing (Fig. 6). Cholera in Spain left a trail of 800,000 dead. The last outbreak took place in 1884. A year before, Robert Koch (1843– 1910) had discovered the “Bacillus virgula” (currently Vibrio cholerae) and the disease began to be treated with the cholera vaccine and by monitoring the water supply. Yet, even in the late 19th century there were still burials in churches because either there was still no cemetery or the cemetery had been abandoned, in some places due to rural exodus. The old aspiration of the enlightenment that gave rise to the decree of king Carlos III in 1787 had to wait almost a century before it would be fully implemented. During that time, the interests and attitudes among the privileged groups powerfully conflicted with those of the supporters of a change in the dangerous and unhealthy funerary prac-

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tices. The number of laws enacted testifies to the resistance and obstacles that the initiative to discontinue the use of churches as burial sites had to overcome. They reflect the difficult transition of the Spanish society to the contemporary world.

Competing interests. None declared.

References l. Àries P (1977) L’homme devant la mort. Seuil, Paris 2. Cachón MPB (1999) La construcción de cementerios y la Salud Pública a lo largo del siglo xix. Studia Zamorensis 5:155-195 3. Carreras A, Granjel M (2005) Regalismo y política sanitaria. El episcopado y la creación de cementerios en el reinado de Carlos III. Hispania Sacra 57:589-624 4. Carreras A, Granjel M (2007) Propaganda e información sanitaria en la legislación mortuoria de la ilustración. In: Campos R, Montiel L, Huertas R (coord.) Medicina, ideología e historia de España (Siglos xvi–xxi). CSIC, Madrid 5. d’Amat i de Cortada R (1802) Miscelánea X, manuscrito. Fondo AmatVilallonga, Barcelona 6. Feria DJ, Ramos C (2013) “Salus populi suprema lex esto”: Fe, ciencia y política en la modernización de las prácticas funerarias (ss. xviii–xix). Historia 396:217-248 7. Fernández Hidalgo MC, García Ruipérez M (1994) Los cementerios. Competencias municipales y producción documental. Boletín de la ANABAD 44:55-85 8. Giménez López E (1998–1999) La exhalación de la muerte. La aportación del matemático Benito Bails a la polémica sobre los cementerios en el siglo xviii. Revista de Historia Moderna 17:113-146 9. Godoy M (1956) Príncipe de la Paz, 1767–1851. Memorias. Atlas, Madrid 10. Goldman P (1979) Mitos liberales, mentalidades burguesas, e historia social en la lucha en pro de los cementerios municipales. In: Homenaje a Noël Salomón:81-93 Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona 11. González Díaz A (1970) El cementerio español en los siglos xviii y xix. Archivo Español de Arte 43:289-320 12. Ponz A (1947) Viaje de España. Tomo V, Aguilar, Madrid 13. Redonet L (1947) Enterramientos y cementerios. Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia CXX:69-170 14. Tort Mitjans F (1978) El obispo de Barcelona, Josep Climent i Avinent, 1706–1781. Ed. Balmes, Barcelona 15. Vovelle M (1985) Ideologías y mentalidades. Ariel, Barcelona

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RESEARCH REVIEW Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

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CONTRIB SCI 11:95-102 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.217

On science and the construction of identities: Remembering Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039) Mònica Rius-Piniés* Area of Arabic Studies, Faculty of Philology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia

Correspondence: Mònica Rius-Piniés Area d’Estudis Àrabs Universitat de Barcelona Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585 08007 Barcelona, Catalonia Tel. +34-934035609 E-mail: monica_rius@ub.edu

Summary. Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039), best known as Alhazen, is one of the main figures of medieval Arabic science. He worked on mathematics, astronomy, optics, logic, philosophy and medicine, and, as a “modern” scientist, questioned previous theories, challenging, for instance, the Ptolemaic theory of vision. His works on light and optics, based on experimentation, established the basis for the development of Newton’s physics. Due to his great influence on the development of human knowledge, especially on the fields related to light, Ibn al-Haytham must be remembered during the commemorations of the United Nations International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies 2015. [Contrib Sci 11(1): 95-102 (2015)]

“All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation.”

Edward Said, Covering Islam. How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. Random House, London 1997 (e-book)

Introduction The history of human culture or, more specifically, the history of science, established outright that the transmission of ideas has been essential to achieve the current level of technology and sophistication we enjoy—or suffer. It makes no sense to think about the Western world as a unique star

in the sky of knowledge, simply because it is not true. On the contrary, scientific thought has been developing for centuries throughout many regions. Sadly, the Arab contribution to this evolution is commonly forgotten, which is why the idea of remembering the figure Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039) in 2015, chosen by the United Nations as the UN International Year of the Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL2015), can be seen

*This article is based on the lecture given by the author at the International Symposium “Light, from the Earth to the Stars”, held in Lisbon on 2–3 July 2015, in commemoration of the UN International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies 2015 (IYL 2015). The Symposium was organized by the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea and Ciência Viva (the Portuguese Agency for the Scientific and Technological Culture).

Keywords: history of science · Arabic science · Islam · optics · International Year of Light (IYL 2015) ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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Fig. 1. Title page of Sabra’s edition of Kitāb al-Manāẓir, by Ibn al-Haytham.

as an initiative that brings some justice to this noisy silence. One thousand years ago, around 1015, Ibn al-Haytham wrote his Kitāb al-manāẓir (Book on Optics) (Fig. 1). There are two key words that typify the beginning of the 21st century: “We” and “Now”. In a time when neocolonialism tends to construct a “We” identity opposed to “They” (where most of the time “We” are the Western world and “They” are the Muslim world), history teaches us that concepts such as “science” and “evolution” are in debt to the Arab and the Muslim world. From photography to astronomy, much of the knowledge (and many of the techniques) we have were made possible thanks to Arabic scientists. In addition, history also teaches us that the preservation of memory is essential for a deep understanding of the present. In the era of globalization, some icons are extensively (and broadly) shared while others remain local. Arabic scientists, for instance, are a good example of incomprehensibly ignored figures, and for this reason, Ibn al-Haytham is still a complete stranger to most Western citizens. This perception, however, can change depending on where the subject lives, not necessarily because Ibn al-Haytham is studied, but because he is perceived as a key part of a specific identity. Ibn al-Haytham would be an uncommon name for a hospital in Europe, but there is one in Amman. It is also the name of one of the most important pharmacies in Qatar. There are Ibn al-Haytham avenues and streets in the Arab world, and his face has been printed on banknotes and stamps (Fig. 2). These examples show that he is considered a celebrity www.cat-science.cat

in many countries but, by contrast, he is virtually unknown in others. The global concept of the “We/They” identities can change, and Arabic scientists—and writers, economists and musicians, among others—should be integrated into a common and universal imaginary for a richer, more complete understanding of the history of humanity. First of all, however, this should be done in a scientific way, avoiding the creation of new and ahistorical myths that only serve political purposes. Ibn al-Haytham was a great medieval scholar, so it is not necessary to attribute to him the fatherhood of milestones he did not achieve. Secondly, commemorating Ibn al-Haytham in the Year of Light has been a great idea, although included in its core is an orientalist paradox. It seems that the Book of Optics was written around 1015, but in fact the actual date is unknown. Besides, the celebration of a thousand years from 1015 also denotes a Christian way of measuring time. Indeed, the year 1015 AD corresponds to the years 405/406 of the Hijra. Moreover, this is not the first Ibn al-Haytham 1000th anniversary, as the first took place in Karachi and Lahore from 1st to 10th November 1969 [20]. All civilizations (either Arab-Islamic, Chinese or Maya, for instance) have contributed in one way or another to the progress and development of science. Throughout the centu ries these contributions have been―or are still―irregular, but also essential to human knowledge. To construct a barbaric “Other” in opposition to a rational and scientific “We” is an absolute mistake, and the figure of Ibn al-Haytham, like many others, shows why. 96

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Fig. 2. (A) Iraqi dinar with the inscription “Al-Alim al-Arabiy al-Hasan bin al-Haytham” (the Arab Scientist al-Hasan bin al-Haytham) by the National Bank of Iraq. [Source: http:// banknote.ws/COLLECTION/countries/ASI/IRQ/IRQ0071. htm]. (B) Stamp issued by Qatar in 1971. [Source: http:// jeff560.tripod.com/stamps.html]. (C) Stamp issued by Jordan in 1971. [Source: http://jeff560.tripod.com/stamps.html]. (D) Stamp issued by Malawi in 2008. [Source: http://jeff560. tripod.com/stamps.html]. (E) Stamp issued by Pakistan in 1969. [Source: http://jeff560.tripod.com/stamps.html].

Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039)

(the capital of the empire) before moving to Cairo. In fact, as a medieval scholar, he had an education that included religion, literature, language, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy, among other disciplines. In Cairo, he worked in the service of the caliph al-Ḥākim (996–1021), who founded the great library Dār al-‘Ilm. Cairo was then a new city, founded in 969 near the ancient al-Fustat, the capital of the Fatimids, a Shiite caliphate that lasted more than two centuries (909–1171) in Egypt and North Africa. In fact, at that time, there were three caliphates in the Arab world; the other two were the Abbasid (750–1258), and the Umayyad (929–1031). Although the Abbasid was the central and most important (with its capital in Baghdad), Abbasid caliphs had lost political control over the territory, ruled by several

Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham al-Baṣrī alMiṣrī [24] was commonly known in Latin texts as Alhazen, Avennathan or Avenetan, although it was not until the end of the 19th century when these names were identified with the great Arab physicist. There is scarce information about his life, but his nisbas (or demonyms) al-Baṣrī and al-Miṣrī give some clues about him. Al-Baṣrī tells us that he was born in the city of Basra (now Iraq). In that time it was ruled by the Buyid dynasty (934–1062), the royal power under the Abbasid Caliphate. Al-Miṣrī means that Ibn al-Haytham lived in Egypt, where he died. Ibn al-Haytham studied sciences in Basra and Baghdad www.cat-science.cat

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dynasties (like the above-mentioned Buyids). Western Islam was under the auspices of the Umayyad caliphate of alAndalus (929–1031) and had a key role in the transmission of scientific and philosophic ideas to the Christendom. It was a time of political fragmentation, but very profitable from a scientific point of view, as it was very easy to find sponsors in the different local elites throughout the territories. In fact, this period is considered the Scientific Golden Age for Islamic civilization. It should be not forgotten that Arab civilization played an essential role in the circulation and development of ideas and in the progress of knowledge. In the 9th century, Baghdad, with its House of Wisdom, was the center of a translation movement and scientific development designed and promoted by its rulers, especially al-Ma’mūn (ruler between 813 and 833). Following the orders of the caliph, books from China, India and the Byzantine Empire were bought, studied and translated. As a matter of fact, without the Arabic translations, Europe could not have read most of the classics, without which the Renaissance would not have happened. The translation role does not mean, however, that Arab scientists “limited” their contributions simply to transportation or quotation. The evolution of several fields (including astronomy, mathematics, optics, medicine, philosophy or even music) is in debt to essential figures like al-Kindī (801–873; Alkindus in Latin texts) or al-Khwārizmī (ca. 780–ca. 850). A century later, Ibn al-Haytham was not, by any means, an isolated case of scientist, as his contemporaries include the Persian Ibn Sīnā (980–1037; known as Avicenna) or al-Bīrūnī (973–1048) who worked in Ghazna (nowadays Afghanistan). Ibn al-Haytham is a good example of what a wellrounded education meant in the Medieval Ages: he had solid knowledge of Greek astronomy, philosophy and medicine; thus, he frequently mentions Ptolemy, Euclid or Aristotle as authorities but his originality lies in that he does not follow them blindly. On the contrary, his contributions made essential improvements, especially in the field of optics. Actually, he earned a living by copying the Almagest and Euclid’s works. It is very interesting and significant that wether Ibn alHaytham was Sunni, Shiite or even a follower of another religious division it is not known. Contrary to what is often believed, dividing the Muslims into different incompatible groups is a very contemporary approach to Islam. Of course, this does not mean that specific conflicts were explained as religious conflicts, but it was a long way from reality or, at least, was not a “natural” nor a “historical” cause. For www.cat-science.cat

centuries, the “religions of the Book”, and of course the different sects of Islam, have been worshiped in the Islamic world under the protection of the law in force.

A modern scientist One of the characteristics that make Ibn al-Haytham a modern scientist is that his scientific method was characterized by experimentation, i.e., he always tried to prove what he wanted to demonstrate. Once in Cairo, he tried to regulate the flow of the Nile River and, following the legend of Ibn al-Qifṭī (ca. 1172–ca. 1248), he pretended to have a mental illness to avoid prison (or a death sentence) from the Caliph when he failed to find a proper solution. It is well known that the Nile River flooded its banks every year, which was excellent for agricultural purposes, but it had negative consequences when the flood level lowered. Ibn al-Hayhtam believed he could build a dam to control it, but he realized he lacked the technical means to do it. Moreover, when he was there, he assumed that if it were possible, the architects of the Pharaohs would have built it. So he hid to avoid the Caliph al-Ḥākim’s anger, which gave him time to write his more important works. Curiously, the place where he was going to build the dam is the location of the present-day Aswan Dam, designed by Sir William Willcock in 1902. In the mid-13th century, the great physician and biographer Ibn Abī ‘Uṣaybī’a included Ibn al-Haytham in his Lives of the Physicians (Uyūn al-Anbāʾ fī Ṭabaqāt al-Aṭibbā) [4], listing more than ninety of his works. A prolific author, Alhazen wrote more than one hundred books, most of them about mathematics, astronomy or optics, as well as about logic, philosophy and medicine [12], although most of the latter appear to be lost, while others are known through translations. Some of his most relevant scientific books are the Book on the Configuration of the World (Maqāla fī hay’at al-‘ālam), a cosmography of the Universe that had a major influence on authors such as Ibn Rushd (1126–1198; known as Averroes) and also outside the Arab world, thanks to its Latin and Hebrew translations [5]; the Book on the Light of the Moon (Maqāla fī ḍaw’ al-qamar), on light, colours and celestial movements; Book on Parabolic Mirrors (Maqāla fī marāyā l-muḥriqa bi l-quṭu’) [6]; Book on the Form of Motions of Each of Seven Planets (Maqāla fī hay’a ḥarakāt kull wāḥid min al-kawākib sab’a); Book on the Properties of the Circles (Maqāla fī khawāṣṣ al-dawā’ir); Discussion on the Light of 98

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Fig. 3. The principles of the device Al-bait al-muẓlim, translated into Latin as Camera obscura. [Source: http://www.ibnalhaytham.com/ discover/who-was-ibn-al-haytham/]

the Stars (Qawl fī aḍwa’ al-kawākib); and Discussion on the Property of Shadows (Qawl fī kayfiyya al-aẓlāl). He also wrote a treatise on magic squares and made some contributions to commercial mathematics [25]. Ibn al-Haytham made several important discoveries in the field of mathematics. He neatly resolved the problem of al-Mahanī, a Persian mathematician of the 9th century, that tried to solve the Archimedean problem (i.e., to divide a sphere by means of a plane into two segments being in a given ratio of volume). And it is thanks to Ibn al-Haytham that we know the Book VIII of the Conics of Apollonius of Perga (ca.262–ca.190 BC). Being one of the fundamental works of ancient Greek geometry, this seminal book appeared to be lost until a manuscript was discovered in Turkey around 1970, with Ibn al-Haytham’s Completion of the Conics, in which he reconstructed Apollonius’ work [3]. In the Book on the qibla (Maqāla fī istikhrāj samt al-qibla), devoted to obtaining the direction of Mecca, he established the theorem of the cotangent [1]. Finally, he resolved what is known today as “the Alhazen problem”. In the Book on the Image of Eclipses (Maqāla fī ṣurat al-kusūf), he mentioned the use of a dark chamber (Fig. 3). The Arabic expression al-bait al-muẓlim was translated into Latin as camera obscura, and it has been used often to cite www.cat-science.cat

him as one of the forefathers of photography. In spite of his contribution to the field, he was not the first to use the aforementioned mechanism, which entails observing the image of an object through a hole.

Optics, al-Haytham’s main contribution Ibn al-Haytham’s most important work is the Book of Optics (Kitāb al-manāẓir), commented on by, among others, alFarisī (?–1320). Its main aim is to clearly surpass Euclid and Ptolemy. The text was widely known in Medieval Europe due to a Latin translation made in the 12th–13th century, De Aspectibus. In fact, it also had indirect influence mainly through Jean Peckham, Thierry de Fribourg, Vitelius (who made a paraphrase of the seven volumes of the book) and Roger Bacon [26]. Although there were some previous studies [7–9], it was not until the end of the 20th century when the seven volumes of the Arabic text were edited, translated and studied properly by Prof. Abdelhamid I. Sabra (1924–2013) [2,17,19]. And it was not until the beginning of the 21st century that an in-depth work on the Latin version of the De Aspectibus [22,23] was published. The Optics is divided into several sections: (a) on the 99

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Fig. 4. Two pages of Book IX of Ptolemy’s Almagestus.

manner of vision in general; (b) on the visible properties, causes and perceptions (distance, shape, size, number, motion, etc.); (c) on errors of vision and their causes; (d) on reflection of light; (e) on problems and solutions of images created by reflection; (f) on optical illusions by reflection; and (g) on refraction of light. An experimental researcher, Ibn alHaytham practiced dissection on the eye in order to obtain a complete description of it. Crystalline, aqueous humor, vitreous humor and retina are names Ibn al-Haytham gave to this body part that we still use today. Thanks to Ibn al-Haytham, the debate between extramission and intromission theories was over. For centuries, scientists such as Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, al-Kindī, al-Bīrūnī and Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) tried to explain how vision was produced. The first theory, extramission, claimed that the eye radiated rays that were the source of the vision. On the contrary, intromission theory stated that it was the eye that received the rays. Ibn al-Haytham’s experimentation confirmed that sight required light rays—but also an eye without physical problems and, even more importantly, a brain that played an essential role on the final result. Thanks to his research based on a physical conception of sight, he could explain how the eye moves and how binocular vision functions [11]. Even though extramission was refuted by Ibn al-Haytham, as it has been mentioned, G.A. Winer [27] found that 50% of American college students still believed in extramission theory. www.cat-science.cat

After Optics, Ibn al-Haytham wrote Doubts about Ptolemy (Shukūk ‘alà Baṭlamyūs), in which he questioned Ptolemy (Almagest, Planetary Hypotheses, and Optics) [14]. The book includes doubts posed by Abū al-Qāsim ibn Ma’dan to Ibn al-Haytham; in it he tries to establish why Ptolemy was wrong in his understanding of the enlargement of celestial magnitudes, or the moon’s parallax, among other subjects [18] (Fig. 4). But he was not the last of the link in the chain, because the Andalusian Ibn Bajja (1070–1138: known as Avempace), in turn, criticized Doubts about Ptolemy, claiming that Ibn al-Haytham lacked deep knowledge of astronomy [21]. Circulation of Optics was irregular. In al-Andalus, for instance, it was not introduced until the second half of the 11th century. On the other hand, the Liber de crepusculis et nubium ascensionibus was attributed to Ibn al-Haytham by mistake until it was identified correctly as one of Ibn Mu’adh al-Jayyani (989–1079) works, translated by Gerard of Cremona (1114–1187) [15]. To conclude it seems appropriate to include a sample of Ibn al-Haytham innovative research by his explanation of the “moon illusion” included in the Book VII of Optics. In the very last chapter, devoted to the “errors of sight” due to refraction, he introduces a psychological explanation of the phenomenon that makes things appear larger at the horizon than at higher positions: 100

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“We say: It has been shown in Book II of this work, in our discussion of size, that sight perceives size from the magnitudes of the angles subtended at the center of the eye and from the magnitudes of distances of the visible objects and from comparing the magnitudes of the angles to those of the distances. […] We showed there, too, that when sight fails to ascertain the distance of an object, then it makes a guess in regard to the distance’s magnitude by likening it to the distances of familiar objects at which it can perceive objects similar to that object in form and figure, then perceives the size of that object from the magnitude of the angle subtended by it at the eye-center as compared to the distance it has conjectured. But the distances of the stars do not extend along near bodies. Sight does not, therefore, perceive or ascertain their magnitudes, but merely conjectures their magnitudes by assimilating the stars’ distances to the distances of very remote earthly objects which it can perceive and whose magnitudes it conjectures. […] The enlargement of heavenly objects at the horizon may frequently have another cause. This cause occurs when a thick vapor stands between the eye and the star positioned at or near the horizon, if the vapor is at or near the horizon and does not continue to the middle of the sky but rather forms a section of a sphere whose center is the centre of the world because it surrounds the earth. If such a section terminates before [reaching] the middle of the sky, then the surface of it that faces the eye will be plane. But if the surface of the vapor facing the eye is plane, then the form[s] of the stars (and intervals between them) will be seen behind the vapor as larger than before the vapour occurred (Sabra: 237–238)” [16]. Ibn al-Haytham was a great scientist, but he was also the last innovator in the field of mathematics in the Arab world [10]. From him on, progress should follow another way. The theory of optical reflection and refraction he founded in the 11th century was developed by Descartes (1596–1650) and transformed by Newton (1643–1727), thanks to whom it reached a terminal point [13]. Acknowledgements. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competivity with the project “Construcción de identidades, género y creación artística en los márgenes de la arabidad” (FFI201458487-P). I thank Prof. R. Guerrero for inviting me to participate in the Inter national Symposium in Lisbon and encouraging me to write this paper. Competing interests: None declared.

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References 1. Dallal A (1995) Ibn al-Haytham’s universal solution for finding the direction of the Qibla by calculation. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 5:145-193 2. Gillispie ChC (ed.) Ibn al-Haytham. In: Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 6:189-210. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York 3. Hogendijk JP (2002) Two editions of Ibn al-Haytham’s completion of the Conics. Historia Mathematica 29:247-265 4. Ibn Abī ‘Uṣaybī’a (1965) Uyūn al-Anbāʾ fī Ṭabaqāt al-Aṭibbā. Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayāh, Beirut 5. Langermann YT (2007) Ibn al-Haytham. In: Hockey T, et al. (eds.) The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers: 556-557. Springer, New York 6. Mitra SK (1949) Ibn al-Haitham on the paraboidal focussing mirror. J Roy Asiatic Soc Bengal 15:25-40 7. Narducci E (1871) Trattato d’Ottica d’Al Hazen. Bulletino Boncompagni 4 8. Naẓīf M (1942–1943) Al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham, buḥūthuhu wa kushūufuhu al-baṣariyya (Ibn al-Haytham’s optical researches and discoveries). 2 vols. Cairo 9. Omar SB (1977) Ibn al-Haytham’s Optics. A Study of the Origins of Experimental Science, Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1977 10. Rashed R (1996) Les mathématiques infinitésimales du IXe au XIe siècle. Fondateurs et comenntateurs. Vol. 1: VII. Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, London 11. Raynaud D (2003) Ibn al-Haytham sur la vision binoculaire: un précurseur de l’optique physiologique. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 13:70-99. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 12. Rozenfeld BA (1975) A Medieval physico-mathematical manuscript newly discovered in the Kuibyshev Regional Library. Historia Mathematica 2:67-73 13. Sabra AI (1964) Explanation of optical reflection and refraction: Ibn alHaytham, Descartes, Newton. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of the History of Science (Ithaca 1962) 1:551-554. Herman, Paris 14. Sabra AI (1966) Ibn al-Haytham’s criticisms of Ptolemy optics. J His Philos 2:145-149 15. Sabra AI (1967) The Authorship of the Liber de Crepusculis. Isis 58:77-85 16. Sabra AI (1987) Psychology versus mathematics: Ptolemy and Alhazen on the moon illusion. In: Grant E, Murdoch JE (eds.) Mathematics and its applications to science and natural philosophy in the Middle Ages: 217-247. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 17. Sabra AI (1989) The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham. Books I–III on direct vision. The Warburg Institute of London, London, UK 18. Sabra AI (1996) On seeing the stars, II. Ibn al-Haytham’s “Answers” to the “Doubts” raised by Ibn Ma’dān. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 10:1-59 19. Sabra AI (ed.) (2002) Kitāb al-Manāẓir (The Optics) of Al-Ḥasan Ibn alHaytham. Books IV–V. On reflection, and images seen by reflection. The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, Kuwait 20. Said HM (ed.) 1969 Ibn al-Haitham. Proceedings of the Celebrations of 1000th Anniversary Held Under the Auspices of Hamdard National Foundation, Pakistan 21. Samsó J (2001) Ibn al-Haytham and Jābir b. Aflaḥ’s criticism of Ptolemy’s determination of the parameters of Mercury. Suhayl 2:199-225 22. Smith AM (2001) Alhacen’s theory of visual perception. A critical edition, with English translation and commentary, of Books I, II and III of Alhacen’s De Aspectibus, the Medieval Latin version of Ibn al-Haytham’s Kitāb al-Manāẓir. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA 23. Smith AM (2006) Alhacen on the principles of reflection. A critical edition, with English translation and commentary, of Books IV and V of Alhacen’s De Aspectibus, the Medieval Latin version of Ibn al-Haytham’s

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Kitāb al-Manāẓir. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA 24. Vernet J (1986) Ibn al-Haytham. In: Lewis B, Ménage VL, Pellat Ch, Schacht J (eds.) Encyclopedia of Islam. New Edition., vol. 3:788. Brill/ Luzac&Co., Leiden/London 25. Vernet J (1986) Ibn al-Haytham. In: Lewis B, Ménage VL, Pellat Ch, Schacht J (eds.) Encyclopedia of Islam. New Edition., vol. 3:788. Brill/ Luzac&Co., Leiden/London

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26. Vescovini GF (1990) La fortune de l’Optique d’Ibn al-Haitham: Le Livre De Aspectibus (Kitab al-Manazir) dans le Moyen Age. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 40:220-238 27. Winer GA, Cottrell JE, Gregg V, Fournier JS, Bica LA (2002) Fundamentally misunderstanding visual perception: Adults’ beliefs in visual emissions. Am Psychol 57:417-424

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RESEARCH REVIEWS Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

OPENAACCESS

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CONTRIB SCI 11:103-112 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.218

The theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design. The Nobel Prize in Economics 2012 for Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley 1,2

Correspondence: Jordi Massó Dept. d’Economia i d’Història Econòmica Facultat d’Economia i Empresa Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 08193 Bellaterra, Catalonia

Jordi Massó 1

Department of Economy and of History of Economy, Autonomous University of 2 Barcelona. Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, Barcelona, Catalonia

E-mail: jordi.masso@uab.es

Summary. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2012 was awarded jointly to Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley for their contributions to the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design. The theory of stable allocations consists of a family of models that study assignment problems in which two disjoint sets of agents (or a set of agents and a set of objects) have to be matched. For example, men to women, workers to firms, students to schools, or patients to live donor kidneys. A matching is stable if no subset of agents can improved upon their proposed matches by rematching only among themselves. Stability is an essential property if matching is voluntary. The practice of market design consists of applying those two-sided matching models to specific assignment problems with the aim of proposing improvements on how they are solved. This paper presents a brief description of the academic career of the laureates and describes their contributions by presenting the most basic two-sided matching model and some of its market design applications, including the organization of a centralized system to propose kidney transplantations to use kidneys of live donors that are incompatible with their respective patients, the yearly assignment of North-American medical students to hospital internship programs, and children to schools in cities such as Boston and New York. [Contrib Sci 11(1): 103-112 (2015)]

The Laureates

He obtained his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University in 1974 under the supervision of Robert B. Wilson. His first two jobs were at the Departments of Economics at the University of Illinois (from 1974 to 1982) and at the University of Pittsburgh (from 1982 to 1998). In 1998 he

Alvin Roth was born in New York city, NY, on December 18, 1951. He graduated from Columbia University in 1971 (when he was 19 years old!) with a degree in Operations Research.

Keywords: game theory · market design · stable allocations · mathematical economics · kidney transplantation ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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Nobel Foundation

Nobel Prize in Economics 2012

Fig. 1. Alvin E. Roth (left), and Lloyd S. Shapley (right), awarded with the Nobel Prize in Economics 2012.

moved to Harvard University with a joint appointment from the Economics Department and the Harvard Business School. He stayed there until the beginning of 2013 when he moved to the Economics Department at Stanford University. During this period at Harvard University he supervised a large group of Ph.D. students, most of whom work now at the best uni versities in the USA and Europe (Fig. 1). Roth thesis was on von Neumann and Morgenstern stable sets. His research interests have been wide and moved very consistently to include axiomatic bargaining, experimental economics, learning in non-cooperative games, the theory of stable allocations in matching markets, and market design. According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences the prize was awarded to him for his research on the last two areas, although he has made fundamental contributions in 1 the other ones [5,12,17]. Lloyd Shapley was born in Cambridge, MA, on June 2, 1923, and died in Tucson, AZ, on March 12, 2016. After serving in the Army Air Corps in Chengdu, China, during the WWII, he went to Harvard University, where he graduated in 1948 with a degree in mathematics. He obtained his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1953 under the supervision of Albert W. Tucker. He has had only two

affiliations: at RAND Corporation (from 1954 to 1981) and at the Departments of Mathematics and Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, since 1981 (Fig. 1). Shapley’s doctoral thesis was on additive and non-additive set functions. He has made fundamental contributions in all areas of game theory; for instance to the theory of the Core, the Shapley value, repeated and stochastic games, the potential of a game and the theory of stable allocations in matching markets. Many game theorists thought that the fact that Shapley had not been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics yet was a sad omission. We are now pleased that this was corrected in 2012. The awarding of the 2012 Nobel Prize to both Roth and Shapley may be seen as recognizing two complementary sides of a research: Shapley for his theoretical contributions to the theory of stable allocations in two-sided matching problems [7,22] and Roth for his applications of this theory to improve the functioning of institutions solving two-sided assignment real-life 2 problems [15,18,20]. Roth and Shapley did not write jointly, but Roth has been closely following Shapley’s research as his fourth paper [11] and his fourth book show [16]. David Gale (1921–2008) made also fundamental con tributions to the theory of stable allocations and he might

The first paper is still his most cited paper in SCOPUS. Roth and Sotomayor (1990) contains a masterful review of all matching literature from 1962 to 1990 and it is still the best gateway to the theory and applications of two-sided matching problems. 1 2

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have been also been awarded with the prize if he had he been alive in 2012. He was born in New York city, NY, on December 13, 1921 and died in Berkeley (California) on March 7, 2008. He obtained his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1949 under the supervision of Albert W. Tucker (1905–1995). He had two main affiliations, the first at Brown University (from 1954 to 1981) and the second at the University of California, Berkeley, (from 1965 to 2008). He made also relevant contributions to mathematical economics and game theory, and his work is still a very useful reference on the applications of linear programming to economics [6].

The theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design Participants in some markets cannot be divided a priori between buyers and sellers. If the price of a good changes sufficiently, a participant can be a seller and a buyer in a few minutes of difference. Stocks are clear examples of goods exchanged in such markets. However, there are many other markets without this property: participants are either buyers or sellers, independently of the price of the good. Physical or legal characteristics of the participants make them to be in one, and only one side of the market. For instance, a university professor cannot become a university, even after a dramatic decline of the professors’ wage, nor the university can become a university professor after its increase. There are many two-sided assignment problems, not necessarily solved through markets, in which participants are divided a priori between two disjoint sets, for instance, men and women, workers and firms, and students and colleges. The assignment problem is precisely to match each participant in one of the two sets with a participant in the other set (or to remain unmatched) taking into account the preferences that each participant in one set has on the participants on the other set (plus the prospect of remaining unmatched). But the matching has to be bilateral: if a is matched with b, b is matched with a. Moreover, those problems have often two additional properties that distinguish them from conventional markets. First, the matching between two participants requires mutual agreement: if a chooses to be matched with b, a has to be chosen by b. Second, prices do not play any role to facilitate the matching and to resolve the potential disequilibrium of the mutual wills. Two-sided matching models formalize the main characteristics of these assignment problems. Shapley contributed to the development of the earlier stages of www.cat-science.cat

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this theory, specifically by proposing the notion of stability of an allocation as the relevant property whenever the assignment has to be voluntary [7]. An assignment (or a matching) between the two sets of participants is stable at a preference profile if: (a) all participants are either unmatched or matched with a participant that is strictly preferred to remaining unmatched and (b) there is no pair of participants that are not matched with each other but they would prefer to be so rather than staying with the partner proposed by the assignment. Although Roth also has fundamental theoretical con tributions to two-sided matching models he has been the founder and main contributor to market design. This area uses two-sided matching models and other tools to analyze practical assignment problems. It restricts the attention to specific situations by modifying the general and abstract model to incorporate the specific details of the particular problem under consideration. Hence, it obtains conclusions that do not have general validity (of course) but that, by taking into account the institutional details of the problem at hand, allows the researcher to perform a deeper analysis and recommend possible changes to improve the way that specific assignment problems are solved in practice. For instance, Roth and his collaborators have proposed substantial modifications on the solutions of problems like the yearly assignment of North-American medical interns to hospital internship programs, children to schools in cities like Boston and New York, or the organization of a centralized system to propose kidney transplantations of live donors that are incompatible with their respective and loved patients. In the remaining of the paper, instead of presenting different models of two-sided assignment problems and their applications as practices of market design, I will restrict myself to present some examples. I will start with an application, describing (in my view) one of the most interesting practices of market design: the kidney exchange problem. To do so, I will present the adaptation of the Gale’s top trading cycle algorithm as the best solution to solve kidney exchange problems [20], with some references to the Spanish case. I will also present the notion of stable allocations in the basic marriage model [7] and the main results in terms of the strategic incentives faced by participants in centralized two-sided matching markets. I will mention two other applications of this theory: the yearly assignment of medical students to hospital internship programs in North-America and the yearly assignment of students to schools in Boston and New York cities. CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:103-112 (2015)

Nobel Prize in Economics 2012

Kidney exchange There are two treatments for patients with renal disease: dialysis and transplantation. Since dialysis requires a strong dependence and has many side effects (physical as well as psychological), transplantation is considered the best treatment. Kidneys for transplantation come from either deceased or living donors. The first successful kidney transplantation took place on December 23, 1954 in Boston. It was done between two identical twins (to eliminate the immune reaction) and performed, among others, by Joseph E. Murray (1919–2012), J. Hartwell Harrison (1909–1984), and John P. Merrill (1917–1984).3 The patient survived eight years after the transplantation. At the end of the last century, and after the improvement in immunosuppressive therapies, the majority of transplanted kidneys in many countries were from deceased donors; for instance, in 1999 in Spain less than 1% of all kidney transplants were from living donors (only 17 among 2023). However, there is a unanimous agreement that the quality and success-rate of kidney transplants from living donors are greater than those from deceased ones. In particular, the likelihood that the transplanted kidney survives 5 years is 0.87 if it comes from live donors and 0.80 if it comes from deceased donors, and the likelihood that the recipient will survive 5 years is 0.93 and 0.86, respectively. Furthermore, promoting the donation of kidneys from living donors may help solve the shortage of kidneys for transplantation. Indeed, all countries with active transplantation programs suffer from shortage of kidneys. Almost everywhere the average time that a patient has to stay in the waiting list for a kidney transplant is well above two years. In addition, increasing life expectancy as well as the decrease in mortality due to car and motorcycle accidents has made the shortage even more severe. For all these reasons, in the last ten years, many countries are promoting living donation; for instance, in 2011 in Spain already more than 12% of all kidney transplants were from living donors (312 among 2498). In the direct donation, the patient receives, if compatible, one of the two kidneys from a relative or friend (usually, the spouse and siblings of the patient). The most basic incompatibilities are blood and tissue type (the latter is related to genetics that produce immune reaction), although the age of the kidney is also relevant for the graft kidney survival. But if

the kidney is not compatible, the transplant is not possible and the donor’s kidney is removed from the system. It is estimated that approximately one third of patients with a friend or family donor are excluded from the system due to different incompatibilities. Until very recently this was the only live donation that was taking place, and there was no system to take advantage of rejected donors, which were simply sent home. In 1986, Felix T. Rapaport (1929–2001) was the first to propose kidney exchanges from living donors. The idea is simple: suppose that one day a nephrologist receives a patient accompanied by a relative who is willing to donate a kidney. Unfortunately, the analysis shows that they are incompatible. The next day, the same doctor receives another patient-donor pair who are also incompatible. But each patient is compatible with the donor of the other pair, and hence, a kidney exchange is possible (in this case, by satisfying a cycle of length two). Or even longer cycles involving three or more incompatible patientdonor pairs could be undertaken. A kidney exchange problem consists of a set of incompatible patient-donor pairs together with a profile of ordered lists of all donors’ kidneys, one list for each patient. Formally, let N = { 1,..., n } be the set of patients and let K = { k 1,..., kn } be the set of live donors kidneys. Each patient i ∈ N has a donor whose kidney ki is not compatible with i . Thus, { (1, k ),..., (n, k ) } is the set of n incompatible patient-donor pairs. Each patient i ∈ N has a preference order (a strict) ranking Pi of all donors kidneys. For instance, with n = 4 ,

indicates that, for patient 3, k 2 and k 4 are two compatible kidneys, k 2 is better than k 4 , and k 1 is not compatible (the ordering between incompatible kidneys is irrelevant). A patient’s ordered list of all kidneys (from the best to the worst) reflects, according to the patient’s nephrologist, the ex-ante ordinal quality of the match between each kidney and the patient. The market design question in this case is to determine a systematic way of selecting, for each kidney exchange prob-

Joseph E. Murray received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990, jointly with E. Donnall Thomas, for their discoveries concerning organ and cell transplantation in the treatment of human disease. 3

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lem, a set of compatible transplants with some desirable properties. A set of compatible transplants can be represented by a matching α : N → K , where α (i ) = kj means that if i ≠ j , i receives kidney kj and if i = j , i does not receive any kidney (and stays under dialysis waiting for a new run of the match). Note that the set of incompatible patient-donor pairs can be represented by the matching µ , where µ (i ) = ki for all i ∈ N . An instance of a kidney exchange problem is thus a tuple ( N , K , µ , P) , where N is the set of patients, K is the set of kidneys, µ represents the set of incompatible patient-donor pairs and P = ( P1,..., Pn ) is the profile of agents preferences on K.4 Roth, Sönmez, and Ünver [20] study the kidney exchange problem and propose an adaptation of the general model presented by Shapley and Scarf [22] as well as of an already known algorithm in matching theory to solve all kidney exchange problems. The algorithm is known as the Gale’s top trading cycle algorithm, and I will refer to it as the TTC algorithm. Given a kidney exchange problem (remember, a set of incompatible patient-donor pairs and a profile of patients’ lists, each list ordering all donors’ kidneys) the TTC algorithm solves the problem (i.e., proposes a set of compatible transplants) in stages. At each stage, the TTC algorithm roughly works as follows: (a) It constructs a graph whose nodes are the patient-donor pairs that have not yet been matched in the previous stages; (b) it directs the graph (a single arrow leaves from each node pointing to a node) by making that each patient points to the best kidney (according to his ordered list of kidneys) among those still present in the stage; (c) it identifies the nodes on the cycles of the directed graph; and (d) it satisfies the cycles, matching each patient of the nodes of the cycles to his pointed kidney. The TTC algorithm keeps identifying and satisfying successively the cycles along the stages. Note that in each stage, there is always at least one cycle, if there are several cycles they do not intersect each other and a cycle may have a single node whose patient points to the kidney of his donor (obviously, since they are not compatible, the patient in this case will not be transplanted and the patient will remain under dialysis). Thus, the input of the TTC algorithm is an instance of a kidney exchange problem and its output is a solution of the problem (i.e., a matching) that consists of a proposal of transplants based on the cycles identified along its stages. I denote by η the matching repre-

4 5

senting the transplants proposed by the output of the TTC algorithm applied to the kidney exchange problem at hand. Example 1 below illustrates how the TTC algorithm works.5 Example 1. Let ( N , K , µ , P) be a kidney exchange problem with eight incompatible patient-donor pairs, µ (i ) = ki for each i = 1,...,8 , and the profile P represented in Table 1 below, where the kidneys inside an square in each agent’ preference list indicates the initial assignment µ of agents to kidneys (Table 1). Figure 2 represents the three steps of the TTC algorithm applied to profile P to obtain the assignment η . The TTC algorithm has many desirable properties. First, it is individually rational: every patient that receives a kidney from another donor at the outcome of the TTC algorithm prefers this situation rather than not receiving a kidney and remaining under dialysis. Second, it is efficient: all patients cannot improve simultaneously; that is, if there is another set of transplants where one patient receives a strictly better kidney, then there must exist another patient that receives a strictly worse kidney. Third, the output of the TTC algorithm is a stable assignment (in game-theoretic terms, it belongs to the core of the kidney exchange problem): there is no subset of patient-donor pairs that, by reassigning only the kidneys of the donors of the patients in the subset, can obtain better kidneys; i.e., no subgroup of the patient-donor pairs (for example those from a hospital, a city or a region) can object unanimously to the output of the TTC algorithm [22]. Moreover, the core of each kidney exchange problem is unique Table 1. Eight incompatible patient-donor pairs

Given i, j , t ∈ N and Pi , I will write kjRikt to denote that either kj = kt or else kjPikt . Example 1, as well as Example 2, can be found in Massó [10].

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Nobel Prize in Economics 2012

Fig. 2. The three steps of the TTC algorithm applied to obtain the assignment η.

and coincides with the output of the TTC algorithm [19].6 Fourth, the mechanism associated to the TTC algorithm is strategy-proof: no patient could obtain a strictly better kidney by reporting (in fact, his nephrologist) a false ordered list of kidneys [14]. Furthermore, the mechanism that, for each kidney exchange problem, selects the output of the TTC algorithm is the unique individually rational, efficient, and strategy-proof mechanism [9]. Finally, the quality of the kidney received by each patient in the output of the TTC algorithm depends positively on the quality of his kidney’s donor [19]. Roth, Sönmez, and Ünver have also reported some simulations suggesting that the TTC algorithm performs well and that it can be applied to real kidney exchange problems, and indeed it is now used in most countries with kidney exchange programs [20].7 In addition, the paper has also triggered an already long list of papers studying different issues related to the specific nature of the kidney exchange problem that may require to adapt the TTC algorithm. For instance, (a) to deal with the increasing number of altruistic donors (called “good Samaritans”), whose kidney can be used to initiate chains (instead of cycles) of transplants. On February 18, 2012, The New York Times published an article entitled “60 Lives, 30 Kidneys, All Linked ” describing a chain of 30 transplants initiated one year earlier by a good Samaritan. (b) The consequences of requiring alternative incentive properties (weaker than strategy-proofness) when patients (their nephrologists) submit the ranked list of all donors’ kidneys. (c) The presence of patients with several potential do-

nors. (d) Ethical issues related with the ex-ante worse situation faced by O blood-type patients since they can only receive kidneys from O blood-type donors. (e) The effects of considering explicitly the dynamic feature of the problem, where the database of pairs keeps changing by the entrance and exit of patient-donor pairs. In any case, kidney exchange has become a natural and successful market design application of the theory of stable allocations to help human beings to live longer and better. Roth and Shapley’s contributions have made it possible.

The Theory of Stable Allocations Following Gale and Shapley’s metaphor [7] we will use the marriages between men and women as the reference example to describe a basic matching problem.8 Let M = { m1,..., mn } be the set of men and let W = { w1,..., wn } be the set of women. The set of agents is N = M  W . We assume that each men m ∈ M has a strict preference (a ranking) Pm on the set of women and the prospect of remaining unmatched, that for convenience we identify as being matched to himself. That is, Pm is a complete, antisymmetric and transitive binary relation on the set W  { m }. Given m ∈ M and w, w ' ∈ W , we will write wPmw ' and mPmw to denote that m prefers to be matched to w rather than to w ' and to be unmatched instead of being matched to w , respectively. Similarly, each women w ∈ W has a strict preference Pw on

Note that, by considering the set of all agents and all singleton sets, if an assignment belongs to the core it has to be efficient and individually rational. They promoted, together with Dr. Francis Delmonico and Susan Saidman, the New England Program for Kidney Exchange (NEPKE). Many countries have now their corresponding centralized programs, for instance, Spain, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Italy and South Korea. 8 The two basic characteristics of the problem are that agent’s preferences are ordinal and matching is one-to-one. 6 7

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Table 2. In the columns, the agents’ preference are listed. Each column indicates the corresponding agent’s preference in decreasing order

the set M  { w }, where w in the ranking represents the prospect, for w , of remaining unmatched. Given w ∈ W and m, m ' ∈ M , we will write mPwm ' and wPwm to denote that w prefers to be matched to m rather than to m ' and to be unmatched instead of being matched to m , respectively. A (preference) profile is a list of preferences P = ( Pn1,..., Pmn; Pw1,..., Pwm) , one for each agent. A market (or matching problem) is a triple ( M , W , P) , where M is the set of men, W is the set of women and P is a profile. Example 2 below contains an instance of a market that will be used later on. Example 2. Let ( M , W , P) be the market where M = { m1, m 2, m3, m 4, m5 }, W = { w1, w2, w3, w4 }, and P is defined in Table 2 where agents’ preferences are columns and each column indicates the corresponding agent’s preference in decreasing order, for instance, w1 Pm 5 w2 and m5 Pm 5 w3 .

Figure 3 illustrates a matching for this market. A matching is stable if it is individually rational and no pair of agents prefer each other rather than the partners proposed to each of them by the matching. Formally, Definition 2: A matching µ is stable at P if (a) for each m ∈ M , µ ( m )Rmm ,9 (b) for each w ∈ W , µ ( w )Rww , and (c) there is no pair (m, w) ∈ M × W such that wPm µ (m) and mPwµ ( w) . The matching µ in Fig. 2 is not stable at profile P of Example 2 since w2 Pm1w3 = µ (m1) and m1 Pw2 m5 = µ ( w2) . Fix M and W . Given P , let S ( P) be the set of stable mat chings at P . Gale and Shapley state and prove that the set of

Definition 1: A matching (for market ( M , W , P) ) is a mapping µ : M  W → M  W such that: (a) for each m ∈ M , µ (m) ∈ W  { m }, (b) for each w ∈ W , µ ( w) ∈ M  { w }, and (c) for each pair (m, w) ∈ M × W , µ (m) = w if and only if µ ( m) = m .

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The assignment problem consists of matching each man with at most a woman and each woman with at most a man with the properties that the matching is bilateral and agents may remain unmatched. Formally,

Fig. 3. A matching for the market of Example 2.

Given agents x, y, z ∈ N we write xRyz to denote that either x = z or else xPyz ; namely, either x and z are the same agent or else y strictly prefers to be matched to x rather than to z . 10 Moreover, it coincides with the core of the one-to-one matching problem; namely, intermediate coalitions of agents have no additional blocking power. 9

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Table 3. Four steps of the deferred acceptance algorithm in which men make offers to women, applied to the market (M, W, P) of Example 2 Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

m1 → w1 Yes

µ M (m1) = w1

m 2 → w4 Yes

m 2 → w4 No

m 2 → w2 Yes

m3 → w4 No

m3 → w3 Yes

µ M ( m 2 ) = w2

m 4 → w1 No

m 4 → w4 Yes

m5 → w1 No

m5 → w2 Yes

m5 → w2 No

m5 → w4 No

stable matchings is always non-empty [7].10 Formally, Theorem 1: Let P be a profile. Then, S ( P ) is non-empty. Gale and Shapley prove that, for any P , the set S ( P) is nonempty by showing that it contains two stable matchings, the men-optimal stable matching (denoted by µ M ) and the women-optimal stable matching (denoted by µ W ) [7]. The two matchings have the properties that for any stable matching µ ∈ S ( P) the following two conditions hold: (a) for all m ∈ M , µ M (m) Rm µ (m) Rm µ W (m) and (b) for all w ∈W , µ W ( w )Rwµ ( w )Rwµ M ( w ) ; namely, all men agree that the partner that they receive at µ M ( µ W ) is the best (worst) among all partners that they receive at any stable matching and, simultaneously, all women agree that the partner that they receive at µ W ( µ M ) is the best (worst) among all partners that they receive at any stable matching.11 Gale and Shapley propose two versions of the deferred acceptance algorithm (DAA) to compute the two optimal stable matchings µ M and µ W [7]. I describe the version of the algorithm in which men make offers to women, denoted by DAAM (the other is symmetric, replacing the role of men and women and it is denoted by DAAW). At any step of the DAAM, each man offers himself to his mostpreferred woman amongst the set of women who have not already rejected him, while each woman accepts the mostpreferred men amongst all men whose proposals along the algorithm she has not rejected yet. The algorithm terminates when no woman rejects a man. It turns out that the outcome of the DAAM is µ M and the outcome of the DAAW is µ W .

Final

µ M (m3) = w3 µ M ( m 4 ) = w4 µ M (m5) = w5

Table 3 summarizes the 4 steps of the DAAM applied to the market ( M , W , P) of Example 2, where m → w represents an offer of m to w , Yes means that w accepts it, and No that w rejects it. Table 4 describes the unique step of the DAAW applied to the market (M, W, P) of Example 2. Observe that µ M ≠ µ W and that µ= M ( w5 ) µ= W ( w5 ) w5 .12 Roth has made relevant contributions to the study of the strategic incentives induced by the DAAs when they are understood as direct revelation mechanisms.13 Moreover, he has proposed modifications of some mechanisms used to solve real-life assignment problems. Some of the modifications are partially driven by the aim of fixing mechanisms that induce wrong strategic incentives to agents. At the end of this section I will be a bit more specific about two of these modifications. But first, to consider the strategic incentives Table 4. Unique step of the DAAW applied to the market (M, W, P) of Example 2 Step 1

Final

w1 → m 2 Yes

µ W ( w1) = m 2

w2 → m3 Yes

µ W ( w2 ) = m 3

w3 → m 4 Yes

µ W ( w3) = m 4

w4 → m1 Yes

µ W ( w4 ) = m 5 µ W ( w5) = m5

Ref. [8] shows that S ( P) is a (dual) complete lattice with the unanimous partial ordering of men (women) ≥ M ( ≥ W ), where for any µ , µ ' ∈ S ( P) , µ ≥ M µ ' if and only if µ (m) Rm µ '(m) ( µ ≥ W µ ' if and only if µ ( w) Rwµ '( w) ). Moreover, µ ≥ M µ ' if and only if µ ' ≥ W µ . Then, µ M is the supremum and µW is the infimum of the set S ( P) according to ≥ M , and µW is the supremum and µ M is the infimum of the set S ( P ) according to ≥ W . 12 The following property of the set of stable matchings S ( P) always holds. For any agent x ∈ M  W if µ ∈ S ( P ) and µ ( x) = x then, for all µ ' ∈ S ( P) , µ '( x) = x . Namely, to be unmatched is a global property of the set of stable matchings. 13 A direct revelation mechanism asks each agent to report his preferences and proposes a matching depending on the declared profile of preferences.

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faced by participants in these markets, observe that whether a matching is stable depends on the agents’ preferences. But each agent’s preferences are private information and hence, they have to be elicited by a mechanism. Fix the sets M and W. Let M be the set of all matchings among M and W and let P be the set of all preference profiles. A social choice function is a mapping f :P → M selecting, for each preference profile P ∈ P, a matching f ( P ) ∈ M. Given a social choice function f :P → M, a profile P ∈ P and an agent x ∈ M  W we denote by f x ( P) the partner assigned to x by the social choice function f at profile P (i.e., f x ( P) ) ≡ f ( P)( x) , because f ( P) is the matching selected by f at P ). Given agent x ∈ M  W , a profile P ∈ P and a preference P' x denote by ( P' x , P− x ) the new profile obtained from P after replacing Px by P' x in P . Agent x ∈ M  W manipulates the social choice function f :P → M if there exist P ∈ P and P' x such that f x ( P' x ,P− x )Px f x ( Px ,P− x ) ; namely, agent x (with preference Px ) obtains an strictly preferred partner by reporting to f a false preference P' x . A social choice function f :P → M is strategy-proof if no agent can manipulate it.14 A social choice function f :P → M is stable if it always selects stable matchings; namely, for all P ∈ P, f ( P) ∈ S ( P) . Roth shows that strategy-proofness and stability are incompatible [13]. Proposition 1: There is no social choice function f : P → M that is simultaneously strategy-proof and stable [13]. However, the two DAAs understood as social choice functions induce good incentive properties to the side of the market that makes the offers. To state that, let f M :P → M be the social choice function that selects for each preference profile the men-optimal stable matching and let f W :P → M be the social choice function that selects for each preference profile the women-optimal stable matching; namely, for each P ∈ P, f M ( ) = µ M and f W ( P) = µ W . A social choice function f : P → M is strategy-proof for the men if it can not be manipulated by any men and f : P → M is strategy-proof for the women if it can not be manipulated by any women. The following result may explain why these two social choice functions are used so widely to solve many real-life centralized two-sided matching problems.

Theorem 2: The social choice function f M : P → M is strategy-proof for the men and the social choice function f W : P → M is strategy-proof for the women [4,13]. Finally, I mention two successful market design applications of the theory of stable allocations. First, Roth [15] reports that, since the academic year 1951–1952 (ten years earlier than Gale and Shapley’s paper [7]), the problem of matching each year medical students with hospital internship programs in North-America was solved by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) by asking to medical students and hospital to report their ranked preferences lists and by applying to the declared preference profile the DAA in which hospitals make offers. Before 1951, and as earlier as the beginning of the 20th century, the matching process had many problems. In particular, the market unraveled in the sense that hospitals were looking (and making offers in a decentralized setting) to medical students earlier and earlier while they were still at college, and needed almost two additional years of college before finishing. The AAMC tried to stop these practices without much success until 1953–1954 when the centralized ADD mechanism was adopted under voluntary basis. The procedure worked well with high participation rates until the mid-1990’s (around 20,000 medical students were assigned yearly) when more couples where looking coordinately for hospitals located in the same city, some links had to be done between different subspecialties to fulfill the internship requirements, and students were arguing that the system was favoring hospitals and that they could “game the system” by reporting false preference lists. The AAMC asked Roth to modify the mechanism to fix those problems and he redesigned the algorithm to be able to accommodate them satisfactorily. In 1998 the match was completed using (with small modifications) the DAA in which students make offers [18]. This intervention may be seen as the first (conscious) practice of market design. Abdulkadiroğlu and Sönmez [3] used a two-sided matching model to study the yearly problem of assigning students to public schools in a city. The main issue of the assignment problem is to let parents to choose the school of their children. Boston and New York cities were using a centralized mechanism (known as the Boston mechanism) that is similar to the DAA but with the very important difference that provi-

That is, truth-telling is a (weakly) dominant strategy in the game induced by the social choice function f . For instance, in the application of the DAA M to the profile P of Example 2, m3 is assigned to w3 , his second choice, while in the outcome of the Boston mechanism he is unassigned (his worse choice). However, under the Boston mechanism m3 could be assigned to w2 by declaring, instead of Pm3 , any preference P ' m3 with w2 as his top choice. 14 15

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sional matches along the application of the algorithm are made definitive, and hence, it was highly manipulable.15 Abdulkadiroğlu and others have reported that, following their advice, the two cities changed the assignment procedure and replaced the Boston mechanism by the DAA in which students make offers [1,2]. Recently, many other cities are adopting the DAA to organize the assignment of their students to public schools. Aknowledgements. I thank Saptarshi Mukherjee for helpful comments, and the financial support received from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centers of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0563) and through grants ECO2008-0475-FEDER (Grupo Consolidado-C) and ECO2014-53051, and from the Generalitat de Catalunya, through grant SGR2014-515.

Competing interests: None declared.

References 1. Abdulkadiroğlu A, Pathak P, Roth A (2005) The New York city high school match. Am Econ Rev P and P 95:364-367 2. Abdulkadiroğlu A, Pathak P, Roth A, Sönmez T (2005) The Boston Public School Match. Am Econ Rev P and P 95:368-371 3. Abdulkadiroğlu A, Sönmez T (2003) School choice: a mechanism design approach. Am Econ Rev 93:729-747 4. Dubins L, Freedman D (1981) Machiavelli and the Gale-Shapley algorithm. Am Math Mon 88:485-494 5. Erev I, Roth A (1998) Predicting how people play games: reinforcement learning in experimental games with unique, mixed strategy equilibria. Am Econ Rev 88:848-881 6. Gale D (1962) The theory of linear economic models. McGraw-Hill, New York

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7. Gale D, Shapley L (1962) College admissions and the stability of marriage. Am Math Mon 69:9-15 8. Knuth D (1991) Stable marriages and its relation to other combinatorial problems. CRM Proceedings and Lecture Notes 10, American Mathematical Society, Providence 9. Ma J (1994) Strategy-proofness and the strict core in a market with indivisibilities. Int J Game Theory 23:75-83 10. Massó J (2012) La moderna teoria de l’elecció social: de la impossibilitat a la possibilitat. Butlletí de la Societat Catalana de Matemàtiques 27:177-231 11. Roth A (1977) The Shapley Value as a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility. Econometrica 45:657-664 12. Roth A (1979) Independence of irrelevant alternatives, and solutions to Nash’s bargaining problem. J Econ Theory 16:247-251 13. Roth A (1982) Incentive compatibility in a market with indivisible goods. Econ Lett 9:127-132 14. Roth A (1982) The economics of matching: stability and incentives. Math Oper Res 7:617-628 15. Roth A (19984) The evolution of the labor market for medical interns and residents: a case study in Game Theory. J Polit Econ 92:991-1016 16. Roth A (ed) (1988) The Shapley Value: Essays in honor of Lloyd S. Shapley. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 17. Roth A, Ockenfels A (2002) Last-minute bidding and the rules for ending second-price auctions: evidence from eBay and Amazon auctions on the internet. Am Econ Rev 92:1093-1103 18. Roth A, Peranson E (1999) The redesign of the matching market for American physicians: some engineering aspects of economic design. Am Econ Rev 89:748-780 19. Roth A, Postlewaite A (1977) Weak versus strong domination in a market with indivisible goods. J Math Econ 4:131-137 20. Roth A, Sönmez T, Ünver U (2004) Kidney exchange. Q J Econ 119: 457-488 21. Roth A, Sotomayor M (1990) Two-sided matching: a study in game-theoretic modelling and analysis. Cambridge University Press and Econometric Society Monographs 18 22. Shapley L, Scarf H (1974) On cores and indivisibilities. J Math Eco 1:23-28

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CONTRIB SCI 11:113-120 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.219

Microbial fuel cells implemented in constructed wetlands: Fundamentals, current research and future perspectives Clara Corbella,§ Jaume Puigagut* Grup d’Enginyeria Mediambiental i Microbiologia (GEMMA). Departament d'Enginyeria Civil i Ambiental. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya–BarcelonaTech, Barcelona, Catalonia *Correspondence: Jaume Puigagut Dept. d’Enginyeria Civil i Ambiental Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Jordi Girona 1-3, Building D1-105 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia Tel. +34-934010898 Email: jaume.puigagut@upc.edu

Clara Corbella won the 2014 Students’ Prize of the Catalan Society for Technology/ IEC, with the work “Emissió de gasos d’efecte d’hivernacle en aiguamolls construïts: adaptació del mètode de la cambra estàtica i mesura en funció del règim hidràu lic i de la presència de plantes” (“Green house gas emissions from constructed wetlands: adaptation of the static chamber method and measurements as function of hydraulic regime and plants presence”). §

Summary. A microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a device that generates electricity from the microbial degradation of organic and inorganic substrates. Constructed wetlands (CWs) are natural wastewater treatment systems that constitute a suitable technology for the sanitation of small communities. The synergy between MFCs and CWs is possible because of the presence of organic matter in CWs due to wastewater characteristics and the naturally generated redox gradient between the upper layer of CWs treatment bed (in aerobic conditions) and the deeper layers (completely anaerobic). As a result of MFC implementation in CWs (MFC-CW), it is possible not only to produce an energy surplus while wastewater is treated but also to improve and monitor the overall treatment process. Moreover, the implementation of MFCs may exert other beneficial effects on CWs, such as a decrease in surface treatment requirements, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and clogging. Finally, MFCs implemented in CWs would be also a suitable bioelectrochemical tool for the assessment of treatment performance without any additional cost involved in the process. Overall, though considered to be at an infancy stage, MFC-CW represents a promising synergy between technologies that may reduce energy costs and enhance treatment performance and monitoring while wastewater is treated. The envisaged main challenges for maximizing the synergy between both technologies are linked to the optimization of both operational and design criteria in CW and MFC cell architecture and materials. [Contrib Sci 11:113-120 (2015)]

The fundamentals: Microbial fuel cells technology Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are bioelectrochemical devices that generate current by means of electrochemically active microorganisms as catalysts [29]. In an MFC, organic and inor-

ganic substrates are oxidized by exoelectrogenic bacteria and electrons are transferred to the anode from where they flow through a conductive material and a resistor to a higher redox electron acceptor, such as oxygen, at the cathode [29,37] (Fig. 1). So far, there are two well-known bacterial genera which present exoelectrogenic activity, i.e., Shewanella [41]

Keywords: constructed wetlands · microbial fuel cells · treatment efficiency · clogging · biosensors ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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Microbial fuel cells

Fig. 1. Scheme of a microbial fuel cell (MFC) and its main processes.

and Geobacter [22]. Moreover, Geobacter species are not only able to perform direct electron transfer but have also the potential to transfer electrons through the biofilm by means of electrically conductive pili (indirect electron transfer) [40]. Compounds oxidized at the anode are mainly simple carbohydrates such as glucose or acetate that can be already present in the environment or derived from the microbial degradation of complex organic substrates such as organic sediments or wastewater [31,36,39]. MFCs are, therefore, an alternative technology to harvest energy directly from wastewater in the form of electricity [13,26,31]. In order to ensure the use of the anode as the final electron acceptor by electrochemical active microorganisms, no acceptor with higher redox potential should be present in their vicinity. Consequently, the electromotive force of the cell will depend on the potential of the anode and the cathode and therefore, on the redox gradient between electrodes [29,37]. In order to provide a redox gradient between the anode and the cathode of an MFC, two different strategies may be applied. The first strategy is to use a proton exchange membrane (PEM) between the electrodes which enables the existence of an electromotive force between www.cat-science.cat

the electrodes by only allowing the transfer of charges between the anode and the cathode zones. Another strategy is to exploit the natural redox gradient existing between surface waters and organic sediments in natural or semi-natural environments. The later MFC design is generally known as sediment or benthic microbial fuel cell (sMFC). Implementing a PEM between the electrodes allows us to have a greater cell force between electrodes, yet it results in a more expensive set up (of difficult scalability) when compared to MFC operated without a PEM (sMFC configuration). Regardless of the MFC configuration (either with or without a PEM), MFC performance is influenced by biological, chemical and electrical factors. Accordingly, parameters defining MFCs performance are listed as [38]: (a) substrate conversion rate; (b) overpotentials at the anode; (c) overpotentials at the cathode; (d) proton exchange membrane related factors; and (e) internal resistance of the MFC. However, operational variables such as the concentration of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the anodic chamber, pH and temperature, together with the surface area of electrodes and electrode materials and their relative distance, have also been reported as influencing factors [19]. 114

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Fig. 2. Scheme of a horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetland (adapted from [42]). Note: the arrow indicates the direction of the water flow.

Constructed wetlands technology Constructed wetlands (CW) are natural wastewater treatment systems where wastewater is treated by means of physical, chemical and biological processes taking place inside the treatment bed [17]. They consist of shallow lined basins filled up with a filter media (generally gravel) and planted with aquatic plants (macrophytes). CWs treat wastewater from a wide range of origins such as urban, industrial or agricultural wastewaters. They are also characterized by being low energy demanding systems and easy to operate and maintain. As a consequence, they have become an alternative to conventional intensified systems for the sanitation of small communities [16,35]. The CWs configuration most widely used is that of horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands (HSSF CWs). In HSSF CWs, water flows horizontally and below the surface of the granular medium (see Fig. 2). HSSF CWs are operated under saturated conditions and are, generally, shallower than other types of wetlands, with water depth being generally between 0.3 and 0.6 m. Removal rates of most of the contaminants in HSSF CWs are affected by design parameters such as the organic loading rate, the width to length aspect ratio, granular medium size and the water depth. Due to its anaerobic nature, HSSF CWs have relatively large surface requirements when compared to intensive technologies (such as activated sludge-based treatment sys-

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tems), which is one of its major drawbacks. Over the past years, research in HSSF CWs has focused on the improvement of treatment performances and the reduction of surface requirements. Accordingly, forced (or active) aeration has been suggested as an efficient way to improve the removal of organic matter and reduced nitrogen species [3,48]. Since the 1990s, active aerated systems have shown interesting results, leading to more than ten-fold increase in removal rates when compared to passive systems [33], resulting in the reduction of the required treatment surface. However, active aeration results in a significant increase in energy consumption during operation when compared to traditional HSSF CWs designs. Organic matter removal in wetlands is simultaneously carried out by means of aerobic respiration, denitrification, sulphate reduction, fermentation and methanogenesis [17]. Therefore, greenhouse gases such as methane (CH4) or nitrous oxide (N2O) are emitted to the atmosphere. Methane is among the most relevant gases in terms of greenhouse effect not only because it has increased by ca. three times since pre-industrial times but also because its global warming potential is about 25 times higher than CO2 [18]. Greenhouse gases emission from wetlands is highly related to both environmental and operational variables, such as redox conditions, temperature, organic loading and primary treatment applied [5,17,30,43]. Moreover, HSSF CWs are subjected to a progressive reduction of their hydraulic conductivity and porosity, which is

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Microbial fuel cells

generally known as clogging. Clogging of HSSF CWs occurs due to different processes [20,24]: (a) deposition of inert (mineral) suspended solids; (b) accumulation of refractory organic material (resistant to microbial degradation); (c) deposition of chemical precipitates; (d) biofilm growth; and (e) root system growth. Therefore, clogging is, at least partially, a consequence of solids accumulation and amongst the most significant drawbacks of the technology [20]. The composition and the quantity of accumulated solids depend not only on the load applied to the CWs [24] but also on other environmental conditions. In this regard, a positive relationship between the quantity of solids accumulated and both TSS and COD loading rates [4] has been reported. Furthermore, clogging is not a homogeneous phenomenon along the length or the depth of the wetland. Accordingly, several authors have described greater solids accumulation at the inlet zone due to higher organic matter concentrations [24] and higher sludge deposition at the bottom of the treatment bed [34]. In order to delay/alleviate clogging, two strategies are currently envisaged [32]: preventative strategies and restorative strategies. Intermittent operation, multiple influent distribution or minimization of the inlet cross-sectional loading would be some of the preventative strategies most widely applied, while excavation and replacement of the gravel, washing and reuse of the gravel and the application of chemicals are among most widely applied restorative strategies. However, addressing the management of the clogging leads to an increase in maintenance costs in HSSF CWs. In fact, it is assumed that inlet zone maintenance, conducted every 5 years, may account for up to 15% of construction costs [20]. Therefore, finding a cost-effective solution to clogging phenomena is of capital importance for increasing the lifespan of HSSF CWs and improving the economical management [20].

Benefits of MFC implementation in constructed wetlands MFC can be implemented in HSSF CWs not only because of the presence of organic matter (OM) in the system (wastewater) but also because there is a naturally generated redox gradient of about 0.5 V between the upper zone (in contact with the atmosphere and therefore in aerobic conditions) and the deeper zone (in completely anaerobic conditions) of the treatment bed [6]. The implementation of the MFCs in constructed wetlands not only provides an energy surplus while wastewater is treated but also contributes to the improvement and moniwww.cat-science.cat

toring of the overall treatment process. MFCs electricity production would be of special interest within the constructed wetlands scenario, since one of the major advantages of this technology is the low energy input necessary for wastewater treatment (<0.1 kWh/m3) [20]. Accordingly, the implementation of MFCs in constructed wetlands can result in the generation of enough electricity to cover part of the energy requirements of the system or to power low input devices in remote locations (such as water quality sensors). Moreover, MFCs implemented in constructed wetlands may have other benefits such as a significant improvement on treatment capacity, and reduction of both clogging and methane release to the atmosphere. By implementing MFCs within the treatment systems, organic matter degradation can be fostered by increasing the availability of electron acceptors in such anaerobic conditions [9]. Accordingly, it is also described that the presence of MFCs in a sulfide-rich environment may accelerate the organic matter oxidation rates by means of the regeneration of SO42â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as an electron acceptor, which is only possible in the presence of an anode [45]. MFCs may also reduce clogging by enhancing the mobilization of organics contained in filter media, which can rarely be hydrolyzed under anaerobic conditions. Moreover, exoelectrogenic bacteria use acetate as a substrate, which decreases the availability of the carbon source for methane-producing bacteria. Competition between exoelectrogenic bacteria and methane-producing bacteria may result in a significant decrease in methane emissions during wastewater treatment under anaerobic conditions. MFCs implemented in CWs would be also a suitable bioelectrochemical tool for the assessment of treatment performance without any additional costs involved in the process. MFC implementation in constructed wetlands results in the optimization of the treatment process and reduction of its environmental impact.

Current research on MFCs Some research groups have already addressed the implementation of MFCs on marine sediments [39], planted systems [44,46], rice paddy fields [21,10] and recently also constructed wetlands [6,14,47,49]. The implementation of MFCs in constructed wetlands is a topic scarcely addressed in current literature and only a few lab experiences are currently available (Fig. 3).The majority of these experiences did not use real wastewater and most of them were based on the application of lab-scale systems simulating constructed wet116

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Fig. 3. Published papers on the “constructed wetlands” + “microbial fuel cells” topics. Note: Data have been collected from Elsevier, Scopus and ISI data bases. From: (1) [49]; (2) [14]; (3) [50]; (4) [27]; (5) [47]; (6) [28];(7) [12];(8) (unpublished results of our research group). Note: some of the bibliography could not be included in the secondary axis due to the lack of information to calculate the power density in relation to electrodes’ surface.

lands. Only one author described the implementation in a pilot-scale constructed wetland [47]. MFC implementation in full scale CWs is currently hampered by the lack of successful adaptation of classical cell architectures to a very complex scenario. In order to successfully implement MFCs in CWs, it is of capital importance to address design aspects related to electrode and materials, position or dimensions [12,28,50]. The influence of plants on MFC performance has been also currently addressed, yet not in the context of constructed wetlands [6,27,28]. Plants influence CW performance by their ability to release oxygen or easily biodegradable substrates through the root system. Plants also influence the redox conditions within the treatment bed due their ability to evapotranspirate water that, in turn, causes significant water level variations within the treatment bed. To this extent, water level fluctuations driven by plants evapotranspiration have been described as influencing MFC performance to a high extent [7]. The effect of plants on MFC voltage pattern is shown in Fig. 4. Once the effect of plants was removed (by covering them), MFC voltage pattern drastically changed from a very marked daily fluctuation (when plants were not covered) to a more stable MFC signal (when they were covered). As mentioned above, plants evapotranspiration in wetlands may cause significant water level variations and, thus, may influence oxygen availability at the cathode. To this extent, current results evidence www.cat-science.cat

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that oxygen availability at the cathode under periods of low water level variation (during periods of low evapotranspiration due to conditions such as winter) may increase MFC efficiency by 66% due to lower internal resistances in the system [8]. Beyond plants influence, other wetlands’ operational conditions such as hydraulic retention time, flow regime or aeration mode have been also linked to MFC performance in current literature [6,12,50]. Even though the synergy between CWs and MFCs may have several potential benefits, current research mostly focuses on energy production. Figure 3 shows the power produced with MFCs implemented in CWs. However, the authors of the current study wish to point out that direct comparison between MFC performance reported in current literature on the subject must be taken carefully due to significant differences between studies (such as different set-up dimensions and configurations, different electrode materials, type of wastewater and external resistances). In addition to the above-mentioned differences, energy production data reported in current research shows that this can range from ca. 9 mW/m2 [14] to 55 mW/m2 [28]. From data shown in Fig. 3, the total amount of power produced via MFC implementation in a CW was estimated. With this aim, an ideal scenario was defined: (i) the entire wetland surface would be suitable for MFC implementation; (ii) power could be produced continuously throughout the day; (iii) the CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:113-120 (2015)

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Fig. 4. Influence of water level variation caused by macrophytes evapotranspiration on MFC cell voltage. The red line indicates the moment when plants were covered. Adapted from [7].

extrapolated power output would be calculated on the basis of a full-scale HSSF CW treating wastewater from a population of 2000 PE, and (iv) the surface ratio for a horizontal subsurface-flow CW (HSSF CW) would be considered to be 5 m2/PE [20]. By taking into account these assumptions, it was estimated that the total power produced for the 10,000 m2 HSSF CW would range from 2.2 kWh/day to 13.2 kWh/ day (considering the maximum and minimum power produced from Fig. 3). Therefore, in terms of power produced nowadays, MFCs implemented in CWs could be only used to power low energy input devices. Furthermore, if the current generated by bioelectrochemical systems is compared with other equivalent energy-producing technologies (such as chemical batteries and chemical fuel cells) [2] the conclusion is that economically feasible applications of MFCs in the near future shall be based on sustainable environmental applications rather than on energy production alone.

Future challenges for the environmental application of MFCs in CWs As previously stated, CW technology can be improved via MFC implementation. Accordingly, MFCs implemented in CWs may increase not only CW treatment capacity but would www.cat-science.cat

be also of use as a biosensor to monitor treatment performance and operational conditions (such as influent organic matter concentration). Organic matter concentration is currently determined by analysing either the biochemical oxygen demand after five days (BOD5), or the chemical oxygen demand. Despite the fact that these methods are universally used, BOD5 has a limitation in terms of being time consuming, and is not suitable for online process monitoring. COD is a faster procedure for assessing organic matter concentration in wastewater, yet it is quite costly and produces toxic reagents that might pose a threat to the environment. In the context of wastewater treatment plants based on CWs, organic matter content is among the most important water quality variable and therefore, the possibility of developing an online technology for its estimation is of great value for wastewater treatment plant management. Several studies are currently available on the use of MFC as a biosensor tool for the assessment of wastewater organic matter concentration in terms of BOD [11,23,25]. However, most of these studies were conducted with conventional MFCs (MFC with a PEM), and the potential application of MFCs in CWs as a biosensor tool for organic matter assessment is clearly under-addressed in current research. Furthermore, most studies published that deal with the application of MFCs in CWs have failed to describe a 118

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10. De Schamphelaire L, Van den Bossche L, Dang HS, Höfte M, Boon N, Rabaey K, Verstraete W (2008) Microbial fuel cells generating electricity from rhizodeposits of rice plants. Environ Sci Technol 42:3053-3058 doi:10.1021/es071938w 11. Di Lorenzo M, Curtis TP, Head IM, Scott K (2009) A single-chamber microbial fuel cell as a biosensor for wastewaters. Water Res 43:3145-154 doi:10.1016/j.watres.2009.01.005 12. Doherty L, Zhao Y, Zhao X, Wang W (2014) Nutrient and organics removal from swine slurry with simultaneous electricity generation in an alum sludge-based Constructed Wetland incorporating Microbial Fuel Cell technology. Chem Eng J 266:74-81 doi:10.1016/j.cej.2014.12.063 13. Du Z, Li H, Gu T (2007) A state of the art review on microbial fuel cells: A promising technology for wastewater treatment and bioenergy. Biotechnol Adv 25:464-482 doi:10.1016/j.biotechadv.2007.05.004 14. Fang Z, Song HL, Cang N, Li XN (2013) Performance of microbial fuel cell coupled constructed wetland system for decolorization of azo dye and bioelectricity generation. Bioresource Technol 144:165-171 doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2013.06.073 15. Fang Z, Song HL, Cang N, Li XN (2015) Electricity production from azo dye wastewater using a microbial fuel cell coupled constructed wetland operating under different operating conditions. Biosens Bioelectron 68:135-141 doi:10.1016/j.bios.2014.12.047 16. García J (2001) Wastewater treatment for small communities in Catalonia (Mediterranean region). Water Policy 3:341-350 doi:10.1016/S13667017(01)00080-0 17. García J, Rousseau D P L, Morató J, Lesage E, Matamoros V, Bayona, JM (2010) Contaminant removal processes in subsurface-flow Constructed Wetlands: A review. Crit Rev Env Sci Tec 40:561-661 doi:10.1080/10643380802471076 18. IPCC. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Houghton, JT, et al., (eds.) Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK 19. Jadhav GS, Ghangrekar, MM (2009) Performance of microbial fuel cell subjected to variation in pH, temperature, external load and substrate concentration. Bioresource Technol 100:717-723 doi:10.1016/j. biortech.2008.07.041 20. Kadlec RH, Wallace S (2009) Treatment wetlands. CRC Press, 2nd ed. ISBN: 978-1-56670-526-4 21. Kaku N, Yonezawa N, Kodama Y, Watanabe K (2008) Plant/microbe cooperation for electricity generation in a rice paddy field. Appl Microbiol Biot 79:43-49 doi:10.1007/s00253-008-1410-9 22. Kiely PD, Regan JM, Logan BE (2011) The electric picnic: synergistic requirements for exoelectrogenic microbial communities. Curr Opin Biotech 22:378-385 doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2011.03.003 23. Kim M, Youn SM, Shin SH, Jang JG, Han SH, Hyun MS, Gadd GM, Kim HJ (2003) Practical field application of a novel BOD monitoring system. J Environ Monit 5:640-643 24. Knowles P, Dotro G, Nivala J, García J (2011) Clogging in subsurfaceflow treatment wetlands: Occurrence and contributing factors. Ecol Eng 37:99-112 doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2010.08.005 25. Kumlanghan A, Liu J, Thavarungkul P, Kanatharana P, Mattiasson B (2007) Microbial fuel cell-based biosensor for fast analysis of biodegradable organic matter. Biosens Bioelectron 22:2939-2944 doi:10.1016/j. bios.2006.12.014 26. Lefebvre O, Uzabiaga A, Chang IS, Kim BH, Ng HY (2011) Microbial fuel cells for energy self-sufficient domestic wastewater treatment-a review and discussion from energetic consideration. Appl Microbiol Biotech 89:259-270 doi:10.1007/s00253-010-2881-z 27. Liu S, Song H, Li X, Yang F (2013) Power generation enhancement by utilizing plant photosynthate in Microbial Fuel Cell coupled Constructed Wetland system. Int J Photoenergy 2013:1-10 doi:10.1155/2013/172010

strong correlation between COD concentration and MFC signal [15,47,50]. Overall, the synergy between CWs and MFCs has been so far mostly based on optimization for energy production. Besides the interest that an energy surplus can have in the context of CW technology, further research should focuse on the optimization of both technologies to fully address other benefits of MFC implementation in CWs such as treatment efficiency improvement, process monitoring and the reduction of clogging and methane emissions. Acknowledgements.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) (project CTM2010-17750). Clara Corbella kindly acknowledges her PhD scholarship (2014 FI_AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya), and the Student's Prize received fron the Catalan Society for Technology-IEC.

Competing interests. None declared.

References 1. APHA-AWWA-WEF (2001) Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater. 21st ed. American Public Health Association, Washington, DC, USA 2. Arends JBA, Verstraete, W (2012) 100 years of microbial electricity production: three concepts for the future. Microb Biotechnol 5:333-346 doi:10.1111/j.1751-7915.2011.00302 3. Austin D, Nivala J (2009) Energy requirements for nitrification and biological nitrogen removal in engineered wetlands. Ecol Eng 35:184-192 doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2008.03.002 4. Caselles-Osorio A, Garcia J (2007) Effect of physico-chemical pretreatment on the removal efficiency of horizontal subsurface-flow constructed wetlands. Environ Pollut 146:55-63 doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2006.06.022 5. Corbella C, Puigagut J (2014) Effect of primary treatment and organic loading on methane emissions from horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands treating urban wastewater. Ecol Eng 80:79-84 doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2014.09.071 6. Corbella C, Garfí M, Puigagut J (2014) Vertical redox profiles in treatment wetlands as function of hydraulic regime and macrophytes presence: Surveying the optimal scenario for microbial fuel cell implementation. Sci Total Environ 470:754-758 doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.09.068 7. Corbella C, Puigagut J (2014) Contribution of macrophytes to the electrical output generated by MFCs implemented in constructed wetlands during the treatment of domestic wastewater. 2nd European Meeting of the International Society for Microbial Electrochemistry and Technology. Alcalá de Henares. Spain. Abstracts, p 173 8. Corbella C, Puigagut J (2014) Influence of water level variation within constructed wetlands on power production with microbial fuel cells. 14th International Conference on Wetland Systems for Water pollution Control (IWA). Shanghai, China. Proceedings, p 928 9. De Schamphelaire L, Rabaey K, Boeckx P, Boon N, Verstraete W (2008) Outlook for benefits of sediment microbial fuel cells with two bio-electrodes. Microb Biotechnol 1:446-462 doi:10.1111/j.1751-7915.2008.00042 www.cat-science.cat

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28. Liu S, Song H, Wei S, Yang F, Li X (2014) Bio-cathode materials evaluation and configuration optimization for power output of vertical subsurface flow constructed wetland–microbial fuel cell systems. Bioresource Technol 166:575-583 doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2014.05.104 29. Logan BE, Hamelers B, Rozendal R, Schröder U, Keller J, Freguia S, Aelterman P, Verstraete W, Rabaey K (2006) Microbial fuel cells: methodology and technology. Environ Sci Technol 40:5181-5192 doi:10.1021/ es0605016 30. Mander Ü, Dotro G, Ebie Y, Towprayoon S, Chiemchaisri C, Nogueira SF, Jamsranjav B, Kasak K, Truu J, Tournebize, Mitsch WJ (2014) Greenhouse gas emission in constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment: A review. Ecol Eng 66:19-35 doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2013.12.006 31. Min B, Logan BE (2004) Continuous electricity generation from domestic wastewater and organic substrates in a flat plate microbial fuel cell. Environ Sci Technol 38:5809-5814 doi:10.1021/es0491026 32. Nivala J, Knowles P, Dotro G, García J, Wallace S (2012) Clogging in subsurface-flow treatment wetlands: measurement, modeling and management. Water Res 46:1625-1640 doi:10.1016/j.watres.2011.12.051 33. Nivala J, Wallace S, Headley T, Kassa K, Brix H, van Afferden M, Müller R (2013) Oxygen transfer and consumption in subsurface flow treatment wetlands. Ecol Eng 61:544-554 doi: 10.1016/j.ecoleng.2012.08.028 34. Pedescoll A, Corzo A, Alvarez E, García J, Puigagut J (2011) The effect of primary treatment and flow regime on clogging development in horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands: An experimental evaluation. Water Res 45:3579-3589 doi:10.1016/j.watres.2011.03.049 35. Puigagut J, Salvadó H, Tarrats X, García J (2007) Effects of particulate and soluble substrates on microfauna populations and treatment efficiency in activated sludge systems. Water Res 41:3168-3176 doi:10.1016/j.watres.2007.04.016 36. Rabaey K, Clauwaert P, Aelterman P, Verstraete W (2005) Tubular microbial fuel cells for efficient electricity generation. Environ Sci Technol 39:8077-8082 doi:10.1021/es050986i 37. Rabaey K, Rodríguez J, Blackall LL, Keller J, Gross P, Batstone D, Verstraete W, Nealson KH (2007) Microbial ecology meets electrochemistry: electricity-driven and driving communities. ISME J 1:9-18 doi:10.1038/ismej.2007.4 38. Rabaey K, Verstraete W (2005) Microbial fuel cells: novel biotechnology for energy generation. Trends Biotechnol 23:291-298 doi:10.1016/j. tibtech.2005.04.008 39. Reimers CE, Tender LM, Fertig S, Wang W (2001) Harvesting energy from the marine sediment-water interface. Environ Sci Technol 35:192-195 doi:10.1021/es001223s 40. Reguera G, Nevin KP, Nicoll JS, Covalla SF, Woodard TL, Lovley DR (2006) Biofilm and nanowire production leads to increased current in Geobacter sulfurreducens fuel cells. Appl Environ Microbiol 72:73457348 doi:10.1128/AEM.01444-06

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41. Ringeisen BR, Henderson E, Wu PK, Pietron J, Ray R, Little B, Biffinger JC, Jones-Meehan JM (2006) High power density from a miniature microbial fuel cell using Shewanella oneidensis. Environ Sci Technol 40:2629-2634 doi:10.1021/es052254w 42. Samsó R (2014) Numerical modelling of constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment. PhD Thesis. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) 43. Søvik AK, Augustin J, Heikkinen K, Huttunen JT, Necki JM, Karjalainen SM, Kløve B, Liikanen A, Mander U, Puustinen M, Teiter S, Wachniew P (2006) Emission of the greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane from Constructed Wetlands in Europe. J Environ Qual 35:2360-2373 doi:10.2134/jeq2006.0038 44. Strik DPBTB, Snel JFH, Buisman CJN (2008) Green electricity production with living plants and bacteria in a fuel cell. Int J Energy Res 32:870-876 doi:10.1002/er.1397 45. Tender LM, Reimers CE, Stecher HA, Holmes DE, Bond DR, Lowy DA, Pilobello K, Fertig SJ, Lovley DR (2002) Harnessing microbially generated power on the seafloor. Nat Biotechnol 20:821-825 doi:10.1038/nbt716 46. Venkata Mohan S, Mohanakrishna G, Chiranjeevi P (2011) Sustainable power generation from floating macrophytes based ecological micro environment through embedded fuel cells along with simultaneous wastewater treatment. Bioresource Technol 102:7036-7042 doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2011.04.033 47. Villaseñor J, Capilla P, Rodrigo M, Cañizares P, Fernández FJ (2013) Operation of a horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetland-microbial fuel cell treating wastewater under different organic loading rates. Water Res 47:6731-6738 doi:10.1016/j.watres.2013.09.005 48. Wu S, Kuschk P, Brix H, Vymazal J, Dong R (2014) Development of constructed wetlands in performance intensifications for wastewater treatment: a nitrogen and organic matter targeted review. Water Res 57:40-55 doi:10.1016/j.watres.2014.03.020 49. Yadav AK, Dash P, Mohanty A, Abbassi R, Mishra BK (2012) Performance assessment of innovative constructed wetland-microbial fuel cell for electricity production and dye removal. Ecol Eng 47:126-131 doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2012.06.029 50. Zhao Y, Collum S, Phelan M, Goodbody T, Doherty L, Hu Y (2013) Preliminary investigation of constructed wetland incorporating microbial fuel cell: Batch and continuous flow trials. Chem Eng J 229:364-370 doi:10.1016/j.cej.2013.06.023

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HISTORICAL CORNER Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, Catalonia

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CONTRIB SCI 11:121-124 (2015) doi:10.2436/20.7010.01.220

Pius Font i Quer (1888–1964), the greatest Catalan botanist Carme Puche,1,* Rubén Duro2 Estudi Puche, Barcelona, Catalonia. 2Journal International Microbiology

*Correspondence: Carme Puche Estudi Puche, Barcelona E-mail: carme@estudipuche.com

Summary. Pius Font i Quer (1888–1964) graduated in chemistry and pharmacy at the University of Barcelona. While studying for his doctorate at the University of Madrid, he entered to the Military Health Corps and became a military pharmacist, which allowed him to make expeditions throughout Spain and northern Africa. He carried out many botanical field studies at different areas of the Peninsula. During the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (1923–1930), Font i Quer, as a military pharmacist, was forced to choose a destination outside Barcelona. He decided to go to the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, where he stayed for four years. During his stay in Africa, he was able to explore the country’s flora. With the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in April 14, 1931, Font i Quer was appointed professor of pharmaceutical botany at the recently created Autonomous University of Barcelona (1932). During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), he continued to work to safeguard Barcelona’s botanical heritage. Three months after the end of the war, Font i Quer was arrested and was put in prison for a year and a half at Montjuïc Castle, with another six months in attenuated prison. Having lost all official positions in 1939, he started working at Editorial Labor. There, he wrote several relevant books: Geografía botánica de la Península Ibérica, 1953; Diccionario de botánica, 1953; Botánica, 1956; Botánica pintoresca, 1960 (partially translated into English); Plantas medicinales, 1962. In the last years of his life, Font i Quer had begun to think about collaborating on a new treatise on the flora of Catalonia. He died on January 3, 1964. Pius Font i Quer has left a legacy of more than 200 published works, the description of more than 200 new taxa, and the creation of the Catalan school of botany, which he raised to an international level. [Contrib Sci 11(1):121-124 (2015)]

Born in Lleida, Catalonia, on April 9, 1888, Pius Font i Quer (Fig. 1) was the only son of Manuel Font i Balué, a pharmacist, and Sofia Quer i Roca, a school teacher. When he was four, the family moved to Manresa, capital of the Bages district, in central Catalonia, where he soon discovered a passion for nature and joined the Centro Excursionista del Bages [4]. As a

young adult, Font i Quer studied chemistry at the University of Barcelona, graduating with honors. While attending classes given by the pharmacist and botanist Manuel Llenas (?–1937), at the Institució Catalana d’Història Natural, he discovered his vocation for botany. He then began to study pharmacy at the University of Barcelona, the only university degree with

Keywords: Pius Font i Quer (1888–1964) · Catalan botany · Botanical Institute of Barcelona ISSN (print): 1575-6343 e-ISSN: 2013-410X

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Font i Quer (1888–1964)

Fig. 1. In the book Plantas medicinales, Pius Font i Quer describes the characteristics of many medicinal plants, and the active principles to which curative effectiveness is attributed. (Illustration by Carlos Puche, in the journal Mètode, University of Valencia [6])

botanical training at the time. Font i Quer completed this second degree in two years (1908–1910), instead of four, again with honors. Another inspiration for Font i Quer was botanist Joan Cadevall i Diars (1846–1921), to whom he would report his findings about the flora of the Bages countryside. Cadevall impressed upon him the need for providing evidence for his explanations and as a result, scientific rigor was a constant in Font i Quer subsequent works [1,2]. While studying for his doctorate at the University of Madrid (at that time, the only Spanish university where doctorates were given), he took the test to enter to the Military Health Corps and became a military pharmacist, which allowed him to make expeditions throughout Spain and northern Africa. He defended his thesis Ensayo fitotopográfico de Bages in May of 1914, with honors.

The early years By 1917, Font i Quer was assistant naturalist at the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona and in 1921 he was promoted to the position of director. Meanwhile, he carried out a considerable number of botanical field studies throughout Catalonia, the Aragonese Pyrenees, and the Balearic Islands, part of Valencia, Murcia, Mallorca, Navarra and Central Aragon. This research resulted in around fifty www.cat-science.cat

published works. From 1917 to 1922 he was assistant professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Barcelona. Rather than traditionally structured lectures, Font i Quer’s classes were organized to observe nature. Whenever possible, he led student trips to study different vegetation. In 1922, Font i Quer applied for the newly vacant position of Botany Chair at the Faculty of Pharmacy but it was awarded to a less-qualified candidate. Years later, the botanical community would recognize the injustice of this oversight, but at the time, it resulted in his departure from the University of Barcelona. Meanwhile, in 1919, he married Emilia Civit, and they had two sons and three daughters. During the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (1923–1930), Font i Quer, as a military pharmacist, was forced to choose a destination outside Barcelona. He decided to go to the recently ‘pacified’ Spanish protectorate in Morocco, where he stayed for four years [5]. During his sojourn in Africa, he was able to explore the country’s flora, which was rather unknown at the time (Fig. 2). In 1930, he returned to his position as director of the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona and began a new stage as organizer and guide of naturalist research in Catalonia. During this time, Font i Quer ensured that the Museum acquired the collections of plants, books, journals and material necessary for optimum efficiency and quality. In 1928 he founded the international botanical journal Cavanillesia, Rerum Botanicum Acta, which he wrote and published on his own, without any financial support until 1938. Named in honor of the famous Valencian botanist Antonio José de Cavanilles (1745–1804), the journal specialized in the flora and vegetation of southern Europe and northern Africa. With the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic (April 14, 1931), Font i Quer was appointed professor of pharmaceutical botany at the recently created Autonomous University of Barcelona, 1932. In 1935 the Botanical Institute was founded, with Font i Quer as director. The Botanical Institute became the main center of Catalan botanical research.

The Spanish Civil War and the dark time of sorrow In the summer of 1936, a Botanical Society’s seminar (summer course) was organized. One objective of this course was to bridge the time difference between the academic year and the time of flowering, in order to study the vegetation in the 122

CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11: 121-124 (2015)

Puche, Duro

Fig. 2. Pius Font i Quer in 1932 with other scientists, probably in the camp of Hauta-el-Kasdir, Morocco, at 1750 m altitude. From left to right: Sr. Ferrer (entomologist), Jaume Àngel (plant recollector), Font i Quer and Joan-Bautista Aguilar-Amat (lepidopterologist). (Courtesy of the Institut Botànic de Barcelona, CSIC–Ajuntament de Barcelona.)

mountains and in the appropriate season [2,3]. When civil war broke out in 18 July 1936, Font i Quer was doing fieldwork with students and assistants in Orihuela del Tremedal, Aragon. He continued working with his students, while keeping informed of the political situation. By September, he realized that the conflict would be long and that the students should return home. While attempting to return the students to Barcelona, Font i Quer apparently was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and he ended up close to the front line on the Republican side. This would lead him to prison after the war was finished. However, during the war, Font Quer continued to work tirelessly to safeguard Barcelona’s botanical heritage. He was aware of the precarious situation the Botanical Institute was in. The Institute was housed in the Natural Sciences Museum building in Parc de la Ciutadella, which was exposed to the bombing by the facist Italian aircraft. So, he temporarily hid all valuable materials in a house in the Sant Gervasi district, in a neighbourhood unlikely to be affected by the bombs. Botanical research was continued there despite the atmosphere of war and potential destruction of the work done. Three months after the end of the war, Font i Quer was arrested and sentenced to eight years of prison for “aiding the rebellion”, due to his so-called “irregular” return with his students from Aragon to Barcelona. The fact that he was a military pharmacist during the Second Republic and possibly his insistence in writing articles in Catalan were also used as www.cat-science.cat

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proof against him. All told, Font i Quer was in prison a year and a half at Montjuïc Castle, an 18th century military fortress on the top of Montjuïc hill that served as a prison. Afterwards, he spent another six months in attenuated prison, where he was allowed out daily to go to work. In 1942 he was appointed a member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, then a clandestine organization, maintained by Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Botanists were included in the Institució Catalana d’Història Natural.

The long time of forced silence Having lost all official positions in 1939, he started to work at Editorial Labor, a Barcelona publishing house. The managers of the publishing house suggested he should address his work to a more generalized public, resulting in the scientifically rigorous and relevant works: Geografía botánica de la Península Ibérica, 1953; Diccionario de botánica, 1953; Botánica, 1956; Botánica pintoresca, 1960 (partially translated into English); Plantas medicinales. El Dioscórides renovado, 1962 [6] (Fig. 3). All these works were written in Spanish, at the time the only language permitted. The Diccionario de botánica made the largest impact on the scientfic community. While working at Editorial Labor, Font i Quer found that the quality of the Spanish language for botany and in general for science was very irregular and in most cases totally inadequate. CONTRIBUTIONS to SCIENCE 11:121-124 (2015)

Font i Quer (1888–1964)

Fig. 3. Three of the books by Pius Font i Quer: Iniciació a la botànica (Biblioteca del Pagès, 1938). Diccionario de botánica (Editorial Labor, 1953). Plantas medicinales. El Dioscórides renovado (Editorial Labor, 1962).

This forced him to seek expert linguistic co-operation, particularly in scientific terminology, from others, including several members of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans Catalan Studies. He soon realized that the solutions to the Spanish language problems would also be useful for Catalan, since, in many cases, the terminology was the same. Font i Quer’s terminology, although not considered ‘mandatory’, has been used for 50 years by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans to publish a large number of scientific works on botany, medical sciences, etc. In the last years of his life, Font i Quer had begun to think about collaborating on a new treatise on the flora of Catalonia in conjunction with the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. But this was not to be, because on 3 January 1964 Font i Quer suddenly died. Pius Font i Quer dedicated his life fully to science and to his country. He contributed to research and scientific dissemination, and he played a major role as promoter and manager of the most relevant research center of Catalan botany, the Botanical Institute of Barcelona. This Institute, in its day, was comparable to the most advanced centers in the world—a place for research, documentation and training geared to young researchers. Moreover, Font i Quer set up important projects in botany (flora, taxonomy, phytogeography, etc.); opened new lines on areas that remained unstudied, including mycology and phytosociology; and inspired many young naturalists that would later become noted scientists, including Ramon Margalef, Pere Montserrat www.cat-science.cat

and Oriol de Bolòs. In addition to the Botanical Institute of Barcelona, Font i Quer founded the Botanical Garden of Barcelona. He has left a legacy of more than two hundred published works, the description of more than two hundred new taxa, and the creation of the Catalan school of botany, which he raised to an international level. Acknowledgements. Authors thank the collaboration of Mercè Berlanga, Camen Chica, Mitsi Ito and Mercè Piqueras in the final form of this article. Competing interests. None declared.

References 1. Bolòs O (1988) Pius Font i Quer i les institucions científiques. In: Miscellània, homenatge al Dr. Pius Font i Quer. Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, Lleida 2. Camarasa JM, Artís M (1995) Pius Font i Quer (Lleida, 1888, Barcelona, 1964): La maduresa de la botànica catalana. In: Camarasa JM, RocaRosell A (ed) Ciència i tècnica als Països Catalans: una aproximació biogràfica als darrers 150 anys. Fundació Catalana per a al Recerca, Barcelona, Catalonia 3. Casas C (1988) L’activitat docent del Dr. Pius Font i Quer a la Facultat de Farmàcia de Barcelona. In: Homenatge de la Facultat de Farmàcia de Barcelona al Dr. Pius Font i Quer en el centenari del seu naixement, Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia 4. Font i Civit E (1988) El doctor Font i Quer botànic lleidatà. In: Miscel·lània, homenatge al Dr. Pius Font i Quer. Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, Lleida 5. González Bueno A (1988) Les campanyes botàniques de Pius Font i Quer al Nord d’Àfrica. Treballs de l’Institut Botànic de Barcelona 12:7-55 6. Guerrero R, Berlanga M (2014) Miracles i miratges. Mètode 81:106-107

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Institute for Catalan Studies

The Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC), academy of sciences and humanities, founded in 1907, is the top academic corporation of the territories of Catalan language and culture, and has been a full member of the International Academic Union since 1922. The IEC has 186 full or emeritus members from throughout the linguistic territory, and 72 corresponding members that represent our institution’s relations with the international scientific community, and has 28 filial societies of all fields of knowledge, with a total membership of around 10,000 across the whole territory. In addition, 111 local research centres also belong to it, and this shows how well grounded the research community is, throughout our cultural territory. The IEC is the central institution in the Catalan cultural world. It was set up in 1907 at the initiative of the Diputació de Barcelona to “establish here scientific study centres specialising and working not just in education, but in producing science and aiding research.” In the following years, the Institute set up its various science departments. The Philology Department, directed by Pompeu Fabra, played a key role in establishing the rules of the Catalan language.