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Every year, one of the highlights of the NVG Annual Meeting is the Baerends Lecture, for which internationally-renowned behavioural biologists are invited. Gerard Baerends (1916-1999) studied Biology in Leiden and was one of the students of nobel-prize winner Niko Tinbergen. He specialized in the study of behaviour of animals in their natural environment and developed new theoretical frameworks to explain their behaviour. In 1946, Baerends became Professor of Zoology at Groningen University. He started a tradition of excellent behavioural biology research in Groningen and supervised 43 PhD students.
Recent Baerends Lectures were given by: 2011 Jens Krause (Humboldt University Berlin) - Social Networks and Collective Behaviour 2010 Theo Bakker (University of Bonn) - On kin recognition and sexual selection 2009 Hans Hofmann (University of Texas at Austin) - Genes, hormones and social behaviour: An integrative approach towards decision making 2008 Innes C. Cuthill (University of Bristol) - Animal camouflage through animal eyes 2007 Redouan Bshary (Université de Neuchâtel) - Fishes as model systems for the study of cooperation 2006 Martin Wikelski (University of Princeton) - Going wild: why biology needs field research 2005 Alex Kacelnik (University of Oxford)- Tool-oriented behaviour in New Caledonian Crows 2004 Judy Stamps (University of California, Davis)- Habitat selection and the role of natal habitat preference induction 2003 Hans-Peter Lipp (University of Zürich) - Mouse behaviour and cognition: from genotype to phenotype - from phenotype to genotype 2002 Monique Borgerhoff Mulder (UC Davis, USA) - Recent Questions in Human Behavioural Ecology 2001 Barry Keverne (University of Cambridge, UK) - Genomic imprinting, brain evolution and maternalism 2000 Claus Wedekind (University of Edinburgh, UK) - Genetic variance and sexual selection Gerard Pieter Baerends slipped away unobtrusively on 1 September 1999 at the age of 83, with a manuscript on his table and the passkey to the Biological Centre of Groningen University in his jacket pocket. Baerends was such a pervasive and familiar figure that his friends find it difficult to realize that our link with the "heroic period" of the study of animal behaviour has been severed. Having defended his closely reasoned doctoral thesis Fortpflanzungsverhalten und Orientierung der Grabwespe Ammophila campestris (published in full in 1941, Tijdschrift voor Entomologie 84: 68-275) at the early age of 25 as one of the first-generation pupils of Niko Tinbergen at Leiden University, Baerends like many of his countrymen had to adjust his ambitions to the constraints of wartime occupation. Of course his projected adventure in marine biology in the Dutch East Indies was beyond his reach, but Baerends was fortunate in obtaining a research post in Fisheries Research and for the remainder of the war years achieved a mastery of the archives reports and publications that had a bearing on the overfishing problem of North Sea fish stocks. Baerends was fascinated by the pre-eminent role of basic curiosity-driven research in shaping the contours within which the applied problem of over-fishing could be dealt with in a rational manner, and his taste of marine biology was to remain a life-long inspiration. When approached by Groningen University to fill the vacant Professorship in Zoology Baerends promptly stipulated that he would make "field biology" (or as we now would say, field work) the primary source of inspiration: academic biologists would go outdoors again. Moreover, he would have the freedom to develop both ecological and ethological themes in restructuring the Zoology Laboratory. Although he will best be remembered abroad for his many contributions to the study of ethology, Baerends indeed achieved his ideal in serving his "two pillars of wisdom" (Baerends, 1985) by providing a stimulating environment for ecological work as well. Of his PhD students (43 in all) no less than 20 explored ecological themes, and the breadth of his influence is witnessed by the fact that at one point the directorship of the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), the National Institute of Fisheries Research (RIVO), and the Limnological Institute of the Royal Academy (KNAW) were all recruited from Baerends' pupils. The rapid expansion of the Groningen laboratory and the solid achievements of the fifties when the new facilities in Haren had been inaugurated (1953) should not blind us to the fact that Groningen University had little to recommend itself when Baerends was appointed at age 30 in 1946. Annually there were only 5-6 students enlisted in Biology, and the illustrious past of this university, the second oldest in the country, was mainly evident in the achievement of avoiding closure at various critical junctures. Baerends had limitless energy and a fine sense of timing, and managed to staff his laboratory by enlisting his talented friends from Leiden. Foremost among them was Luuk Tinbergen, Niko's younger brother, who defended his famous thesis on the sparrow hawk in Leiden in 1946 and was appointed three years later to strengthen ecology in Groningen. In these busy years, arguably "the finest hour" of this pioneer enterprise, the monograph on cichlid fish behaviour appeared (Baerends & Baerends-van Roon, 1950) the classic study on the guppy (Baerends, Brouwer & Waterbolk, 1955) with the figure on the interplay between external factors on eliciting courtship behaviour which has found its way into so many ethology textbooks, and the thoughtful treatise on the comparative method in ethology (Baerends, 1958) selected as one of the classic 'founding papers' in a recent compilation (see Houck & Drickamer, 1996). In this period (1955) Baerends also hosted one of the first International Ethological Conferences. The nomination of Baerends to the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in 1958 followed (1968) by election to the Hollandsche Maatschappij van 11 Wetenschappen brought him into the orbit of strategic decisions which were to shape the scientific landscape in the Netherlands for decades to come. In the early years observational work in the laboratory was closely linked with fieldwork of unparalleled intensity, manned by a growing body of enthusiastic students camping on Terschelling with Gerard. Here he was able to use a WWII bunker in the dunes as base of operations in the Herring Gull colony, starting in 1950. The Herring Gull project, another textbook classic, owed its inception to the need to find an appropriate vehicle to train students in causal and functional aspects of ethology in an outdoor setting, as it was Baerends' conviction that a taste for fieldwork was essential to maintain a focus on the entire organism in its natural environment. When Niko Tinbergen left Leiden in 1949 to take up his duties in Oxford, Baerends 'inherited' the original egg models used in choice experiments aimed at understanding the rules governing egg recognition (Tinbergen 1953). Baerends thus made a flying start and greatly extended the repertoire of models and the breadth of the study. A full analysis of the decision making process in the herring gull facing a choice between conflicting stimuli did not materialize until he escaped on his one and only sabbatical year (the session 1964/65, spent in the congenial atmosphere of the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California). Baerends was able to guide the multi-author enterprise (Baerends & Drent, 1970 and 1982) through to publication only after he had managed to free himself from the growing burdens of administration crowding in on him. A time-consuming but highly rewarding experience came Baerends' way when the talented film producer Bert Haanstra approached him (1969) with the question if he would act as the scientific collaborator for an ambitious plan to undertake a ninety-minute film bringing ethology and the significance of the comparative approach for human behaviour to the general public. The film Ape and Super Ape (Dutch original Bij de Beesten Af) was released in 1973 and although it elicited hostility in some circles by the innuendo that humans were animals after all, millions of people became aware that ethology was a scientific discipline of great potential significance to themselves. Alas the administrative structure of the universities in the Netherlands underwent a long phase of overhaul at about this time, epitomized by a clogged bureaucracy. Against this troubled background the Max Planck Gesellschaft approached Baerends with an astounding offer. They had selected him to succeed Lorenz at the Seewiesen institute, created in 1958 for Lorenz and von Holst and now about to be given a new lease of life, providing a talented director could be found. Baerends held Lorenz in high regard, but he eschewed Lorenz' disregard for careful quantification and doubted whether he could carry through what amounted to a scientific revolution at the Seewiesen institute. At the same time Baerends had a keen appreciation of the qualities of his colleagues-to-be and thus commenced an agonizing period of selfdoubt and worry. The decision was not made any easier by the news of the Nobel award to the triumvirate von Frisch-Lorenz-Tinbergen. Alarmed at the prospect of his imminent departure, a counter-proposal was launched by the combined efforts of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, Groningen University and the Ministry of Education and Sciences. According to this alternative scenario, Baerends would be offered a personal chair at Groningen University, with his own research group and sufficient support to undertake ambitious studies both in the field and in the laboratory, and all this without bureaucratic tangle. Faced by this adroit initiative Baerends said farewell to the Seewiesen alternative and devoted the years 1973-86 to a consolidation of his achievements in his home setting at Groningen University. Baerends also retained his responsibilities towards the international journal Behaviour which together with Thorpe and Tinbergen he had founded in 1948, and served as executive editor through more than 100 volumes (retiring from the editorial board at the completion of volume 118, 1991). In these years Baerends and his wife, Jos, another pupil of Niko Tinbergen, also 12 found the opportunity to report on their observations on play behaviour in cats. This project was originally envisaged as a PhD topic for Jos but eventually carried through jointly as was typical of their partnership. The unexpected death of Jos Baerends in 1991 just short of their golden wedding anniversary was understandably a severe blow to Gerard, but in keeping with his character he carried his burden alone. If it be true to recall that Niko Tinbergen sparked the interest of Gerard as a lad of 12, and provided early training and what amounted to imprinting on the delights of fieldwork, it is equally true that the support and understanding of his wife Jos carried him on a wavecrest of achievement for no less than 55 years. His many friends look back fondly on the friendships that arose and superseded the teacher-pupil starting point, and will miss both his sound judgement and his caustic comments, either verbal or written, which he deliverd whenever he felt a corrective influences was called for. He has been our pilot, tendering advice, but leaving us free to take our own decisions and abide by them. (from the NVG Nieuwsbrief 1999 by Rudi Drent)
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