Anche Louw (née Müller) works part time as ALSA’s Social Science Communicator, giving talks to schools and keeping the project active on Twitter. A great pleasure then for the Antarctic Legacy of South Africa to report that yesterday she graduated with a Master of Science degree in Botany from Stellenbosch University.
Anche conducted her thesis research at Marion Island as a member of the 70th Overwintering Team over the period April 2013 – May 2014. Her MSc thesis is entitled ‘Plant Functional Types on Marion Island’. Field work required the setting up of study plots in different habitats and taking detailed physiological and morphological measurements of the plants present. Prior to overwintering Anche visited the island during the 2011 relief to conduct research towards her BSc. Botany and Zoology Honours degree on spatial variation in nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios of the island’s plants and soils.
Her Honours and Masters research was supervised by Professor Valdon Smith, recently retired from Stellenbosch University’s Department of Botany and Zoology but still active in sub-Antarctic botanical research. In fact, Valdon is currently the longest-active researcher within SANAP, first having gone to Marion (and practically every year since) in December 1971 as a member of the four-person 2nd Biological Expedition.
An MSc was not all that Anche brought back to South Africa from Marion. She and fellow team member Hennie Louw married in November last year.
Feature Photograph: Anche Louw is fifth from the right in the second row
John Cooper, Principal Investigator, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, 15 March 2016