SIR PATRICK (PAT) P.G. BATESON FRS (1938–2017)

Pat Bateson passed away on 1 August 2017. With him, the study of animal behaviour lost one of its most prominent and influential representatives. His death coincided with the 35th International Ethological Conference (Behaviour 2017) held in Estoril (Portugal), where the sad newswas publicly announced by the ASAB President, Pat Monaghan. It was more than fitting that it was given special attention during that meeting, not only because Pat Bateson was a regular and active participant in IECs throughout his career, but in particular because of his many important contributions to advancing the field and its theories, which continued up to the last moment. Pat started as an undergraduate in Cambridge in 1957, where he also obtained his Ph.D. under the supervision of Robert Hinde, as a member of the Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour at Madingley, one of the core nuclei of the field at the time. After a fellowship at Stanford, he returned to Cambridge where he later became Professor of Ethology, and Director of the Sub-Department from 1976 until 1988. His scientific interests ranged broadly, but it is especially the topic of behavioural development to which he contributed a lot. His authoritative review of imprinting (Bateson, 1966) changed the existing ideas on the topic. It is still cited regularly and his views have become mainstream textbook material. Imprinting remained one of his core interests: he collaborated with his Cambridge colleague Gabriel Horn to use it for inquiries into the brain’s mechanisms of learning. To Pat, imprinting was also a starting point to develop and advance his ideas on behavioural development more generally as a dynamic and interactive process. He never got tired of explaining that behavioural development cannot be simply pictured as Nature versus Nurture and that its study requires us to go well beyond frequently encountered classifications of behaviour as either learned or innate. He promoted this view not only in our field, but also inmuch broader areas of biology andmedicine, as well as in psychology and other branches of social sciences and humanities. He also advanced the view that environmental influences experienced at an early age can affect the development of the phenotype in such a way as to make it prepared for the conditions it has to face as an adult. From here it is just a small step to realize that the processes underlying behavioural development and evolutionary changes are interrelated: behavioural changes induced during development might guide evolutionary changes, making the developing individual an active agent in shaping evolution.