Colin Groves

Colin Peter Groves (24 June 1942 – 30 November 2017) was an English-Australian biologist and anthropologist, known for his research on the taxonomy of primates. He was a professor of biological anthropology at the Australian National University. In 2016 he received the Osman Hill Memorial Medal of the Primate Society of Great Britain, an affiliate of the European Federation for Primatology (EFP).

Quotes

The place of origin of the Phacochoerinae is unknown, but both Sus and Potamochoerus, today neatly separated by the Sahara, found their earliest ancestors in the Siwaliks, while a Potamochoerine, Celebochoerus, survived in Sulawesi into the Pleistocene.
- Ancestors for the Pigs: Taxonomy and Phylogeny of the Genus Sus. Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. 1981. p. 8. ISBN 0909596751.

This useful book surveys endangered species (and subspecies), stating where each lives and why it is endangered. ...
The non-Australian conservationist will find much of interest here. The devastation wreaked by introduced species has been astounding: so many formerly widespread species have been swept off their entire mainland ranges by competition from the introductions, survivng only if their ranges happened to include offshore islands which were not reached by rabbits, hares, foxes, feral cats, introduced rats and mice, goats, donkeys, horses, camels, buffaloes, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds.
- (January 1985)"book review: Our Wildlife in Peril by Endangered Species Committee of the Total Environment Centre, published by A.H. and A.W. Reed Ltd. in Sydney, Australia". Oryx 19 (1): 51–52. DOI:10.1017/S0030605300019621.

The first of the 'complete theories' of evolution developed in modern times was the 'nomogenesis' of Berg (1969; translation of work published in 1922). While badly hampered by an ignorance of genetics, slow to reach the Russia of the early twentieth century, Berg's consideration of the Darwinian model led him to the conclusion that it was incompatible, at least as the major mechanism, with what he knew of the pattern of living organisms and their evolution.
- A Theory of Human and Primate Evolution. Oxford University Press. 1989. p. 60. 1st sentence 2nd sentence

As new methods of investigation become available to us, levels of analysis can be conducted: nuances undreamed of by Wyman, Matschie, Rothschild, even Coolidge. Science had advanced, but human behavior has not. People still hunt gorillas for food or trophies, and still cut down their forests; but now those same advances in science also enable forests to be cut down more efficiently, gorillas to be hunted more efficiently, human populations to increase ever faster and press in on the remaining habitat, so that our second-closest relative is threatened with disappearing for ever. More and more, the work of taxonomists and other biologists must be put into the service of conservation.
- "Chapter 2. A history of gorilla taxonomy by Colin P. Groves". Gorilla Biology: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Volume 34 of Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology. Cambridge University Press. 2002. pp. 15–34. ISBN 0521792819. (quote from pp. 30–31; edited by Andrea B. Taylor and Michele L. Goldsmith)

Taxonomy has a well-defined role, which is much more than simply stamp-collecting and pigeon-holing. Species are the units of classification, biogeography and conservation; as such they must be defined as objectively as possible. The biological species concept, still widely used in biology, though predominantly by non-taxonomists and all too often misunderstood, is a process-based concept, which offers no criterion for the classification of allopatric populations beyond inference and hypothesis. The phylogenetic species concept—a pattern-based concept—is as nearly objective as we are likely to get. Amount of difference is not a criterion for recognizing species. It is not possible to insist on monophyly at the specific level, but it is mandatory for the higher categories (genus, family, etc.). The rank we assign to a given supraspecific category should be determined by its time depth.
- (October 2004)"The What, Why and How of Primate Taxonomy". International Journal of Primatology 25: 1105–1126. DOI:10.1023/B:IJOP.0000043354.36778.55.

This article reviews changes in primate taxonomy, especially those pertaining to the meaning of the term species, since its inception two and a half centuries ago. Despite continuing discoveries and the involvement of competent practitioners, the adoption of the polytypic species concept, especially underpinned by the biological species concept, ensured that primate taxonomy was in a sorry state by the middle of the twentieth century. In the latter half of the twentieth century, a gradual rethinking of the nature of species took place, and many different species concepts were proposed. The phylogenetic species concept has been widely adopted over the past ∼20 years, sustained by a gradual realization that species are evolutionary lineages. This review provides examples of how the old way of thinking about species hampered our understanding of primate biodiversity and of how the phylogenetic species concept (or the diagnosability criterion under the general lineage concept) has clarified matters, opening them up for discussion. The adoption of this evolutionary view of species has implications for conservation, particularly because it increases recognition of biodiversity.
- (October 2014)"Primate Taxonomy: Inflation or Real?". Annual Review of Anthropology 43: 27–36. DOI:10.1146/annurev-anthro-102313-030232.

There has been a lot of discussion about ‘the species question’ over the past 20–30 years, and several surveys have converged on the essence of what we mean by species: they are evolutionary lineages ... Species thus have a real existence. This settles the ontological status of the species concept, but it does not necessarily solve the question of how to recognise them; the most logical way of defining species operationally is by the so-called Phylogenetic Species Concept: ‘A species is the smallest population or aggregation of populations which has fixed heritable differences from other such populations or aggregations’ ...
- "Chapter 2. An Overview of the Primates by Colin Groves". Primates. 2018. pp. 11-27. doi:10.5772/intechopen.70264. (quote from p. 20; edited by Mark Burke and Maurice Ptito)

While studying gorilla taxonomy under the supervision of John Napier, he had the good fortune to meet Osman Hill, Sherry Washburn, Louis Leakey and Wilfred Le Gros Clark, all of them famous researchers in the field of Anthropology and Primatology. Equally important to Colin, as he recalled in Groves (2008), was his meeting with Guy, the lone male silverback gorilla − then at London Zoo.
- Spartaco Gippoliti, (2018). "Colin P. Groves (1942-2017) and his legacy". Natural History Sciences. Atti Soc. it. Sci. nat. Museo civ. Stor. nat. Milano 5 (2): xx–xx. DOI:10.4081/nhs.2018.385.