Jennifer Owen

Jennifer Owen (c. 1935), discovered new species of insect and wrote numerous books on British wildlife.

Dr.

Jennifer Owen
Born
Jennifer Bak

c. 1935
Leicester
NationalityBritish
EducationOxford
Known fordiscovering new species of insect

Career

Jennifer Bak was born the daughter of F. A. Bak, a noted amateur ornithologist and Leicester based textile manufacturer.[1][2] Owen went on to study zoology in Oxford where in 1955 as an undergraduate she met Denis Owen. They married after graduation in 1958 and she went to the University of Michigan to work as a teaching fellow and complete a research PhD on the study of wasps.[3][4] After the doctorate Owen took up teaching positions from 1962 in Makerere University, Uganda and Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone as well as Sweden. On her return to the department of zoology with University of Leicester in 1971 she noticed the huge number of insects in her garden in the United Kingdom compared to those in Africa and the study began.[4][5][6]

Owen achieved the recording of ninety-one of the 256 species of hover flies in Britain in fourteen years.[7] in thirty years of study she recorded 2,204 insect species in her own garden while also finding 20 species new to Britain and six which were previously undescribed. She wrote a book on the study, Wildlife of a Garden: A Thirty-Year Study. As well as the insects she counted Owen grew over 400 different plant species to determine the best food for the insects being tracked.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] The garden, and home of Owen is in Leicester. She worked as a zoology museum curator and university lecturer, however she is now a wheelchair user due to the impact of multiple sclerosis.[4]

Owen won the Veitch Memorial Medal for outstanding contribution to the advancement and improvement of the science and practice of horticulture in 2010.[16]

Personal life

Owen had a son and a daughter with Denis Owen. They divorced in 1994.[3]

Bibliography
  • Suburban Gardens: England's Most Important Nature Reserve?. 1975.
  • Feeding Strategy. Phoenix books. University of Chicago Press. 1982. ISBN 978-0-226-64186-7.
  • Mysteries and Marvels of Insect Life. Mysteries and Marvels Series. EDC Publishing. 1985. ISBN 978-0-88110-173-7.
  • More Mysteries and Marvels of Nature. Usborne Publishing, Limited. 1984. ISBN 978-0-86020-856-3.
  • The Ecology of a Garden: The First Fifteen Years. Cambridge University Press. 1991. ISBN 978-0-521-34335-0.
  • Wildlife of a Garden: A Thirty-year Study. Royal Horticultural Society. 2010. ISBN 978-1-907057-12-0.

References
  1. Informa UK Limited 1934, pp. P399–P400.
  2. Fray et al. 2010, p. 537.
  3. Smith 1996.
  4. The Independent 2010.
  5. Wlgf.
  6. Owen, Owen & Chanter 1972, p. 200.
  7. Pacific Horticulture Society 2018.
  8. Atkins & Atkins 2018, p. 58.
  9. for biodiversity and people 2014.
  10. Gilbert 2012, p. 112.
  11. John 2018, p. 222.
  12. Transatlantic Gardener 2011.
  13. OWEN, TOWNES & TOWNES 1981, pp. 315–336.
  14. New Scientist.
  15. Inglis-Arkell 2011.
  16. Horticulture Week 2010.

Sources
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