Marine biologist North dies

Wheeler North, whose seminal Caltech research showed that the ocean’s kelp forests are as vital and productive as any land-based woodlands, died of lymphoma December 20 in Newport Beach, California. He was 80.

A professor of environmental science, emeritus, North spent much of his research career working out of Caltech’s Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory in Corona del Mar. He pioneered the use of scuba diving as a basic marine science research tool, making his first dive in 1949 as a Caltech undergraduate. (After earning a BS in electrical engineering from Caltech in 1944, he returned to receive his BS in biology in 1950.) He purchased one of the first Aqua-Lungs sold in the United States; the Aqua-Lung, invented by Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnon, was a predecessor of modern scuba equipment.

North’s research proved kelp beds are part of a complex marine ecosystem providing food and shelter for hundreds of underwater species, and showed that human effluent deposited off the Southern California coast was adversely affecting kelp forests. The sewage, he found, was helping to feed and grow the sea urchin population, which, in turn, was feasting on kelp stalks and shrinking the forests. With his colleagues, he developed techniques for restoring kelp beds, and he also studied kelp as an alternative energy source. He taught at Caltech from the early 1960s until the mid-1990s.

Writing about his work and his passion for the ocean in National Geographic in 1972, North said, “I am a scuba forester and the ‘trees’ I tend are giant, vine-like streamers from the ocean floor off Southern California.”

“He must have been coded for the genes that express endorphins. He was eternally optimistic,” said Michael Hoffmann, dean of graduate studies.

North is survived by his wife, Barbara; a son, Wheeler; and a daughter, Hannah.
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