From a Cambridge PhD on hippo grazing to a life in tropical ecology - 1963 Cambridge Botany graduate and distinguished botanist, Mike Lock, shares his varied career in the natural sciences.
Studying Plant Sciences at Cambridge can open up a wealth of career opportunities. In this series, we hear from Plant Sciences alumni about their experiences of studying here, how it shaped their careers and what they are doing now. If you would like your alumni story featured, please email us at alumni@plantsci.cam.ac.uk.
About Mike
Dr Mike Lock is a distinguished botanist best known for his work on African plants. Having graduated with a degree in Botany and Natural Sciences from Cambridge in 1963, he completed his PhD from Cambridge on the effects of hippo grazing in Uganda in 1967.
His professional journey highlights how varied a career in plant sciences can be – from fieldwork to academic posts in Africa and the UK, to global consultancy and digital botanical cataloguing.
His work is defined by a deep expertise in tropical botany, ecology, and taxonomy, spanning several decades and continents.
Key achievements include contributing to the International Legume Database and serving as the editor of the 'Kew Bulletin' for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Botany and Natural Sciences at Cambridge in 1963
I finished Part II Botany at Cambridge in 1963. Our class was small—only about 14 students—and run by the palaeobotanist Kenneth Sporne. While I was fascinated by his lectures, I found myself even more drawn to Harry Godwin’s sessions on historical ecology and palynology, and Eldred Corner’s insights into tropical botany.
These mentors inspired me to seek a research post in tropical historical ecology, but a surprise summons to the Professor’s office changed my trajectory entirely. Harry Godwin informed me that the Cambridge-based Nuffield Unit of Tropical Animal Ecology in Uganda needed a botanist to study the effects of hippo grazing on grasslands. I accepted, beginning a journey that would span continents and decades.
The Uganda years: hippos and grassland ecology
I spent nearly three years in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park, a project that culminated in my PhD: ‘Vegetation in relation to grazing and soils in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda’. My supervision began with Donald Pigott until he left Cambridge for Lancaster and was completed under David Spence from St Andrews who had been seconded to Makerere in Uganda.
Towards the end of my initial stay, a Ford Foundation grant transformed our unit into the Uganda Institute of Ecology. I was appointed as a Research Fellow, spending a further three years mapping the Park’s vegetation, collecting and listing its flora, and studying the seed biology of common grasses, as well as teaching introductory botany at Makerere University for one term of each year.
West African horizons: wild gingers and forest lianas
When my fellowship in Uganda came to an end, I moved to the University of Ghana as a Lecturer in Botany. Alongside my teaching duties in ecology and taxonomy, I became fascinated by wild gingers (Aframomum).
Their taxonomy was in a confused state, and I worked extensively on the genus, including a productive three-month study leave in the Botany School herbarium. My time in Ghana also allowed me to explore the identification of forest lianas and the floral biology of ground orchids.
A return to the UK and a decade of global consultancy
I returned to the UK in 1977 during a period of political instability in Ghana and took a one-year resettlement fellowship at Lancaster University. There, I joined the National Vegetation Classification Project, where I specialized in water plant communities—a task that required me to study habitats using a wet suit and snorkel.
Following Lancaster, I moved into botanical consultancy, beginning with a major project in southern Sudan, studying the potential impacts of the Jonglei Canal on the local environment and people. This resulted in a ten-volume report and the co-editing of the book ‘The Jonglei Canal – Impact and Opportunity’, published by Cambridge University Press.
This launched a ten-year period of global consultancy, ranging from rangeland management in Venezuela to investigating poisonous plants (Dichapetalum) in Tanzania, collecting seeds of wild relatives of the Wing Bean (Psophocarpus) in East and West Africa, and writing a management plan for Wicken Fen.
Kew Gardens: mapping Africa’s legumes and editing the Bulletin
In the mid-1980s, I began collaborating with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on the development of early botanical databases. I served as a beta tester for the ALICE computer program while compiling a checklist of the Legumes of Africa, which included approximately 5,800 taxa. This work eventually evolved into what is now the Legume Data Portal.
In 1990, I joined Kew permanently as the Editor of the ‘Kew Bulletin’. For the next 12 years I oversaw scientific publications and commissioned botanical artwork while continuing my own taxonomic research on African Zingiberaceae and the family Xyridaceae. I also was joint editor of and contributor to the Kew publication ‘Legumes of the World’. Even after my official retirement in 2002, I remained as the Editor of the ‘Bulletin’ until 2004.
Retirement: global taxonomy and local ornithology
Retirement has not meant an end to botanical work. I have continued to contribute to regional floras, including ‘Flora of Tropical East Africa’, ‘Flora Zambesiaca’ and ‘Flore du Gabon’ by synthesizing the research of others into comprehensive accounts.
However, since 2020, my focus has shifted toward another lifelong passion: ornithology. I spent ten years editing the ‘Devon Bird Report’ and helped produce the ‘Devon Bird Atlas’.
These days, my botanical contributions are local—leading nature walks, writing for my parish magazine, and supporting our local conservation society.
Looking back, the foundation laid in those small Cambridge classrooms in 1963 provided the springboard for a truly global career in the natural sciences.
Image: University of Cambridge Botany Part II class photo, 1963. From left to right: back row - Mike Lock, John Cram, John Raven (d. 2025); second row - Trevor Pierce, Noel Fowler, James Moore, David Ockendon, János Antonovics; front row - Mike Collett (d. circa 2016), Herbert Aldwinckle, Rosalie Osborn (d. 2015), Engkik Soepadmo (d. 2021), John Gibbs, Mike van den Driessche. Credit: University of Cambridge / photo kindly supplied by Mike Lock.