Jonathan J. Cole (1953-2023)

Abstract

We are sad to inform the ASLO community that Jonathan J. Cole passed away on 25 July 2023 (Fig. 1). Jon was well known to ASLO members serving as Member at Large from 1994 to 1997 and as President from 2004 to 2006. Jon was an Associate Editor for L&O and L&O Letters. He also co-organized the 1997 ASLO meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Beyond this strong record of service to ASLO, Jon was a scientific leader, colleague, mentor, and friend to many in our community.

Jon grew up in New York City where he attended the prestigious High School of Music and Art. At Amherst College, he had the good fortune of working with Stuart Fisher's research group which included many future ecologists including one of us (S.R.C.). Jon did his Ph.D. at Cornell University (with G.E.L.). His dissertation research focused on Mirror Lake in New Hampshire and the production of organic matter by phytoplankton (Cole and Likens 1979). Jon moved on to postdoctoral appointments at the Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory and at the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). Jon's oceanographic experience at WHOI was formative and set some of the intellectual paths in his largely limnological career. Jon became a member of the scientific staff of the newly formed Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in 1983. He retired from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies as a Distinguished Senior Scientist in 2014.

It is simplistic to say Jon was a “carbon guy” but much of his research revolved around the aquatic carbon cycle. And he knew it well. He was adept at discussing subjects as varied as the intricacies of dissolved inorganic carbon chemistry, production and respiration in the ocean, and changes in the carbon cycle over the Holocene. Jon documented that many lakes and rivers are super-saturated in CO₂ and thus net sources to the atmosphere. He and his co-authors won the ASLO Martin Award for their 1994 Science paper entitled: “Carbon Dioxide Supersaturation in the Surface Waters of Lakes” (Cole et al. 1994). Jon worked with two of us (M.L.P., S.R.C.) on the contribution of terrestrial organic carbon to aquatic food webs. This research involved whole-lake additions of inorganic carbon-13 to quantify support of consumers by terrestrial sources (Fig. 2). These manipulations required thinking about gas exchange, dissolved inorganic carbon, particulate carbon, dissolved organic matter, methane production, zooplankton, benthos, and even how fish get their food (Cole et al. 2006). Quantifying these carbon stocks and movements required deep scientific discussions about nerdy topics like the rate at which gases exchange across the air-water interface. Jon loved these conversations and could not be deterred from them unless it was time to eat.

Jon was a leader of a Cary Institute team that notably investigated the impacts of the zebra mussel invasion of the Hudson River Estuary. Jon with his wife, Nina Caraco, developed convincing evidence that zebra mussels reduced phytoplankton production over 80% in the Hudson (Caraco et al. 2005). Jon and Nina also investigated many aspects of the Hudson carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and oxygen cycles. This work included the discovery, based on carbon-14 analysis, that Hudson organic carbon, including some critters, is very old, meaning that their organic carbon was thousands of years old, not modern (Caraco et al. 2010). This puzzle is probably the result of erosion of old soil carbon into the river and decomposition processes that cause the carbon to enter food webs.

A synthesis team including Jon formed in 2003 and worked together at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in Santa Barbara to quantify the role of inland waters in the global carbon cycle. From this research came one of Jon's most well cited papers on inland waters as pipes, processors, and collectors of carbon (Cole et al. 2007). Jon's “pipe” figure is one of the most widely presented illustrations in talks at ASLO meetings and indicative of the stimulus provided by this research. Indeed, the NCEAS working group put the topic of global limnology on the map. Many contemporary regional and global scale analyses of lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and streams are descendants of the original ideas formed in these early efforts.

Jon was recognized with awards and honors. He was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2014. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2003, he won the Ecological Institute Prize and from that award wrote a book in the Excellence in Ecology series on freshwaters and the carbon cycle (Cole 2013). In it you will find a picture of grilled tambuqui (a South American tropical fish) and learn that there is more organic carbon in lake sediments than in terrestrial soil and vegetation.

Jon had wide interests. He often chatted with us over email about books he was reading. He shared with Nina a love of dogs and all kinds of outdoor recreation including diving, kayaking, skiing, wind surfing, and kite boarding. The chronology of Jon's engagement with these sports was roughly in reverse order of their difficulty which required achieving an ever-higher level of physical fitness. Jon liked to tinker and would regale us with his latest endeavor in home maintenance. These stories usually had the central theme of a problem resolved by cleverness learned at the hardware store.

No memorial of Jon would be complete without a comment on his humor and occasional wacky acts. Everyone has a story. One of us (M.L.P.) frequently traveled with Jon to the site of our whole lake experiments. In the intense airport security aftermath of 11 September 2001, passengers were required to put all luggage through a scanning machine. Jon did so one day, and as he pitched his bag onto the roller belt, he yelled, “Bombs away!” His aghast colleague was relieved after quickly looking around and seeing that no one was listening—another potential travel disaster with Jon averted.

Jon's work at Cary Institute did not involve the same level of student supervision that comes with a university position, but he was a mentor to many at several levels. He worked with visitors, Cary postdocs, and students from numerous institutions, and they benefited from his knowledge and enthusiasm. Jon was interested in science, but he was also interested in culture and people. Many a student and postdoc far from home engaged with Jon about their cuisine and traditions. These engagements often led to lively dinners hosted by Nina and Jon where some exotic recipe was prepared to the delight of visitors.

Jon's informal mentees, colleagues, and friends learned and grew through their association with him. Many ASLO members will recall rich experiences with Jon at meetings and other engagements. His influence will endure through the innovative science he produced and the strong bonds he formed.