An interview with Dr. Thomas Eisner

    Thomas Eisner is currently the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Biology, co-director of CIRCE, the Cornell Institute for Research in Chemical Ecology, and a Senior Fellow at the Cornell Center for the Environment. His love and curiosity for the world's most abundant and diverse lifeforms--insects--has propelled a remarkable scientific career. A member of Cornell University's faculty since 1957, Thomas Eisner has spent the last four decades studying the chemical ecology of insects and plants. Often cited as the co-founder of this field with colleague Jerrold Meinwald from Cornell's Chemistry Department, his accomplishments have ranged across a wide interdisciplinary spectrum, linking chemistry, biology, and (in one celebrated case) engineering in investigating and explaining the spectacular biological phenomena and animal behavior found in the insect world. Recently, the United States awarded Eisner its highest scientific honor, the National Medal of Science for his "seminal contributions in the fields of insect behavior and chemical ecology and for his international efforts on biodiversity" (Committee on the National Medal of Science). Dr. Eisner was also recognized for his concern and activism for conservation and human rights issues.

    In August, The Cornell Science and Technology Magazine interviewed Eisner to gauge his opinions on science, research, and activism. From his early childhood and undergraduate experiences to his latter days as professor and activist, we found a rich and varied image of this distinguished scientist.

The wonder of youth
    Thomas Eisner has been crazy about insects as long as he could remember. In his own words, "I was picking up everything that crawled ever since I could walk." Born on the eve of the Great Depression, Eisner remembers little of his childhood. Though originally from Berlin, his family moved to Barcelona upon Hitler's ascent to power in 1933. "Barcelona was an interesting choice since neither of my parents spoke any Spanish," says Eisner. Later on the Spanish civil war erupted and forced his parents from their sanctuary. Eisner remembers this time as his first memory of violence. "I was playing out in the sandbox," says Eisner, "and suddenly there was this huge explosion of TNT." The Cornell professor remembers feeling terribly annoyed rather than frightened. His parents felt otherwise and decided correctly that Europe was headed for big trouble. After a brief stay in France and Argentina, his family emigrated to Uruguay.

    South America turned out to be a wonderful place for young Thomas' unusual interests. "When I was about seven, I started in earnest, being surrounded by bugs," he says of his childhood. Though the fauna of subtropical Uruguay was not as biologically diverse as the rainforest, the number and beauty of insects was still outstanding. "It was exhilarating to grow up there," remarks Eisner. Thomas Eisner feels especially grateful to his parents. "I was marvelously encouraged from the earliest childhood," he claims. His father was a pharmaceutical chemist and mother an artist, both attributes that have been passed onto their son (Thomas Eisner is also a classical pianist). His parents were also fortunate and perceptive enough to escape the growing troubles in Europe. "My parents occasionally had a rough moment, but they always got out in the nick of time," says Eisner.

    When a young Eisner was ready for college in 1947, he emigrated to New York. At the time, Eisner spoke little English, and since as an immigrant he did not qualify as a foreign student, he took the college entrance examinations with regular students and flunked them cold. "I was turned down by every place I applied to," says Eisner, "in fact my letter of rejection from Cornell is on the wall, and the person who signed it would turn out to be my first next door neighbor at Cornell!" He eventually managed to gain admission into Champlain College in Plattsburgh, New York, which at the time functioned as an emergency school for young WWII GI veterans. After two years, he transferred to Harvard. Earning a Ph.D. there in 1955, he later sought an academic position at Cornell. "I had seen the Cornell campus before and had really fallen in love with it," he remarks. Along with some of his fellow graduate students, he got a Cornell position. With a wry smile, Eisner says, "...they've been burdened with my presence ever since!"

Cornell days
    Thomas Eisner studied many insects in his tenure as a Cornell professor. His research has encompassed a broad area of chemistry and biological sciences, bringing ecology, evolution, behavior, morphology, and basic entomology to detail highly evolved processes and systems which were previously unexplored. "We sort of turn to nature, have some phenomena stare us in the face and then try to see if there's some good science in it," says Eisner of his research practices. In the celebrated case of the Bombardier beetle, an insect that sprays boiling hot liquid at predators in defense, Eisner literally picked up the beetle, popped it into his mouth and said, "What the hell is this??" as it discharged its chemicals. In association with professor Daniel Aneshansley who was then an engineering student, Eisner demonstrated that the spray emerged in a controlled rapid-fire pulse from a nozzle under the beetle's body.

    Eisner has also studied chemical defense in such insects as the Blue Palmetto beetle and the Ornate moth. The Palmetto beetle clings to leaves with an incredibly strong chemical adhesion mechanism, rendering it nearly invulnerable to predators. The Ornate moth caterpillars ingest plants containing noxious alkaloids, rendering themselves unpalatable to other insects and poisonous to vertebrates. In this case, the moths deliberately store these chemicals. The males acquire the alkaloids from the plant and transfer them to the females during mating. The chemicals are subsequently placed in the eggs for defense. "Part of the mating is that the male brags about how much he's got of this chemical," Eisner says of the moths' mating behavior, "and unless he's got enough, the female won't accept him as a mate." Eisner's group is still working on the moth, figuring out mating strategies of males during competition.

    Eisner attributes much of his good fortune in research to his cooperation with Jerrold Meinwald of Cornell's Chemistry Department. Together, they discovered many new aspects of chemistry and biology that still astonish scientists. "Chemical communication is the fundamental form of communication in the world," says Eisner of his findings. "We ourselves are so blinded by acoustical and visual conventions that we tend not to pay major attention to chemical signals, but understanding the world in chemical terms is fundamental to the understanding of life." Through this knowledge, Eisner has gained a cautionary perspective of the human impact on the environment: "To fool around chemically with the world is interfering with a lot of natural chemistry that we don't understand. So the whole idea of 'Don't fool with Mother Nature, because you don't really know what you're doing' applies in a very significant degree to fooling chemically with nature."

The scientist activist
    Eisner has been active in biodiversity and conservation issues for many years. In the 70's he and his fellow biologists worked on preserving habitats in the Florida Keys and Texas. Eisner explains that his involvement has often been serendipitous. In the case of the Florida Keys, the Cornell scientist had a Masters student who, while working one summer for E. O. Wilson, a famous Harvard biologist, stumbled onto a totally unspoiled island off the super-commercialized Florida peninsula. "I got into my car with my photographic gear and went down there," says Eisner of his spontaneous enthusiasm, "I spent two days on the island and took photographs. I then wrote an article with Wilson for Natural History magazine." The editor was so interested that he visited the island himself and made their article a cover story. They later helped raise funds so the Nature Conservancy could buy and preserve the island. Eisner later rallied scientists to save a 90,000-acre area of land called the Big Thicket in Texas. He has also worked for conservation efforts in the tropics. Recently he has been a key figure in the lobbying effort to reenact the Endangered Species Act. In recognition of some of their activities, he received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, an award he shared with Jerrold Meinwald.

    The Cornell scientist has also developed new means to preserve biodiversity. His concept of "chemical prospecting," which hopes to link corporate interests, scientific research, environmental protection and non-invasive development in the developing world, has been widely publicized. Popularized by such movies as the Medicine Man and propounded by environmentalists and rainforest activists, the potential pharmaceutical application of still undiscovered rainforest flora and fauna holds hope for cures and treatments in modern medicine. "People are now recognizing what is sometimes referred to as the library of nature which has tremendous hidden value," says Eisner.

    "There is so much out there that we don't know yet, and so much of potential worth." Eisner also feels strongly about the social and economic benefits to the Third World. "The revenues derived from the exploration of nature have to be shared worldwide. Less- developed countries and especially indigenous people must receive a fair share of the profits." For Eisner there is much of intrinsic interest that can be learned from nature, but as a realist he sees the necessity of deriving marketable products, such as medicinals, from the exploration. "It's a real world. Unless nature itself generates revenue that can be invested in conservation, nature will simply disappear because it will be judged worthless," he cautions. He also points out the advantages of such pragmatism: "Linking the exploration of nature to market economics makes sense; it will do three things: generate jobs, offer new opportunities for investment, and provide funds for conservation. It should also help strengthen the scientific infrastructure of the Third World."

Future prospects
    Despite his activism, Eisner remains skeptical of our chances to turn things around for the environment in the near future. "The rate at which we're causing troubles in the world is going up," says Eisner, "and that's a function of our density, utilization of resources and what not. But the ability for us to respond politically to a problem has been more a less a constant, I would argue, for the last hundred years. This means there's an exponential increase in problems but a non-exponential increase in our ability to devise solutions." The scientist also foresees large scale human dislocation, due principally to resource exhaustion and population. "I think there's going to be much more erosion. The world is going to go downhill before things level off, mainly because population may still double, or come close to doing that. I think the cost of that is formidable. Whether the costs and the losses are going to be evenly shared across the world is very questionable."

    Eisner feels that the developed world must address its consumption levels before tackling worldwide overpopulation. "What despoils the environment is the consumption of the individual," says Eisner. Recent estimates from the WorldWatch Institute show that Americans consume their own weight in raw materials daily. Overall, the United States consumes 40% of the world's resources while constituting a mere 5% of the population. Meanwhile, one billion people remain malnourished and destitute. Their own environmentally destructive practices of torching rainforests and destroying habitat are ones of desperation, unlike the entirely preventable consumerism of the richest nations. "Let's by all means try to do things in the world, but let's start by setting an example here," says Eisner.

    As a scientist and Cornellian, Eisner feels that a university education has an important part to play in saving the world. "A university like Cornell really has a responsibility to create awareness," says the Cornell professor, "so that every person who comes to the American university system has a role to play, or at least thinks in terms of 'How can I contribute to a better world?'" He especially advises future scientists to look at advocacy and activism as logical components of their profession. "I'm absolutely convinced that every human being can do something for the world," says Eisner. "It's fundamental to our long range survival."

About the Author...
Rajiv Rawat is a junior studying ecology in the Arts & Sciences College. At present he spends his time between insects and humans, although after three years at RPU, the distinction has begun to blur.