Professor Bryan Davies died suddenly and unexpectedly in July 2015, leaving both a great gap and a rich memory- bank in the freshwater ecological community. Bryan was a flamboyant, energetic and passionate freshwater ecologist who made a tremendous contribution to South African freshwater science and conservation.
In the 1980s Bryan worked on estuaries – on Swartvlei Lake and the Kowie and Bushmans River estuaries. He came to South Africa, via Mozambique, with experi- ence from the IBP international biological programmes in Lake George, East Africa, and Loch Leven, UK, and was interested in secondary production contributed by macroinvertebrates. He moved to the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1981 and began to take a keen interest in freshwater ecology, mentoring one of South Africa's great river ecologists – Professor Jackie King. Together they, with Professor Jenny Day, led the Freshwater Research Unit to its premier freshwater research status in southern Africa.
Bryan was a leading and active member of SASAqS – he took me to my first ‘LSSA’ meeting (Limnological Society, as it was then called) in Stellenbosch in 1980. A compelling speaker, Bryan gave provocative papers, and was a charismatic lecturer. He collaborated with Professor Jay O'Keeffe in the first African studies on the downstream effects of dams. He supported Jay and Jackie in their pioneering work on the freshwater requirements of rivers that paved the way for the legal provisions for environmental flows now embedded in the South African National Water Act.
An excellent scientist, Bryan was never afraid to write and speak passionately about protecting the environ- ment. He frequently strayed from ‘objectivity’ into emotive advocacy, and the book he wrote with Jenny Day – Vanishing Waters – remains a standard freshwater ecology text for southern Africa.
As Bryan's first postgraduate student at Rhodes University, I have my own personal memory-bank: Bryan sinking, with vast Eeyore sighs, into a tearoom chair, running his hands through his thick blond hair – despairing at some issue of the day. His affront at the ‘groot krokodil’ ordering massive aquatic vegetation clearing in Swartvlei to make for easier boating! I remember navigating with him a slippery road to Waters Meeting, on the Kowie River, to collect small estuarine mussels – missing the tide and having to dive for samples over the side of a small boat. And Bryan's bringing of international perspectives on river function to the 1986 SASAqS conference in Swakopmund paved the way for my doctoral research.
Bryan will also be remembered for his kindness and generosity – especially in his mentorship of graduate students and young colleagues. He was a vibrant, committed colleague. Now new generations of freshwater ecologists must take his vision of sustainable freshwater ecosystems into the future, advocating with that same energy and commitment – which is his legacy.