Laurence Mound

Laurence A. Mound was born April 22, 1934 in Willesden, London. He attended Sir John Cass College, University of London from 1953-1957 receiving the B. Sc. Special in Zoology with 2nd Honors. He achieved the Diploma of Imperial College, London in Economic Entomology in 1958 and the Diploma of Tropical Agriculture from I.C.T.A. Trinidad in 1959. From 1959-1961 he was Entomologist to the Nigerian Federal Department of Agricultural Research, Ibadan, studying whitefly vectors of crop virus diseases, and from 1961-1964 Entomologist to Empire Cotton Growing Corporation stationed in Sudan studying whitefly effects on cotton lint. In 1964 he became responsible for whitefly and thrips collections and research as Senior Scientific Officer at the British Museum of Natural History, and in 1969 Head of the Hemiptera Section. He was appointed in 1975 Deputy Keeper, Department of Entomology, as Senior Principal Scientific Officer, and awarded the D. Sc. University of London. He was appointed Keeper of Entomology, Deputy Chief Scientific Officer in 1981. He was appointed Honorary Professor, University of Wales at Cardiff in 1990. In 1992 he retired as Keeper of Entomology to take up a two-year research contract from the British Museum of Natural History on central American Thysanoptera. In 1994 he moved to Australia where he serves as Honorary Research Fellow, CSIRO Division of Entomology, Canberra.

Dr. Mound has vast experience over his career studying insects worldwide. He studied at the U.S. National Museum in Washington in 1961, 1967-1968, 1970, 1993, and 1994. He studied collections in Frankfurt and Linz in 1966; Illinois in 1970; advisor to insect collections Goulandris Museum, Athens in 1974; advisor to British Council on insect collections and identification services in India in 1979; lead delegation of British Museum of Natural History in Beijing and Shanghai, China in 1980; studied in Japan in 1980, and Fiji, New Zealand, and Tasmania in 1982; advisor to Taiwan Museums on research and collections objectives in 1991; studied insect collections in Frankfurt in 1992; conducted field work in Costa Rica in 1992, studied collections at Simon Franzier University in Vancouver in 1994; collecting on Lord Howe Island and around Darwin, N.T. in 1996; and studied in 1997 in Brazil at Pircicaba and Sao Paulo, La Plata, Argentina, and California.

Dr. Mound went on leave to study Thysanoptera in Australia in 1967 and 1968; study leave in Malaya and Java in 1973; study leave at the U.S. National Museum in 1975; New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong in 1979; eastern Australia in 1985 and Kenya in 1986; San Jose, Costa Rica in 1991 and 1992; conducted research on thrips fauna in Taiwan at the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute in 1992; studied gall thrips on a National Geographic grant in northern Australia in 1993; conducted research with Australian Biological Resources Study to prepare Catalogue of Australian Thysanoptera in 1994; and conducted field work under a CSIRO McMaster Fellowship in 1995.

Dr. Mound is recognized as a leading authority on the taxonomy, phylogeny, and biology of the thrips. He published an important contribution on thrips in our geographic region in 1996 (with Rita Marullo), The Thrips of Central and South America: An Introduction (Insecta: Thysanoptera). He has developed the ecological concept of opportunism as it relates to thrips pest species, and his understanding of these aspects of thrips biology has led to successful integrated programs for management of thrips pests and tospoviruses vectored by seven species of thrips. Dr. Mound lectures widely including addresses at the Colombian Entomological Society, several international conferences on Thysanoptera and tospoviruses, the Brazilian Entomological Society. He was the final Plenary speaker at the International Congress of Entomology in Firenze.