Douglas Barton Osborne Savile

Who was Douglas Barton Osborne Savile?

Douglas Barton Osborne Savile was an Irish-born Canadian mycologist, plant pathologist and evolutionary biologist. He is particularly renowned for his unique work on the coevolution of host plants and their rust fungi.

Doug Savile was born in Dublin, and went to elementary school in tropical Africa and secondary school in England. He graduated from Macdonald College of McGill University in Quebec in 1934, and took 1939 his PhD from the University of Michigan under the supervision of Edwin Butterworth Mains. His thesis was on nuclear structure and behaviour in species of the Uredinales. 1939–1943 he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. Upon his return, he was employed in the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology at the Central Experimental Farm of the Department of Agriculture. He mainly worked on diseases of ornamental plants. From 1949, he went on numerous expeditions to the Canadian Arctic. He retired from Canada Agriculture in 1974.