Gary Williams
- Curator
- Invertebrate Zoology and Geology
- PhD
A broad interest in natural history developed during childhood, in a relatively uncrowded San Francisco Bay Area - before the enormous influx of human population that extinguished much of the open space and altered the regional biodiversity forever. An early interest in marine life was influenced by two enthusiastic marine biologists - Dr. Gordon Chan (College of Marin Biology Instructor) and Dusty Chivers (Senior Curatorial Assistant in the Academy's Department of Invertebrate Zoology).
Octocorallian coelenterates include some of the most beautiful and morphologically diverse animals in the world's oceans - these are the soft corals, sea fans, and sea pens. They are a group of corals characterized by having eight feathery tentacles surrounding the mouth of each polyp. Due to a paucity of good characters and the great phenotypic variability of species, octocoral systematics has traditionally been difficult and disputatious - partly explaining why there is a corresponding paucity of octocoral systematists! Other factors that make the field challenging include the extreme difference in appearance between live and preserved material, and the poor attention to detail in much of the older descriptive literature.
My current field research program is focused on coral reefs of the tropical western Pacific, particularly Melanesia, the Philippines, and Micronesia. Other research interests have taken me to the Galàpagos Islands, Patagonia, Southern Africa, the Russian Far East, Antarctica, and the subarctic. Scuba diving is essential to my field research since the highest diversity of octocorals is found between 5 and 35 meters in depth. Soft corals are most abundant on shallow reef flats, while sea fans are more abundant on slopes and walls. In addition, sea pens are encountered mostly at night in sandy areas.
My research interests include the systematics of soft corals, gorgonians, and pennatulaceans, as well as the history of research and exploration.
Graduate Students (2011) --- Cerise Chen (SFSU), Calcaxonian gorgonian and pennatulacean octocorals - comparative morphology and phylogeny; Jennifer Harris (SFSU), Opisthobranch gastropod phylogenetics; Dana Carrison (SFSU), Phylogenetics of gorgonian-inhabiting barnacles in the genus Conopea.
Philip Alderslade (CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research, Tasmania)
Jei-Ying Chen (California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco)
Jeffrey Goddard (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Pablo Lopez-Gonzalez (University of Seville, Spain)
Lonny Lundsten (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing)
Leen van Ofwegen (National Natural History Museum, Leiden)
B.A., University of California, Berkeley (1972); M.A., San Francisco State University (1975); Ph.D., University of Cape Town (1987). Ranger, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior (1974-1982). Curator of Coelenterates, South African Museum (1983-89). Chairman, Department of Marine Biology, South African Museum (1987-89). Scientific Editor, Sagittarius, Natural History Magazine of the South African Museum (1986-89). Research Associate, California Academy of Sciences (1987-90). Post-Doctoral Fellow (1990-91). Assistant Curator (1991-94). Associate Curator (1994-97). Curator (1997-present). Chairman, Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology (1995-98; 2004-09). Associate Editor, CAS Scientific Publications (2002-present). Chairman, CAS Dive Safety Board (2008-present). Fellow, Linnean Society of London. Fellow, California Academy of Sciences. Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Williams, G.C. 1993. Coral Reef Octocorals - An Illustrated Guide to the Soft corals, Sea Fans and Sea Pens inhabiting the Coral Reefs of Northern Natal. Durban: Durban Natural Science Museum, 64 pp.
Williams, G.C. 1995. Living genera of sea pens (Coelenterata: Octocorallia: Pennatulacea): illustrated key and synopses. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 113: 93-140.
Gosliner T. M., D.W. Behrens, and G. C. Williams. 1996. Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific - Animal Life from Africa to Hawai'i Exclusive of the Invertebrates. Monterey: Sea Challengers, 314 pp.
Williams, G.C. 1997. Preliminary assessment of the phylogenetics of pennatulacean octocorals, with a reevaluation of Ediacaran frond-like fossils, and a synthesis of the history of evolutionary thought regarding the sea pens. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of Coelenterate Biology: 497-509.
Williams, G.C. 1999. Index Pennatulacea: Annotated Bibliography and Indexes of the Sea Pens (Coelenterata: Octocorallia) of the World 1469 - 1999. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 51 (2): 19-103.
Williams, G.C. 2001. First record of a bioluminescent soft coral: description of a disjunct population of Eleutherobia grayi (Thomson and Dean, 1921) from the Solomon Islands, with a review of bioluminescence in the Octocorallia. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 52 (17): 209-255.
Williams, G.C. and P.J. López-González. 2002. A new genus and species of sea pen (Octocorallia: pennatulacea: Stachyptilidae) from the Antarctic Peninsula . Invertebrate Systematics 16: 919-929.
Williams, GC. 2003. Capitate taxa of the soft coral genus Eleutherobia (Octocorallia: Alcyoniidae) from Palau and South Africa ; a new species and a new combination. Zoologische Verhandelingen Leiden 345: 419-436.
Williams, G.C. and O. Breedy. 2004. The Panamic Gorgonian Genus Pacifigorgia (Octocorallia: Gorgoniidae) in the Galapagos Archipelago, with Descriptions of Three New Species. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 55 (3): 55-88.
Williams, G.C. and P.J. Lopez-Gonzalez. 2005. A New Genus and Species of Gorgonian Octocoral (Anthozoa: Plexauridae) from Antarctic Waters. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 56(26): 379-390.
Williams, G.C. 2007. History of Invertebrate Zoology at the California Academy of Sciences. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 58(12): 197-239.
Williams, G.C. 2007. Methods of preservation and anesthetization of marine in inverterbrates (pp. 37-41); Octocorallia (pp. 184-188); Opisthobranch clades and Onchidiacea (pp. 780-781); Key to major opisthobranch clades (pp.783-788). In: Carlton, J.T. (editor), The Light and Smith Manual - Intertidal Invertebrates from Central California and Oregon. Berkeley, University of California Press. 1001 pp.
Williams, G.C. 2008. William Dampier - Science, Exploration, and Literary Influence Including his Hydrographic Treatise of 1699. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 59(14): 533-663.
Williams, G.C. and L. Lundsten. 2009. The nephtheid soft coral genus Gersemia Marenzeller, 1878, with the description of a new species from the northeast Pacific and a review of two addtional species (Octocorallia: Alcyonacea). Zoologische Mededelingen, Leiden 83(34): 1067-1081.
Williams, G.C. 2011. The global diversity of sea pens (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Octocorallia). PLoS ONE 6(7): 1-11.
Williams, G.C. and P. Alderslade. 2011. Three new species of pennatulacean octocorals with the ability to attach to rocky substrata (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Pennatualcea). Zootaxa 3001: 33-48.