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Photo Credit: Mike Hall Photography

It is impossible to accurately reflect in a few paragraphs what Mike Bruford achieved in over 30 years of dedicating his professional life to understanding and halting biodiversity loss. Mike’s scientific contributions were instrumental to the establishment and consolidation of the field of conservation genetics.

Born in Cardiff (Wales) on the 6th of June 1963, Mike was raised in Dynas Powys, which he left to pursue a degree on Biomolecular Science at the University of Portsmouth. In 1986 he joined the University of Leicester where he earned his PhD on the topic of “Hypervariable markers in the chicken genome” under the supervision of Professor Terry Burke. He brought the nascent, cutting-edge genetic fingerprinting techniques learned in his PhD to the Zoological Society of London’s Conservation Genetics Group in 1990, applying them to address problems in molecular ecology and evolutionary biology and to solve questions on conservation biology and wildlife genetics. Only four years after, he became the leader of that group and then, in 1999, he moved to Cardiff University as a Reader.

Mike became a Professor at Cardiff University in 2001, where he supervised and mentored over 70 PhD students and postdocs, remaining throughout time a kind voice supporting the career development of many, and a close friend of us. His work took him to numerous places with rich biodiversity and a high number of endangered species. From Africa to Latin America, to Asia and Europe, Mike led or contributed to projects on lowland gorilla, African elephants and okapi, llamas and alpacas, bats, kestrels and falcons, frogs, giant pandas, Bornean orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos, sheep and goats, wild cats, Komodo dragons, aquatic insects, sea turtles, spiders, earthworms, The list is as long and as varied as the biodiversity he strived to conserve. For several years he led the Organisms and Environment Division at the School of Biosciences before he became a co-director of the Sustainable Places Institute at Cardiff University. Finally, in 2019, he became Cardiff University’s Dean for Environmental Sustainability, a position he held until his passing.

A scientific powerhouse, Mike published over 300 research papers and book chapters, was editor of several books, book series and scientific journals, and was cited over 30,000 times. This invariably resulted in multiple awards, prices, and membership in selected groups in recognition of his work. His concern with the continuous decline in species diversity despite of conservation efforts worldwide led him to establish the IUCN Conservation Genetics Specialist Group (CGSG), where as Chair, he developed a proposition for the IUCN (2020 Wild Conservation Congress) to include in all its future activities a measurement of genetic diversity. He was a founder and Trustee of the Regrow Borneo Charity, supporting a restoration ecology project led by Danau Girang Field Centre in Sabah, Malaysia, developing a model of reforestation that will benefit people, wildlife, and climate. Mike was also the director of the Frozen Ark charity, a biobank of deep-frozen genetic material of endangered species, and led the CryoArks Initiative bringing together UK zoological biobanks. Over 10 years ago, and despite his heavy workload, Mike joined the editorial board of Conservation Genetics Resources and contributed to the development of the journal. It is his vision of applied genetics to conservation that led to the creation of the Application Essays’ type of articles in the journal.

Mike passed away at the age of 59, on the 13th of April 2023. He will be deeply missed by all of us who worked with him over the last 30 years of his active career as a conservation geneticist.