biology

Jack Harley

Jack Harley is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jack Harley rather than just read about it. In short: John Laker Harley (17 November 1911 – 12 December 1990) was a British botanist, known for his work on ectomycorrhizal physiology. Early life, education, and war service Harley was born at Old Charlton, then in Kent, in 1911, to Edith Sarah (née Smith) and Charles Laker Harley, a Post Office civil servant.

Key takeaways

Jack Harley belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jack Harley to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jack Harley from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Laker Harley (17 November 1911 – 12 December 1990) was a British botanist, known for his work on ectomycorrhizal physiology.

Early life, education, and war service Harley was born at Old Charlton, then in Kent, in 1911, to Edith Sarah (née Smith) and Charles Laker Harley, a Post Office civil servant. He attended Leeds Grammar School and was awarded an exhibition to Wadham College, University of Oxford, going up to read botany in 1930. There he was taught by A. G. Tansley and became interested in ecology and plant physiology. His D.Phil. thesis was on mycorrhizas, supervised by W. H. Wilkins. In 1939, he was appointed demonstrator in botany, but his research was interrupted by the war. He joined the Royal Signals Corps and served in India, Burma and Ceylon (1940–45), attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

Career After the war he was appointed a fellow of Queen's College (1946). In 1958 he transferred to the department of agriculture and restarted his work on mycorrhiza. In 1962 he was appointed to a readership in plant nutrition. He was a professor of botany at Sheffield University (1965–69). With Howard Florey, he was involved in writing the Florey Report on the structure of Oxford's biology departments in 1966, and returned to Oxford to hold the newly renamed chair of forest science (1969–1979), overseeing the amalgamation of the forestry and agriculture departments. The chair was associated with a fellowship at St John's College. In retirement he co-wrote the book Mycorrhizal Symbiosis with his daughter Sally E. Smith (1983) and A Check-list of Mycorrhiza in the British Flora with his wife (1987). He was a co-editor of the New Phytologist (1961–83). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society (1964), and received the CBE (1979) and the Linnean Society's Gold Medal for Botany (1989). He was president of the British Mycological Society (1969), the British Ecological Society (1970–72) and the Institute of Biology (1984–86).

Personal life In 1938, he married E. Lindsay Fitt, a fellow student at Oxford who also worked for a D.Phil. They had a son and a daughter. Harley died in 1990.

Selected publications John Laker Harley, J. S. Waid (1955). "A method of studying active mycelia on living roots and other surfaces in the soil", Transactions of the British Mycological Society 38: 104–118 doi:10.1016/S0007-1536(55)80022-8 – "a Citation Classic"

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jack Harley

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jack Harley claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jack Harley before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jack Harley ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jack Harley

In research: Jack Harley appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jack Harley in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jack Harley is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1911 births, 1990 deaths, British Army personnel of World War II, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jack Harley outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jack Harley in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jack Harley means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jack Harley out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jack Harley in simple terms?

John Laker Harley (17 November 1911 – 12 December 1990) was a British botanist, known for his work on ectomycorrhizal physiology. Early life, education, and war service Harley was born at Old Charlton, then in Kent, in 1911, to Edith Sarah (née Smith) and Charles Laker Harley, a Post Office civil s…

Why does Jack Harley matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jack Harley?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jack Harley.