Benito Ching Tan (1946–2016) was a Filipino bryologist internationally recognized as a leading authority on Asian and tropical mosses. Born in Manila on 30 August 1946, he developed a career devoted largely to the taxonomy, floristics and biogeography of bryophytes, particularly the moss flora of Southeast and East Asia.
He studied in the Philippines before completing his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in Canada. He subsequently worked at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and later spent several years as a research associate in bryology at the Farlow Herbarium of Harvard University. In 1998, he moved to Singapore to join the National University of Singapore as Associate Professor of Botany, a position he held until 2007. From 1999 to 2007, he also served as Deputy Director of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, the predecessor of the present-day Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum at the National University of Singapore.
His research covered the taxonomy and diversity of mosses throughout Asia and the Pacific, and he carried out extensive fieldwork in countries including the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam. He described or contributed to the description of numerous bryophyte taxa and published extensively on the moss floras of tropical Asia. He also contributed to floristic inventories and to the development of major bryological collections in the region.
In 2004, Tan received the Richard Spruce Award and he subsequently served as Vice-President of the IAB from 2005 to 2009. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.
Benito Tan died in Los Angeles on 23 December 2016, aged 70. His extensive taxonomic work, field collections and mentorship of younger botanists made a lasting contribution to the knowledge of Asian bryophyte diversity.
References
Boon-Chuan Ho and James R. Shevock (2018) A tribute to Benito C. Tan (1946–2016), distinguished muscologist. Philippine Journal of Systematic Biology Volume 12(1)
