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Donnerstag 20.11.2008
16 Uhr 15 Hörsaal 1 (Zoologie)
John ENDLER
University of Exeter
Professor in Animal Behaviour
(School of Psychology), UK
Using Visual Physiology to Test
Hypotheses about Elaboration,
Innovation, and Speciation in
Australian Bowerbirds
John Endler
Professor John A. Endler is an ethologist and evolutionary biologist noted for his work on the adaptation of
vertebrates to their unique perceptual environments, and the ways in which animal sensory capacities and
animal colour patterns co-evolve.
Life and Career
Born in Canada, Endler took his PhD degree at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and subsequently
worked at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the James Cook University of North Queensland,
Australia. Since 2006 he has been Anniversary Professor of Animal Behaviour in the School of Psychology
at the University of Exeter, England. In 2007 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences.
Research achievements
Endler has carried out extensive work on guppies, including in 1975 rediscovering the species now known
to aquarists as Endler's guppy, in his honour; this brightly-colour fish is sometimes regarded as a geographical
variant of the common guppy Poecilia reticulata, but is now usually treated as a separate species,
Poecilia wingei[1]. Although it had been recorded before Endler's discovery, it had not been properly studied
and documented. Among biologists, however, he is better known for his experimental work on inducing
small-scale evolution in the laboratory. In addition to his work on guppies he has studied many other species,
including investigating the bower-building behaviour of bowerbirds in North Queensland, Australia. In 2008 the
European Research Council announced that he was among the first cohort of Life Scientists to receive an
award under its Advanced Grants scheme [2].
References
Endler, John A. (1977). Geographic variation, speciation, and clines. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Endler, John A. (1986). Natural selection in the wild. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Endler, J. A. (1980). Natural selection on color patterns in Poecilia reticulata. Evolution, 34, 76-91.
Endler, J. A. (1990). On the measurement and classification of color in studies of animal color patterns.
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 41, 315-352.
Reznick, D. A., Bryga, H., & Endler, J. A. (1990). Experimentally induced life history evolution in a natural
population. Nature, 346, 357-359.
Endler, J. A., & Day, L. B (2006). Ornament colour selection, visual contrast and the shape of colour preference
functions in great bowerbirds, Chlamydera nuchalis. Animal Behaviour, 72, 1405-1416.
Endler, J. A., & Mielke, P. W. (2005). Comparing entire colour patterns as birds see them. Biological Journal of t
he Linnean Society, 86, 405-431.
Endler, J. A., Westcott, D. A., Madden, J. R., & Robson, T (2005). Animal visual systems and the evolution of
color patterns: Sensory processing illuminates signal evolution. Evolution, 59, 1795-1818.