John Endler

John A. Endler (born 1947) 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 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 and is currently working at Deakin University in Victoria, 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's livebearer, now classified as Poecilia wingei

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 coloured 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. 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.

Bibliography

Books

• 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.

Journal articles: most highly cited

• 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.

Journal articles: recent

• 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 the 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.