Mayr, Ernst (Walter) 1904-2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born July 5, 1904, in Kempten, Germany; died February 3, 2005, in Bedford, MA. Biologist, ornithologist, curator, and author. A giant in his field, Mayr was considered to be the most famous evolutionary biologist since Charles Darwin, chiefly because of his now widely accepted theories of speciation in which he described how geography influences the evolution of new plants and animals. Although he had already developed a keen interest in birds as a boy, Mayr originally intended to study medicine in college. Before he began his first year of university, however, a remarkable thing happened: he discovered a pair of birds—red-crested pochards—that belonged to a species supposedly extinct in Europe. Describing his sighting to an ornithologist at the Berlin Zoological Museum, he was offered a summer job there by the impressed scientist. Mayr did end up studying medicine for two years at the University of Greifswald, but his fascination with ornithology eventually won out, and he switched his studies to natural history. In only a year and a half at the University of Berlin, the enthusiastic Mayr earned his doctorate in 1926 and was given a job there as an assistant curator at the zoological museum. Two years later, Mayr found himself researching bird species in New Guinea and then the Solomon Islands, and it was during these excursions that he formulated his hypothesis about how geographical isolation eventually leads to new species. Although many people today believe that Charles Darwin formulated this idea and described the theory in his Origin of the Species, in reality Darwin's landmark book provides very little detail on how species actually come to be in existence. Rather, the theory that separating populations of a certain species into different geographic areas so that they no longer interbreed, eventually resulting in new species, can be traced to Mayr, who dubbed this process "allopatric speciation." He described his theory in his most important early work Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942). After returning from the Solomon Islands, Mayr moved to New York City to join the American Museum of Natural History as the Whitney Research Associate in Ornithology. He was promoted to curator there in 1944. The last stage of his career was spent at Harvard University, where he was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology from 1953 until his retirement in 1975. Along with his theory of allopatric speciation, which is the most widely accepted theory among biologists today, Mayr also was the first scientist to describe a "species" in terms of successful mating. Mayr declared that only animals or plants that can mate and produce fertile offspring belong to the same species; animals or plants that mate and do not reproduce, or produce only infertile offspring, are not of the same species. One of the founding members of the Society for the Study of Evolution, and a former editor of the organization's journal, Evolution, Mayr produced research and writings that brought Darwin's theories into the twentieth century, successfully melding the original concept of evolution with modern discoveries in genetics and biology. Although not all of his theories were successful—his concept of "peri-patric speciation and genetic revolutions," proposed that very small isolated populations can undergo dramatic and swift evolution—Mayr's books are still considered essential reading among biologists. Not only was he acclaimed for his theories of evolution, he also made contributions in other areas. For example, Mayr was the founder of the distinct field known as the history and philosophy of biology; in addition, his influential ideas helped spawn the new study of macroevolution, which seeks to understand where evolution is going and how it benefits some species over others. As an accomplished ornithologist, he described twenty-six new species of bird, as well as 473 subspecies and a number of new genera. The recipient of numerous scientific prizes, including the National Medal of Science, Mayr was a prolific author who continued to publish into the early twenty-first century. Among his many works are Animal Species and Evolution (1963), Evolution and the Diversity of Life (1976), Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (1988), What Evolution Is (2001), and The Birds of Northern Melanesia (2001).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2005, p. B17.

New York Times, February 5, 2005, p. A15.

Times (London, England), February 7, 2005, p. 51.

Washington Post, February 5, 2005, p. B5.