Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds.
James Allen Keast was an Australian ornithologist, and Professor of Biology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Born in Turramurra, New South Wales, he performed war service 1941–45 in New Guinea and New Britain. He earned his BSc (1950) and MSc (1952) degrees at the University of Sydney, going on to earn an MA (1954) and PhD (1955) from Harvard. He started the first natural history series on Australian television in 1958–60. A long-time member and benefactor of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), he was elected a Fellow of the RAOU in 1960. Keast joined the faculty of Queen's in 1962, and in 1989 became a professor emeritus. In 1995 he was awarded the D.L. Serventy Medal for outstanding published work on birds in the Australasian region. As well as numerous scientific papers, he authored and edited several books.
Dr Denis Allan Saunders, AM, is an Australian ornithologist and conservationist.
Robert Berkeley Payne is an ornithologist, professor and curator at the Museum of Zoology and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan.
J. Michael Scott is an American scientist, professor, environmentalist and author.
Dale Lester Boger is an American medicinal and organic chemist and chair of the Department of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.
Dr Robert Eric Ricklefs is an American ornithologist and ecologist. He is the Curators' Professor of Biology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.
John Charles Avise is an American evolutionary geneticist, conservationist, ecologist and natural historian. He is a Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolution, University of California, Irvine, and was previously a Distinguished Professor of Genetics at the University of Georgia.
Ian Newton is an English ornithologist.
Paul Austin Johnsgard is an ornithologist, artist and emeritus professor at the University of Nebraska. His works include nearly fifty books including several monographs, principally about the waterfowl and cranes. Born in Fargo, North Dakota, he was introduced to the study of birds by a distant cousin who was a game warden. He spent these early years taking part in duck counts. After high school and junior college at Wahpeton, he enrolled at North Dakota State University to major in zoology. He then moved to Washington State University for his master's degree, encouraged by a professor who suggested that he could have a career in ornithology. His master's study was on the impact of the construction of O'Sullivan Dam to wetland habitats. Apart from the data collected and his interpretation, it included his pen sketches. This was published in The Condor and the article attracted the attention of Charles Sibley who invited him to consider a Ph.D. at Cornell University with him. His Ph.D. work was on the phylogeny of six ducks, after which he moved to England at the Wildfowl Trust at Gloucestershire founded by Sir Peter Scott. After the course of two years, he produced his first book, the Handbook of Waterfowl Behaviour published by Cornell University in 1965. He is considered one of the most prolific authors of ornithology books.
Timothy Robert Birkhead is a British ornithologist. He has been Professor of Behaviour and Evolution at the University of Sheffield since 1976.
Nicholas Barry Davies FRS is a British field naturalist and zoologist, and Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Cambridge, where he is also a Fellow of Pembroke College.
Allan John Baker was a Canadian ornithologist of New Zealand descent. He was an authority on wading birds, in particular studies on red knots were one of his main research fields.
William Harroun Behle was an American ornithologist from Utah. He published around 140 papers on the biogeography and taxonomy of birds, focusing largely on birds of the Great Basin. Behle was born in Salt Lake City on May 13, 1909, the second of three children of parents Augustus Calvin Behle, a surgeon, and Daisy May Behle. William studied at the University of Utah, earning a B.A. in 1932 and M.A. in 1933, then pursued doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley, under Joseph Grinnell, earning a PhD in 1937. Aside from four summers as a naturalist at Grand Canyon National Park, he spent the majority of his career as a professor at the University of Utah, where he worked from 1937 until his retirement in 1977, and continued to perform research as professor and curator emeritus. Behle was a fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union and American Association for the Advancement of Science, president (1972–1974) of the Cooper Ornithological Society, and member of the Wilson Ornithological Society. He is commemorated in the scientific name of a tarantula species, Aphonopelma behlei named by his colleague Ralph V. Chamberlin in 1940.
Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle is a 2011 natural history book by American conservation biologist Thor Hanson. Published by Basic Books and written for general audiences, the book discusses the significance of feathers, their evolution, and their history both in nature and in use by humans.
Kathy Martin is a global authority on arctic and alpine grouse and ptarmigan, and on tree cavity-nesting vertebrates. She is a Professor in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia and a senior research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Robert Poulin is an evolutionary ecologist specialising in the ecology of parasitism. He is a professor of zoology at the University of Otago.
David P. Mindell is an American evolutionary biologist and author. He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Mindell's work is focused on the systematics, conservation and molecular evolution of birds, especially birds of prey. He is known for his 2006 book, The Evolving World in which he explained, for the general public, how evolution applies to everyday life.
