Wyatt Anderson

Last updated

Wyatt Anderson
Born(1939-03-27)March 27, 1939
DiedNovember 11, 2023(2023-11-11) (aged 84)
Athens, Georgia, U.S.
Education Rockefeller University
Known for Drosophila research
SpouseMargaret Anderson
Children3
AwardsMember of the National Academy of Sciences since 1987
Scientific career
Fields Evolutionary biology, genetics
Institutions University of Georgia
Thesis Studies on selection in natural and experimental populations of Drosophila pseudoobscura (1966)
Academic advisors Theodosius Dobzhansky [1]

Wyatt Wheaton Anderson (March 27, 1939 - 11 November 2023 [2] ) [3] was an American geneticist and evolutionary biologist. [4] He is Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Genetics in the University of Georgia's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. He was also the dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences from 1992 until he stepped down in 2004. [5] [6] He has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1987, [7] and is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [8]

Contents

Research

Anderson is known for his research on the evolutionary genetics of Drosophila . [8] In 2012, for example, he co-authored a study with Patricia Adair Gowaty and Yong-Kyu Kim in which they attempted, and failed, to replicate a famous 1948 study by Angus John Bateman. Their results indicated that Bateman was wrong in his conclusions that male Drosophila melanogaster were promiscuous and females were more "choosy" with regard to their mating behaviors. [9] [10] [11]

Personal life

Anderson is married to Margaret Anderson, a statistician with whom he co-founded the Wyatt and Margaret Anderson Professorship in the Arts at UGA. The first recipient of this professorship was Frederick Burchinal in 2006. Together, they have 3 children and 4 grandchildren [12]

Related Research Articles

<i>Drosophila</i> Genus of flies

Drosophila is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species to linger around overripe or rotting fruit. They should not be confused with the Tephritidae, a related family, which are also called fruit flies ; tephritids feed primarily on unripe or ripe fruit, with many species being regarded as destructive agricultural pests, especially the Mediterranean fruit fly.

<i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> Species of fruit fly

Drosophila melanogaster is a species of fly in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the "vinegar fly", "pomace fly", or "banana fly". In the wild, D. melanogaster are attracted to rotting fruit and fermenting beverages, and are often found in orchards, kitchens and pubs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Obaid Siddiqi</span> Indian geneticist (1932–2013)

Obaid Siddiqi FRS was an Indian National Research Professor and the Founder-Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) National Center for Biological Sciences. He made seminal contributions to the field of behavioural neurogenetics using the genetics and neurobiology of Drosophila.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric F. Wieschaus</span> American biologist

Eric Francis Wieschaus is an American evolutionary developmental biologist and 1995 Nobel Prize-winner.

Alfred Henry Sturtevant was an American geneticist. Sturtevant constructed the first genetic map of a chromosome in 1911. Throughout his career he worked on the organism Drosophila melanogaster with Thomas Hunt Morgan. By watching the development of flies in which the earliest cell division produced two different genomes, he measured the embryonic distance between organs in a unit which is called the sturt in his honor. On February 13, 1968, Sturtevant received the 1967 National Medal of Science from President Lyndon B. Johnson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Ashburner</span> English biologist (1942–2023)

Michael Ashburner was an English biologist and Professor in the Department of Genetics at University of Cambridge. He was also the former joint-head and co-founder of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest and largest college of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia. Established in 1801 following the American Revolution, the college was named in honor of American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. Today, Franklin College comprises 30 departments in five divisions: fine arts, social sciences, biological sciences, physical and mathematical sciences, and the humanities.

Elliot Meyerowitz is an American biologist.

Margaret "Minx" T. Fuller is an American developmental biologist known for her research on the male germ line and defining the role of the stem cell environment in specifying cell fate and differentiation.

Patricia Adair Gowaty is an American evolutionary biologist. She received her B.A. in biology at Tulane University and her PhD in zoology at Clemson University in 1980. She is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Bateman's principle, in evolutionary biology, is that in most species, variability in reproductive success is greater in males than in females. It was first proposed by Angus John Bateman (1919–1996), an English geneticist. Bateman suggested that, since males are capable of producing millions of sperm cells with little effort, while females invest much higher levels of energy in order to nurture a relatively small number of eggs, the female plays a significantly larger role in their offspring's reproductive success. Bateman's paradigm thus views females as the limiting factor of parental investment, over which males will compete in order to copulate successfully.

Martin Edward Kreitman is an American geneticist at the University of Chicago, most well known for the McDonald–Kreitman test that is used to infer the amount of adaptive evolution in population genetic studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Elgin</span> American biologist

Sarah C.R. Elgin is an American biochemist and geneticist. She is the Viktor Hamburger Professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, and is noted for her work in epigenetics, gene regulation, and heterochromatin, and for her contributions to science education.

<i>Drosophila hydei</i> Species of fly

Drosophila hydei (mosca casera) is a species of Diptera, or the order of flies, in the family Drosophilidae. It is a species in the hydei species subgroup, a group in the repleta species group. Bizarrely, it is also known for having approximately 23 mm long sperm, 10 times the length of the male's body. Drosophila hydei are commonly found on compost piles worldwide, and can be rudimentarily identified by eye owing to their large size and variegated pigment pattern on the thorax. The name derives from Dr R. R. Hyde, who first discovered that the species was distinct from Drosophila repleta. D. hydei are one of the more popular flies used as feeders in the pet trade. A few varieties are available, some flightless. They are very similar to Drosophila melanogaster, despite having separated 50 million years ago.

Margaret Gale Kidwell is a British American evolutionary biologist and Regents' Professor Emerita at the University of Arizona, Tucson. She grew up on a farm in the English Midlands during World War II. After graduating from the University of Nottingham in 1953, she worked in the British Civil Service as an Agricultural Advisory Officer from 1955 to 1960. She moved to the US in 1960 under the auspices of a Kellogg Foundation Fellowship to study Genetics and Statistics at Iowa State University. She married quantitative geneticist James F. Kidwell in 1961, obtained her MS degree in 1962 and moved with her husband to Brown University in 1963. She received her PhD from Brown University in 1973 under the guidance of Masatoshi Nei. From 1973 to 1984 she pursued independent research into a number of anomalous genetic phenomena in Drosophila which later lead to collaborative studies resulting in the discovery of hybrid dysgenesis and the isolation of transposable P elements. After appointment as Professor of Biology at Brown University in 1984 she moved to the University of Arizona in 1985 as Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Additional positions included Chair of the Interdisciplinary Genetics Program from 1988 to 1991 and Head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from 1992 to 1997. Research at the University of Arizona has increasingly focused on the evolutionary significance of transposable genetic elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amitabh Joshi</span> Indian biologist (born 1965)

Amitabh Joshi is an Indian evolutionary biologist, population ecologist, geneticist and a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR). He heads the Evolutionary Biology Laboratory at JNCASR and is known for his studies on Evolutionary genetics and Population ecology. An elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, and Indian National Science Academy, he was also a J. C. Bose National Fellow (2011-2021) of the Department of Science and Technology. He served as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Genetics (2008-2014) and Editor of Publications of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2017-2021). The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2009, for his contributions to biological sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laboratory experiments of speciation</span> Biological experiments

Laboratory experiments of speciation have been conducted for all four modes of speciation: allopatric, peripatric, parapatric, and sympatric; and various other processes involving speciation: hybridization, reinforcement, founder effects, among others. Most of the experiments have been done on flies, in particular Drosophila fruit flies. However, more recent studies have tested yeasts, fungi, and even viruses.

Mariana Federica Wolfner is the Goldwin Smith Professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University. Her research investigates sexual conflict in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2019 in recognition of her distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. Scott Hawley</span> American scientist

R. Scott Hawley is an American geneticist and investigator at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Missouri, a member of the US National Academy of sciences and fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been President of the Genetics Society of America, and leads a research team focused on the molecular mechanisms that regulate chromosome behavior during meiosis.

Thomas Charles Kaufman is an American geneticist. He is known for his work on the zeste-white region of the Drosophila X chromosome. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of biology at Indiana University, where he conducts his current research on Homeotic Genes in evolution and development.

References

  1. Olson, Randy (September 16, 2015). Houston, We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story. University of Chicago Press. p. 82. ISBN   9780226270845.
  2. "Official Obituary of WYATT WHEATON ANDERSON". November 11, 2023.{{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  3. "Wyatt W. Anderson". Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  4. Vergano, Dan (April 8, 2013). "Size indeed matters, suggests male attractiveness study". USA TODAY. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  5. Dendy, Larry (June 23, 2004). "Garnett Stokes named dean of UGA's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences". UGA Today. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  6. Shearer, Lee (September 26, 2003). "Franklin College dean stepping down". Athens Banner-Herald. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  7. "Wyatt Anderson". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  8. 1 2 "Wyatt Anderson". University of Georgia Department of Genetics. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  9. Gowaty, Patricia Adair; Kim, Yong-Kyu; Anderson, Wyatt W. (July 17, 2012). "No evidence of sexual selection in a repetition of Bateman's classic study of Drosophila melanogaster". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (29): 11740–11745. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1207851109 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   3406809 . PMID   22689966.
  10. King, Barbara J. (December 13, 2012). "Promiscuous Males And Choosy Females? Challenging A Classic Experiment". NPR.org. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  11. Keim, Brandon (July 10, 2012). "Classic study of animal sexuality challenges our traditional values". WIRED UK.
  12. "Met Opera star to join UGA faculty". Athens Banner-Herald. August 6, 2006. Retrieved September 20, 2017.