Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment
School of Life and Environmental Sciences
Prof John Endler |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
| I have broad interests in the area of overlap between Evolution, Ecology, Animal Behaviour, Sensory Ecology, Sensory Physiology and Environmental Biophysics. My main interest is in the joint effects of these factors on adaptation and using integrated principles from all of these fields to make and test explicit predictions about the direction of evolution under specified and changing environmental conditions. I regard myself as a 19th century natural historian who uses 21st century technques, and this obvioiusly works because I just (2012) got elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences. My research group and I primarily work with guppies in mesocosms and both bowerbirds and dragon lizards in the field, but also work with frogs, insects and spiders. I recently became interested in the use of visual illusions in mate choice in Bowerbirds and even more recently developed completely new methods of analyzing the geometry of colour patterns and how they interact with mate choice. We continue to investigate the function, dynamics and evolution of colour patterns, colour-based behaviour, and colour vision, and use visual physiology methods to make explicit predictions about the direction of evolution under changed environmental conditions. I am happy to take honours students, Ph.D. students, and Postdocs who are interested in similar subjects and questions, just ask me! The publication list below is not listed in date order because it is very time consuming to rearrange the order each time a new paper is published, and I would rather spend the time doing science. Research interests
CareerProfessor of Sensory Ecology & Evolution, Deakin University, 2010-currentProfessor of Animal Behaviour, University of Exeter, UK, 2006-2009 Professor of Evolution, University of California Santa Barbara 1986-2006 Professor of Zoology, James Cook University 1996-1998 Adjunct Professor of Zoology, James Cook University 1998-current Key publicationsEndler, J.A., Endler, L. C., and Doerr, N. R. (2010) Great Bowerbirds Create Theaters with Forced Perspective When Seen by Their Audience. Current Biology 20, 1679-1684Wilson, D., R. Heinsohn, & J. A. Endler (2007) The adaptive significance of ontogenetic colour change in a tropical python Biol. Lett 3, 40-43 Madden, J. R.; Dingle, C.; Isden, J.; Sparfeld, J.; Goldizen, A. W.; Endler, J. A. (2012) Male spotted bowerbirds propagate fruit for use in their sexual display. Current Biology 22, R262-R265 Blount, J. D.; Rowland, H. M.; Drijfhout, F. P.; Endler, J. A.; Inger, R.; Sloggett, J. J.; Hurst, G. G. D.; Hodgson, D. J.; Speed, M. P. (2012) How the ladybird got its spots: effects of resource limitation on the honesty of aposematic signals Functional Ecology 26, 334-342 Kelley, L.A. and J. A. Endler (2012) Illusions promote mating success in great bowerbirds Science 335, 334-449 View entire list of audited publications Professional activitiesEditor, Evolutionary EcologyAssociate editor for Australian Journal of Zoology, Integrative and Communicative Biology, Journal of Ethology, and Acta Ethologica Related linksTeaching website utilizing my guppy researchhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolut ion/sex/guppy/ LSED-MRPP (nonparametric nested ANOVA) program (Endler & Mielke 2005), use passwrod lmp5 to unzip (lower case L not one) www.deakin.edu.au/scitech/les/ staff/endlerj/docs/LMP5.zip MATLAB m-files: designed to calculate the position of a set of 4 cone captures in tetrahedral space, and plot them. www.deakin.edu.au/scitech/les/ staff/endlerj/docs/Tetrahedral Calculations.zip Postdoctoral fellowsNameProject titleLaura KelleySignal design in Bowerbirds Palestina Guevara-FioreMate choice and signalling in guppies Andreas SvenssonMechanisms of quality signalling in guppies Christa BeckmannLife History evolution along environmental gradients Xandy KranzExperimental evolution of the guppy visual system PhD studentsStudent nameThesis titleBibiana RojasAposematism and polymorphism in dendrobatid frogs Gemma ColeCo-option of food-finding mechansisms in mate choice Honours studentsStudent nameThesis title Kasun EkanayakeNesting biology and predation in red-capped plovers Jason StaindlBiomechanics of guppy sigmoid displaysTeaching areasEvolutionary Ecology |
|||||||||||||||||
Find Deakin on:
8th February 2013