John Endler

Prof. John Endler

ENDLER, John A.
Humanities I Building HA212
fax (07) 47 25 1570 or 1 805 893 4724
email: John.Endler@jcu.edu.au or endler@lifesci.ucsb.edu

Prof. John A. Endler spends June-September at JCU and the rest of the year at the University of California Santa Barbara. He is interested in all aspects of evolutionary biology. He is especially interested in the interplay between ecological, behavioral, and genetic factors, and how they affect geographic variation and the process of natural selection in natural populations. To illuminate this he works on the function and coevolution of colour patterns and vision. His interests lie largely in the region of overlap between ecology, behaviour, and population/quantitative genetics, but emphasize the first two. His approach is a mixture of theory, field observations, and experimental manipulation, in both field and laboratory. He is a theoretician in that he generates most of his hypotheses and predictions, but is also an empiricist in that he likes to test his predictions as soon as they are made.

Ph.D. University of Edinburgh, U.K.

Research Interests:

Prof. Endler's current main interest is in the ecology and evolution of visual signals and vision. The basic questions are: How does the interplay between the evolution of sensory systems and signals influence the direction of evolution under both natural and sexual selection? Are there any general principles of evolution which can be deduced from biophysics and neurophysiology? He is attacking these problems using a combination of ethological, physiological, population genetical and functional ecological techniques, using fishes, insects, spiders, birds, and mammals.

Current research projects include: (1) Effects of many generations of natural and sexual selection under changed light environments in experimental guppy populations. Changing the ambient light conditions affects the visual contrast of guppy colour patterns in different ways, and this predicts that male colour patterns should evolve in different directions under different treatments. Sexual selection theory also predicts coevolution between the male traits and preferences, therefore female preferences are also being measured. Changed light conditions also affect food finding, social behaviour and other aspects of a guppy's life, so this may result in natural selection on the visual system; for this reason spectral sensitivity will be measured after 10 generations. The different light conditions mimic times of day of maximum and minimum courtship so result in different levels of sexual selection. Differences in sexual selection predict differences in brood genetics and life-history parameters arising out of sperm competition and the Rice-Holland chase-away system. This is being investigated in collaboration with Dr. Robert Brooks.
(2) Signal design, ambient light, signalling behaviour, and cognitive abilities of bowerbirds. Do bowerbirds construct bowers using ornaments which exaggerate their own plumage, maximize visual contrast on the bower, minimize visual contrast at other times, or all three? We are investigating this and related questions about the evolution of visual signals by quantification of bowers and visual contrast of undisturbed bowers in 5 species of Australian bowerbirds, and by carefully controlled ornament choice experiments. Questions of cognition and categorical perception of colour and texture are being done in collaboration with Dr. Lainy Day.

Animals of interest: freshwater fishes and bowerbirds, and this

Selected publications:

Endler, J.A. 1986. Natural Selection in the Wild. Monographs in Population Biology 21; Princeton University Press, 336pp.
Endler, J.A. 1990. On the measurement and classification of color in studies of animal colour patterns. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. London 41:315-352.
Endler, J.A. 1991. Variation in the appearance of guppy color patterns to guppies and their predators under different visual conditions. Vision Research 31:587-608.
Endler, J.A. 1992. Signals, signal conditions, and the direction of evolution. American Naturalist 139 (Supplement): s125-s153.
Endler, J.A. 1993. The color of light in forests and its implications. Ecological Monographs 63:1-27.
Endler, J.A. 1993. Some general commments on the evolution and design of animal communication systems. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. B 340:215-225.
Endler, J.A. 1995. Multiple trait coevolution and environmental gradients in guppies. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 10:22-29.
Endler, J.A. and A.E. Houde. 1995. Geographic variation in female preferences for male traits in Poecilia reticulata. Evolution 49:456-468.
Endler, J. A., and M. Théry. 1996. Interacting effects of lek placement, display behavior, ambient light and color patterns in three neotropical forest-dwelling birds. American Naturalist 148: 421-452
Endler, J. A. 1997. Light, Behavior and Conservation of Forest-Dwelling Organisms, p. 330-356. In J. R. Clemmons and R. Buchholz [eds.], Behavioral Approaches to Conservation in the Wild. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Endler, J. A., and A. L. Basolo. 1998. Sensory ecology, receiver biases and sexual selection. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 13:415-420.
Foster, S. M., and J. A. Endler. 1999. Geographic Variation in Behavior, Perspectives on Evolutionary Mechanisms. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Mousseau, T. A., B. Sinervo, and J. A. Endler. 1999. Adaptive Genetic Variation in the Wild. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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