biology

John Endler

John Endler is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John Endler rather than just read about it. In short: John Arthur Endler (born 1947) is a Canadian ethologist and evolutionary biologist noted for his work on the adaptation of vertebrates to their unique perceptual environments, and the ways in which animal sensory capacities and colour patterns co-evolve. Education and early life Born in Canada, Endler took his PhD degree at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Key takeaways

John Endler belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John Endler to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John Endler from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Arthur Endler (born 1947) is a Canadian ethologist and evolutionary biologist noted for his work on the adaptation of vertebrates to their unique perceptual environments, and the ways in which animal sensory capacities and colour patterns co-evolve.

Education and early life Born in Canada, Endler took his PhD degree at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Career and research After his PhD, Endler worked at Princeton University (1973-1979), the University of Utah (1979-1986), the University of California, Santa Barbara (1986-2006), the James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia and is currently working at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia. In 2006 he was appointed as an Anniversary Professor of Animal Behaviour in the School of Psychology at the University of Exeter, England. In 2007 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2009 he joined the Centre for Integrative Biology at Deakin University (Australia) where he is an Alfred Deakin Professor.

Endler has carried out extensive work on guppies, including in 1975 rediscovering the species now known to aquarists as Endler's guppy, in his honour; this brightly coloured fish is sometimes regarded as a geographical variant of the common guppy Poecilia reticulata, but is now usually treated as a separate species, Poecilia wingei. Although it had been recorded before Endler's discovery, it had not been properly studied and documented. Among biologists, however, he is better known for his experimental work on inducing small-scale evolution in the laboratory. In addition to his work on guppies he has studied many other species, including investigating the bower-building behaviour of bowerbirds in North Queensland, Australia. In 2008 the European Research Council announced that he was among the first cohort of Life Scientists to receive an award under its Advanced Grants scheme. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. In April 2020 Endler was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). In 2021, he and Susanne von Caemmerer were jointly awarded the inaugural Suzanne Cory Medal for Biomedical Sciences. Endler's work on evolution in trinidadian guppies was highlighted in the 1995 popular science book The Beak of the Finch.

Books Endler, John A. (1977). Geographic Variation, Speciation, and Clines. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Endler, John A. (1986). Natural Selection in the Wild. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Journal articles Endler, J. A. (1980). Natural selection on color patterns in Poecilia reticulata. Evolution, 34, 76–91. Endler, J. A., McLellan, T. (1988). The Processes of Evolution: Toward a Newer Synthesis. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 19, 395–421. Endler, J. A. (1990). On the measurement and classification of color in studies of animal color patterns. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 41, 315–352. Reznick, D. A., Bryga, H., & Endler, J. A. (1990). Experimentally induced life history evolution in a natural population. Nature, 346, 357–359. Endler, J. A., & Day, L. B (2006). Ornament colour selection, visual contrast and the shape of colour preference functions in great bowerbirds, Chlamydera nuchalis. Animal Behaviour, 72, 1405–1416. Endler, J. A., & Mielke, P. W. (2005). Comparing entire colour patterns as birds see them. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 86, 405–431. Endler, J. A., Westcott, D. A., Madden, J. R., & Robson, T (2005). Animal visual systems and the evolution of color patterns: Sensory processing illuminates signal evolution. Evolution, 59, 1795–1818.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Endler

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Endler claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John Endler before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John Endler ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John Endler

In research: John Endler appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John Endler in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John Endler is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1947 births, Academics of the University of Exeter, Alumni of the University of Edinburgh, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Endler outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John Endler in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John Endler means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John Endler out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John Endler in simple terms?

Why does John Endler matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John Endler?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John Endler.