AlthoughCharles Darwin and others posited that multiplespecies could evolve from a singlecommon ancestor, the mechanism by which this occurred was not understood, creating thespecies problem. Ernst Mayr approached the problem with a new definition for species. In his bookSystematics and the Origin of Species (1942) he wrote that a species is not just a group ofmorphologically similar individuals, but a group that canbreed only among themselves, excluding all others. When populations within a species become isolated by geography, feeding strategy,mate choice, or other means, they may start to differ from other populations throughgenetic drift andnatural selection, and over time may evolve into new species. The most significant and rapid genetic reorganization occurs in extremely small populations that have been isolated (as on islands).
Mayr was the second son of Helene Pusinelli and Otto Mayr. His father was a district prosecuting attorney atWürzburg[4] but took an interest innatural history and took the children out onfield trips. Mayr learnt all the local birds in Würzburg from his elder brother Otto. He also had access to a natural history magazine for amateurs,Kosmos. His father died just before he was thirteen. The family then moved toDresden, where he studied at the Staatsgymnasium in Dresden-Neustadt and completed his high school education. In April 1922, while still in high school, he joined the newly founded Saxony Ornithologists' Association. There he met Rudolf Zimmermann, who became his ornithological mentor. In February 1923, Mayr passed his high school examination (Abitur) and his mother rewarded him with a pair of binoculars.[5]
On 23 March 1923 on one of the lakes ofMoritzburg, the Frauenteich, he spotted what he identified as ared-crested pochard. The species had not been seen in Saxony since 1845 and the local club argued about the identity. Raimund Schelcher (1891–1979) of the club then suggested that Mayr visit his classmateErwin Stresemann on his way to Greifswald, where Mayr was to begin his medical studies.[5] After a tough interrogation, Stresemann accepted and published the sighting as authentic. Stresemann was very impressed and suggested that, between semesters, Mayr could work as a volunteer in the ornithological section of the museum. Mayr wrote about this event, "It was as if someone had given me the key to heaven."[5] He entered theUniversity of Greifswald in 1923 and, according to Mayr himself, "took the medical curriculum (to satisfy a family tradition) but after only a year, he decided to leave medicine and enrolled at the Faculty of Biological Sciences."[6] Mayr was endlessly interested in ornithology and "chose Greifswald at the Baltic for my studies for no other reason than that ... it was situated in the ornithologically most interesting area."[6] Although he planned ostensibly to become a physician, he was "first and foremost an ornithologist."[6] During the first semester break Stresemann gave him a test to identify treecreepers and Mayr was able to identify most of the specimens correctly. Stresemann declared that Mayr "was a bornsystematist".[7] In 1925, Stresemann suggested that he give up his medical studies, in fact he should leave the faculty of medicine and enrol into the faculty of Biology and then join the Berlin Museum with the prospect of bird-collecting trips to the tropics, on the condition that he completed his doctoral studies in 16 months. Mayr completed his doctorate in ornithology at theUniversity of Berlin under Dr. Carl Zimmer, who was a full professor (Ordentlicher Professor), on 24 June 1926 at the age of 21. On 1 July he accepted the position offered to him at the museum for a monthly salary of 330.54 Reichsmark.[8]
At the International Zoological Congress at Budapest in 1927, Mayr was introduced by Stresemann to banker and naturalistWalter Rothschild, who asked him to undertake an expedition toNew Guinea on behalf of himself and theAmerican Museum of Natural History in New York. In New Guinea, Mayr collected several thousand bird skins (he named 38 new bird species during his lifetime) and, in the process also named 38 neworchid species. During his stay in New Guinea, he was invited to accompany theWhitney South Sea Expedition to theSolomon Islands. Also, while in New Guinea, he visited theLutheranmissionaries Otto Thiele andChristian Keyser, in the Finschhafen district; there, while in conversation with his hosts, he uncovered the discrepancies inHermann Detzner's popular bookFour Years among Cannibals: New Guinea, in which Detzner claimed to have seen the interior, discovered several species of flora and fauna, while remaining only steps ahead of the Australian patrols sent to capture him. He returned to Germany in 1930.
Mayr moved to the United States in 1931 to take up acuratorial position at the American Museum of Natural History, where he played the important role of brokering and acquiring theWalter Rothschild collection of bird skins, which was being sold in order to pay off a blackmailer. During his time at the museum he produced numerous publications on bird taxonomy, and in 1942 his first bookSystematics and the Origin of Species, a seminal work in the then ongoingModern Synthesis ofDarwinian evolution andMendelian heredity.
After Mayr was appointed at theAmerican Museum of Natural History, he influenced American ornithological research by mentoring young birdwatchers. Mayr was surprised at the differences between American and German birding societies. He noted that the German society was "far more scientific, far more interested in life histories and breeding bird species, as well as in reports on recent literature."[9]
Mayr organized a monthly seminar under the auspices of the Linnean Society of New York. Under the influence of J.A. Allen, Frank Chapman, and Jonathan Dwight, the society concentrated on taxonomy and later became a clearing house for bird banding and sight records.[9]
Mayr encouraged his Linnean Society seminar participants to take up a specific research project of their own. Under Mayr's influence one of them, Joseph Hickey, went on to writeA Guide to Birdwatching (1943). Hickey remembered later, "Mayr was our age and invited on all our field trips. The heckling of this German foreigner was tremendous, but he gave tit for tat, and any modern picture of Dr E. Mayr as a very formal person does not square with my memory of the 1930s. He held his own." A group of eight young birdwatchers fromThe Bronx later became theBronx County Bird Club, led byLudlow Griscom. "Everyone should have a problem" was the way one Bronx County Bird Club member recalled Mayr's refrain.[9] Mayr said of his own involvement with the local birdwatchers: "In those early years in New York when I was a stranger in a big city, it was the companionship and later friendship which I was offered in the Linnean Society that was the most important thing in my life."[9]
Mayr also greatly influenced the American ornithologistMargaret Morse Nice. Mayr encouraged her to correspond with European ornithologists and helped her in her landmark study onsong sparrows. Nice wrote toJoseph Grinnell in 1932, trying to get foreign literature reviewed in theCondor: "Too many American ornithologists have despised the study of the living bird; the magazines and books that deal with the subject abound in careless statements, anthropomorphic interpretations, repetition of ancient errors, and sweeping conclusions from a pitiful array of facts. ... in Europe the study of the living bird is taken seriously. We could learn a great deal from their writing." Mayr ensured that Nice could publish her two-volumeStudies in the Life History of the Song Sparrow. He found her a publisher, and her book was reviewed byAldo Leopold, Joseph Grinnell, andJean Delacour. Nice dedicated her book to "My Friend Ernst Mayr."[9]
Mayr joined thefaculty ofHarvard University in 1953, where he also served as director of theMuseum of Comparative Zoology from 1961 to 1970. He retired in 1975 asemeritus professor ofzoology, showered with honors. Following his retirement, he went on to publish more than 200 articles, in a variety of journals—more than some reputable scientists publish in their entire careers; 14 of his 25 books were published after he was 65. Even as acentenarian, he continued to write books. On his 100th birthday, he was interviewed byScientific American magazine.
Mayr died on 3 February 2005 in his retirement home inBedford, Massachusetts, after a short illness. He had married fellow German Margarete "Gretel" Simon in May 1935 (they had met at a party in Manhattan in 1932), and she assisted Mayr in some of his work.
Margarete died in 1990. He was survived by two daughters (Christa Menzel and Susanne Harrison), five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.[10][11]
As a traditionally-trained biologist, Mayr was often highly critical of early mathematical approaches to evolution, such as those ofJ.B.S. Haldane, and famously called such approaches "beanbag genetics" in 1959. He maintained that factors such asreproductive isolation had to be taken into account. In a similar fashion, Mayr was also quite critical ofmolecular evolution studies such as those ofCarl Woese. Current molecular studies in evolution and speciation indicate that althoughallopatric speciation is the norm, there are numerous cases ofsympatric speciation in groups with greater mobility, such as birds. The precise mechanisms of sympatric speciation, however, are usually a form of microallopatry enabled by variations in niche occupancy among individuals within a population.
In many of his writings, Mayr rejectedreductionism in evolutionary biology, arguing thatevolutionary pressures act on the whole organism, not on single genes, and that genes can have different effects depending on the other genes present. He advocated a study of the wholegenome, rather than of only isolated genes. After articulating thebiological species concept in 1942, Mayr played a central role in thespecies problem debate over what was the bestspecies concept. He staunchly defended the biological species concept against the many definitions of "species" that others proposed.
Mayr was an outspoken defender of thescientific method and was known to critique sharply science on the edge. As a notable example, in 1995, he criticized theSearch for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), as conducted by fellow Harvard professorPaul Horowitz, as being a waste of university and student resources for its inability to address and answer a scientific question. Over 60 eminent scientists, led byCarl Sagan, rebutted the criticism.[19][20]
The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living Darwinian is, he will say Richard Dawkins. And indeed, Dawkins has done a marvelous job of popularizing Darwinism. But Dawkins' basic theory of the gene being the object of evolution is totally non-Darwinian. I would not call him the greatest Darwinian.
The idea that a few people have about the gene being the target of selection is completely impractical; a gene is never visible to natural selection, and in the genotype, it is always in the context with other genes, and the interaction with those other genes make a particular gene either more favorable or less favorable. In fact,Dobzhansky, for instance, worked quite a bit on so-called lethal chromosomes which are highly successful in one combination, and lethal in another. Therefore people like Dawkins in England who still think the gene is the target of selection are evidently wrong. In the 30s and 40s, it was widely accepted that genes were the target of selection, because that was the only way they could be made accessible tomathematics, but now we know that it is really the whole genotype of the individual, not the gene. Except for that slight revision, the basic Darwinian theory hasn't changed in the last 50 years.
New Ireland rail (Gallirallus ernstmayri)†(Kirchman & Steadman, 2006)[25] - a relatively large, probably flightless, extinctrail, family Rallidae, known fromsubfossil remains found onprehistoricarcheological sites, in caves onNew Ireland, in the Bismarck Archipelago, western Oceania.[26])
Star Mountains worm-eating snake (Toxicocalamus ernstmayri)O'Shea, Parker & Kaiser, 2015[27] - a 1.2 m, rare and secretive,venomous snake from the familyElapidae, believed to feed exclusively ofearthworms, particularly the giant earthworms of theMegascolecidae. Theetymology reads: The species nameernstmayri is apatronym honoring the German-American ornithologist, systematist, and evolutionary thinker Ernst Mayr (1904–2005). There are several connections linking Ernst Mayr to this new species ofToxicocalamus, which make him, and this snake, the ideal candidates for a patronym. First, Mayr himself visited New Guinea, and during the late 1920s he spent over 2 years conducting fieldwork in an area now part of PNG, as a member of a joint Rothschild–AMNH expedition focusing onbirds of paradise (Aves, Passeriformes, Paradisaeidae), during which he collected many new bird and orchid species. Second, theholotype ofT. ernstmayri has been housed in the MCZ collection, mislabeled asMicropechis ikaheka, after having arrived and been accessioned in June 1975, the month and year that Mayr retired. Third, the true identity of this specimen was recognized by one of us (MOS) during a visit to the MCZ in May 2014, undertaken with the financial support of an Ernst Mayr Travel Grant from Harvard University, awarded to enable examination of theToxicocalamus holdings at the MCZ and the AMNH, the two U.S. institutions where Mayr worked. Finally, 2015, the publication year of this description, marks thedecennial of Mayr's passing at age 100, and naming a New Guinea snake after him seems a suitable tribute.
Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce; individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce and leave their heritable traits to future generations, which produces the process ofnatural selection (fact).
This slowly effected process results in populations changing to adapt to their environments, and ultimately, these variations accumulate over time to form new species (inference).
In relation to the publication of Darwin'sOrigins of Species, Mayr identified philosophical implications of evolution:[30]
Evolving world, not a static one.
Implausibility of creationism.
Refutation that the universe has purpose.
Defeating the justifications for a human-centric world.
Materialistic processes explain the impression of design.
1923 "Der Zwergfliegenschnäpper bei Greifswald".Ornithologische Monatsberichte 31:136
1926 "Die Ausbreitung des Girlitz (Serinus canaria serinus L.) Ein Beitrag zur Tiergeographie".J. für Ornithologie 74:571–671
1927 "Die Schneefinken (GattungenMontifringilla undLeucosticte)"J. für Ornithologie 75:596–619
1929 with W Meise.Zeitschriftenverzeichnis des Museums für Naturkunde Mitteilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin 14:1–187
1930 (byErnst Hartert) "List of birds collected by Ernst Mayr".Ornithologische Monatsberichte 36:27–128
1930 "My Dutch New Guinea Expedition". 1928.Ornithologische Monatsberichte 36:20–26
1931Die Vögel des Saruwaged und Herzoggebirges (NO Neuginea) Mitteilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin 17:639–723
1931 "Birds collected during the Whitney South Sea Expedition. XII Notes onHalcyon chloris and some of its subspecies".American Museum Novitates no 469
1935 "Bernard Altum and the territory theory".Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of New York 45, 46:24–38[1]
1938Birds of the Crane Pacific expedition, Ernst Mayr and Sidney Camras, Zoological Series of the Field Museum of Natural History, Volume XX, No. 34.
1940 "Speciation phenomena in birds".American Naturalist 74:249–278
1941 "Borders and subdivision of the Polynesian region as based on our knowledge of the distribution of birds".Proceedings of the 6th Pacific Scientific Congress 4:191–195
1941 "The origin and history of the bird fauna of Polynesia".Proceedings of the 6th Pacific Scientific Congress 4:197–216
1943 "A journey to the Solomons".Natural History 52:30–37,48
1944 "Wallace's Line in the light of recent zoogeographics studies".Quarterly Review of Biology 19:1–14
1944 "The birds of Timor and Sumba".Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 83:123–194
1944 "Timor and the colonization of Australia by birds".Emu 44:113–130
1946 "The naturalist in Leidy's time and today".Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 98:271–276
1947 "Ecological factors in speciation".Evolution 1:263–288
1948 "The new Sanford Hall".Natural History 57:248–254
1950The role of the antennae in the mating behavior of female Drosophila. Evolution 4:149–154
1951Introduction and Conclusion. Pages 85,255–258 in The problem of land connections across the South Atlantic with special reference to the Mesozoic. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 99:79–258
1951 withDean Amadon, "A classification of recent birds".American Museum Novitates no. 1496
1953 with E G Linsley and R L Usinger.Methods and Principles of Systematica Zoology. McGraw-Hill, New York.
1954 "Changes in genetic environment and evolution". Pages 157–180 inEvolution as a Process (J Huxley, A C Hardy and E B Ford Eds) Allen and Unwin. London
1955 "Karl Jordan's contribution to current concepts in systematics and evolution".Transactions of the Royal Entomological Society of London 107:45–66
1956 with C B Rosen. "Geographic variation and hybridization in populations of Bahama snails (Cerion)".American Museum Novitates no 1806.
1957 "Species concepts and definitions". Pages 371–388 inThe Species Problem (E. Mayr ed). AAAS, Washington DC.
1959 "The emergence of evolutionary novelties". Pages 349–380 inThe Evolution of Life: Evolution after Darwin, vol 1 (S. Tax, ed) University of Chicago.
1959 "Darwin and the evolutionary theory in Biology". Pages 1–10 inEvolution and Anthropology: A Centennial Appraisal (B J Meggers, Ed) The Anthropological Society of Washington, Washington DC.
1959 "Agassiz, Darwin, and Evolution".Harvard Library Bulletin. 13:165–194
1961 "Cause and effect in biology: Kinds of causes, predictability, and teleology are viewed by a practicing biologist".Science 134:1501–1506
1962 "Accident or design: The paradox of evolution". Pages 1–14 inThe Evolution of Living Organisms (G W Leeper, Ed) Melbourne University Press.
1964 Introduction, Bibliography and Subject Pages vii–xxviii, 491–513 inOn the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, by Charles Darwin. A Facsimile of the First Edition. Harvard University Press.
1965Comments. In Proceedings of the Boston Colloguium for the Philosophy of Science, 1962–1964. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2:151–156
1969Discussion: Footnotes on the philosophy of biology. Philosophy of Science 36:197–202
1972Continental drift and the history of the Australian bird fauna. Emu 72:26–28
1972Geography and ecology as faunal determinants. Pages 549–561 in Proceedings XVth International Ornithological Congress (K H Voous, Ed) E J Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands.
1972Lamarck revisited. Journal of the History of Biology. 5:55–94
1980How I became a Darwinian, Pages 413–423 in The Evolutionary Synthesis (E Mayr and W Provine, Eds) Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1980 with W B Provine, Eds.The Evolutionary Synthesis. Harvard University Press.
1981Evolutionary biology. Pages 147–162 in The Joys of Research (W. Shripshire Jr, Ed.) Smithsonian Institution Press.
1984Evolution and ethics. Pages 35–46 in Darwin, Mars and Freud: Their influence on Moral Theory (A L Caplan and B Jennings, Eds.) Plenum Press, New York.
1985. Darwin's five theories of evolution. In D. Kohn, ed.,The Darwinian Heritage, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 755–772.
1985. How biology differs from the physical sciences. In D. J. Depew and B H Weber, eds.,Evolution at a Crossroads: The New Biology and the New Philosophy of Science, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, pp. 43–63.
1988. The why and how of species.Biology and Philosophy 3:431–441
1992. The idea of teleology.Journal of the History of Ideas 53:117–135
1994. with W.J. Bock. Provisional classifications v. standard avian sequences: heuristics and communication in ornithology.Ibis 136:12–18
^Meise, W. (1929). "Zwei neue Rassen vonMyzomela nigrita".Ornithologische Monatsberichte).37:84–85.
^Rümmler, H. (1932). "Ueber die schwimmratten (Hydromyinae), zugleich Beschreibung einer neuenLeptomys Thos.,L. ernstmayri, aus Neuguinea".Aquarium (Berlin).1932:131–135.
^Kirchman, J.J.; Steadman, D.W. (2006). "Rails (Rallidae:Gallirallus) from prehistoric archaeological sites in Western Oceania".Zootaxa.1316:1–31.doi:10.5281/zenodo.173941.
Haffer, Jürgen (2007).Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy: The Life and Science of Ernst Mayr, 1904-2005. Berlin, Germany: Springer.ISBN978-3-540-71778-2.
Mayr, Ernst (1998).The Evolutionary Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.ISBN978-0-674-27226-2. Reprint of 1980 edition (Mayr and William B. Provine, eds.) with new preface.
Mayr, Ernst (1954). "Change of genetic environment and evolution". In Julian Huxley (ed.).Evolution as a Process. London: George Allen & Unwin.OCLC974739.
