A comezos da década de1930 estaba xa convencido do acertado da teoría evolutiva deDarwin. En1937 foi un dos científicos que apoiaron a teoría chamadaSíntese evolutiva moderna esbozada no libro "Xenética e a orixe das especies" deTheodosius Dobzhansky, e que foi crucial na aceptación xeneralizada do concepto de evolución.
Durante 18 anos e até1953 traballou como investigador no Museo Americano de Historia Natural deNova York, onde foi responsable da taxonomía deaves. En1950 Mayr propuxo unha clasificación alternativa dos fósiles, incluíndo os de homínidos. En consecuencia, a súa proposta obtivo unha ampla aceptación.
En1983 recibiu o Premio Balzan en zoología. En1999 recibiu o Premio Crafoord en ciencias da vida, galardón que compartiu cos doutores Williams e Smith.
Mayr defendeu que, a diferenza da física, a bioloxía non se fundamenta tanto en leis como en conceptos:
Se un chega á conclusión de que non existen leis naturais na bioloxía evolutiva, hai que preguntarse, nas teorías biolóxicas, que pode un entón tomar como base? A opinión amplamente adoptada é que as teorías da bioloxía evolutiva se basea nos conceptos en lugar de leis, e esta rama da ciencia sen dúbida ten abundantes conceptos sobre as teorías de base. Permítanme mencionar conceptos tales como a selección natural, loita pola existencia, competencia, biopoboación, adaptación, éxito reprodutivo, selección da femia, e dominación masculina. [...] Como consecuencia, unha filosofía da física baseada en leis naturais resulta ser algo moi distinto dunha filosofía da bioloxía baseada en conceptos
If one concludes that there are no natural laws in evolutionary biology, one must ask, on what can one then base biological theories? The view now widely adopted is that theories in evolutionary biology are based on concepts rather than laws, and this branch of science certainly has abundant concepts on which to base theories. Let me just mention such concepts as natural selection, struggle for existence, competition, biopopulation, adaptation, reproductive success, female choice, and male dominance. [...] As a result, a philosophy of physics based on natural laws turns out to be something very different from a philosophy of biology based on concepts.
Unha das maiores contribucións teóricas de Mayr foi a súadefinición do concepto deespecie. Xunto conDobzhansky, Mayr propuxo o concepto biolóxico de especie segundo o cal, unha especie é un grupo (ou poboación) natural de individuos que poden cruzarse entre si, pero que están illados reprodutivamente doutros grupos afíns. Este é o concepto máis amplamente aceptado: a definición biolóxica de especie implica evolutivamente asumir que é unha poboación reprodutivamente illada, polo que constitúe unha liñaxe evolutiva separada e que é reforzada por unha serie de barreiras que poden ser de carácter xeográfico ou biolóxico.[4][5] No entanto, o concepto biolóxico de especie ten varias limitacións: en primeiro lugar, é inaplicable a organismosfósiles; en segundo lugar, non pode aplicarse a organismos que se reproducen asexualmente; por último, existen moitos casos dehibridación, especialmente en plantas vasculares, nos que se produce descendencia fértil e que permanecen como unidades xenéticas e evolutivas independentes.
Mayr admitiu que a súa definición de especie non se aplica a organismos asexuales, pero a obxección da hibridación conduciulle a unha redefinición do concepto de "mecanismos de illamento" como "propiedades biolóxicas dos individuos que preveñen o entrecruzamento [fusión] das poboacións" (Mayr 1970, p. 56). Os mecanismos de illamento, por tanto, non sempre preveñen o entrecruzamento ocasional, pero si a fusión completa entre as dúas especies.
1970 Populations, Species and Evolution. Harvard University Press.ISBN 0-674-69013-3
1976 Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays. Harvard University Press.ISBN 0-674-27105-X
1982 The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance. Harvard University Press.ISBN 0-674-36446-5
1988 Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist. Harvard University Press.ISBN 0-674-89666-1
1991 con P AshlockPrinciples of Systematic Zoology revised ed. McGraw-Hill, NY.ISBN 0-07-041144-1
1991 One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.ISBN 0-674-63906-5
1997 This is Biology: The Science of the Living World. Harvard University Press.ISBN 0-674-88469-8 [Así é a Bioloxía. Editorial Debate, S.A. Colección Pensamento. 326 páxs. Madrid, 1998ISBN 84-8306-122-8][6]
1923 "Die Kolbenente (Nyroca rufina) auf dem Durchzuge in Sachsen".Ornithologische Monatsberichte 31:135-136
1923 "Der Zwergfliegenschapper bei Greifswald".Ornithologische Monatsberichte 31:136
1926 "Die Ausbreitung des Girlitz (Serinus canaria serinus L.) Ein Beitrag zur Tiergeographie".J. fur Ornithologie 74:571-671
1927 "Die Schneefinken (GattungenMontifringilla undLeucosticte)"J. für Ornithologie 75:596-619
1929 with W Meise.Zeitschriftenverzeichnis des Museums fur Naturkunde Mitteilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin 14:1-187
1930 (by Ernst 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
1931 Die Vogel des Saurwagedund Herzoggebirges (NON Neuginea) Mitteilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin 17:639-723
1931 "Birds collected during the Whitney South Sexa Expedition. XII Notes onHalcyon chloris and some of its subspecies".American Museum Novitates non 469
1935 "Bernard Altum and the territory theory".Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of New York 45, 46:24-38
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 lixeiro 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 estafe 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 with Dean Amadon, "A classification of recent birds".American Museum Novitates non. 1496
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. Londres
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 non 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 in The 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 in Evolution 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 in On 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
1969 Discussion: 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. J. of the History of Biology. 5:55-94
1974 Teleological and teleonomic: A new analysis. Boston studies in the Philosophy of Science 14:91-117
1978 Tenure: A sacred cow? Sci. 199:1293
1980 How I became a Darwinian, pp. 413–423 in The Evolutionary Synthesis (E Mayr and W Provín, Eds) Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1980 with W B Provín, 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, Nova 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.J. of the History of Ideas 53:117-135
1994. with W.J. Bock. Provisional classifications v. standard avian sequences: heurisitics and communication in ornithology.Ibis 136:12-18
1996. What is a species, and what is not?Philosophy of Science 63 (xuño): 262-277.
1996. The autonomy of biology: the position of biology among the sciences.Quarterly Review of Biology 71:97-106
↑Bock, Walter J. 2006."Ernst Walter Mayr. 5 july 1904 -- 3 february 2005: Elected ForMemRS 1988". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 52: 167. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2006.0013. JSTOR 20461341
↑Meyer, A. 2005."On the Importance of Being Ernst Mayr". PLoS Biology 3 (5): e152. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030152
