Systematics and the Origin of Species: On Ernst Mayr's 100th Anniversary

Abstract

Over the past decade the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has organized several colloquia celebrating the American contribution to what has been called the Evolutionary Synthesis, whose hey-day was some five decades ago. So, we have had published proceedings from colloquia on George Gaylord Simpson (Fitch and Ayala, 1995), Theodosius Dobzhansky (Ayala and Fitch, 1997), and G. Ledyard Stebbins (Ayala et al., 2000), and now it is Ernst Mayr's turn. However, although the first three proceedings were subtitled “50 Years After …,” and this one could just as accurately have received the same, it has instead been subtitled to emphasize that the colloquium was held 6 months after Mayr's 100th birthday (and 6 weeks before his death). (It cannot be coincidence, by the way, that the books celebrated by these colloquia were based on the Jesup Lectures given at Columbia University.) There can be few evolutionary biologists (sensu lato) who have not heard of Ernst Mayr, relatively few who have not encountered some of his published work, and none who have not been influenced by that body of work (even if they do not realize it). For systematists, it is Mayr (1942) that has been the most influential work, and the one that the “50 Years After …” subtitle would refer to, although it is Mayr (1982) that is probably his most interesting contribution to biology as a whole.

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