George Barlow's impact on ethology

Abstract

At the conclusion of a long and distinguished career, a scientist’s contribution might be measured by the number of papers published and graduate students trained, or better yet, the influence of his landmark papers and productivity of his intellectual offspring. By any of these measures, George Barlow’s stamp on behavioural research is unmistakable. Over his career, George published 162 articles and three books, including Cichlid Fishes. Nature’s Grand Experiment in Evolution (2000). A scientist’s influence may also be demonstrated through his professional service. Here, too, George excelled, serving as the President of the Animal Behaviour Society, as the Editor of Ethology, and as a member of the editorial boards of Copeia, Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, and Environmental Biology of Fishes. George was also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the California Academy of Science, and the Animal Behaviour Society. But George’s most profound impact may have been as a transitional thinker between early ethology and modern sociobiology and behavioural ecology. George came to his ideas through the study of reproductive behaviour, parental care, structure of stereotyped displays, aggression, life-history strategies, speciation, and polychromatism in a variety of fishes (Stewart et al., 2004). George was born in Long Beach, California in 1929. His family suffered a series of tragic losses. Three of George’s siblings were killed, one by the flu,