Mary Jane West-Eberhard

Mary Jane West-Eberhard (born 1941) is an American theoretical biologist noted for arguing that phenotypic and developmental plasticity played a key role in shaping animal evolution and speciation. She is also an entomologist notable for her work on the behavior and evolution of social wasps.

She is a member both of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2005 she was elected to be a foreign member of the Italian Accademia dei Lincei. She has been a past president (1991) of the Society for the Study of Evolution. Mary Jane West-Eberhard, CHR Vice Chair
She won the 2003 R.R. Hawkins Award for the Outstanding Professional, Reference or Scholarly Work for her book ''Developmental Plasticity and Evolution'' (618 pages).West-Eberhard M-J. (2003). Developmental plasticity and evolution. Oxford University Press, New York. In the same year she was the recipient of the Sewall Wright Award. She has been selected as one of the 21 "Leaders in Animal Behavior".

She is engaged in long-term research projects at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute at the Escuela de Biologia, Universidad de Costa Rica.

Early life and education

West-Eberhard's mother was a primary school teacher, and her father, a small-town businessman, and as parents they encouraged her curiosity. She went to school in Plymouth Community Schools, Plymouth, Michigan. She recalls of her high school that the best scientific training "was an English course on critical reading and writing, taught by the school librarian. Biology class was just a workbook, an enormous disappointment for me."

She did all her degrees at the University of Michigan. She did her bachelor's degree from University of Michigan in zoology in 1963. She earned her master's degree from the same place in zoology in 1964, and then her PhD(zoology) in 1967.  There she was taught by Richard D. Alexander and had part-time employment in its Museum of Zoology. She records that "I also learned the excitement of being a sleuth in the university libraries where even an undergraduate could explore an idea beyond textbooks and could feel like a pioneer". She also corresponded with Edward Wilson on trophic eggs in insects, and spent summers at Woods Hole and Cali in Colombia.

She did postdoctoral work (1967–1969) at Harvard University with Howard Evans. There she met her husband. She then spent the next ten years (1969–1979) as an associate in biology at the University of Valle. In 1973 she began an association with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Costa Rica which became a full-time employment in 1986.

Social insects

West-Eberhard has studied many species of social wasps such as ''Polistes fuscatus'', ''Polistes canadensis'', and '' Polistes erythrocephalus.'' Through her studies she has investigated why wasps evolved from being casteless and nestsharing casteless to becoming highly specialized eusocial species using comparative studies of tropical wasps (Hymenoptera). She has argued that origins of nonreproductive females in social wasps involves mutualism rather than only kin selection or parental manipulation.

Her work upon social insects has played an important role in the development of her ideas upon phenotypic plasticity. As she notes "From there I got interested in alternative phenotypes—alternative pathways and decision points during development, and their significance for evolution, especially for higher levels of organization, for speciation, and for macroevolutionary change without speciation."

Phenotypic plasticity

West-Eberhard has written from the mid-1980s upon the role of "alternative phenotypes," such as polymorphisms, polyphenisms, and context sensitive phenotype life history and physiological traits. This resulted in her 2003 book ''Developmental Plasticity and Evolution''.

She argues that such alternative phenotypes are important since they can lead to novel traits, and then to genetic divergence and so speciation. Through alternative phenotypes environmental induction can take the lead in genetic evolution. Her book ''Developmental Plasticity and Evolution'' developed in detail how such environmental plasticity plays a key role in understanding the genetic theory of evolution. Her argument is full of examples from butterflies to elephants.

Sexual and social selection

West-Eberhard was among the first scientists to reexamine Charles Darwin's ideas in ''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' about sexual selection and identify the key importance he gave to the "social competition for mates" as a factor in evolution and speciation. She has noted how sexual selection can trap animals into sexual dimorphisms, to maintain separate sexes in sexual reproduction.

Other work

As a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, West-Eberhard has served for three terms on its Committee on Human Rights. She has also been noted as "active in promoting the careers of young scientists, particularly those doing work in Latin America".

Since 2013, West-Eberhard has been listed on the Advisory Council of the National Center for Science Education.

Selected bibliography

Social wasps

* 1967
Foundress associations in polistine wasps: dominance hierarchies and the evolution of social behavior
Science 157(3796):1584-1585.
* 1969. The Social Biology of Polistine Wasps. Misc. Publ. Univ. Mich. Mus. Zool. 140:1-101.
* 1970. Wasps. (with H. E. Evans). University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
* 1975
The evolution of social behavior by kin selection
Quart. Rev. Biol. 50(1):1-33.
* 1978
Temporary queens in Metapolybia wasps: Non-reproductive helpers without altruism
Science 200 (4340):441-443.
* 1987
Flexible strategy and social evolution
In Animal societies: Theories and facts, Y. Ito, J. L. Brown, and J. Kikkawa, eds., Japan Scientific Societies Press, Ltd., Tokyo, pp. 35–51.
* 1988. (with W. T. Wcislo and W. G. Eberhard)
Natural history and behavior of a primitively social wasp Auplopus semialatus, and a parasite, Irenangelus eberhardi (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae)
J. Insect Behavior 1(2):247-60.
* 1996. Wasp societies as microcosms for the study of development and evolution., pp. 290–317. In Natural history and evolution of paper wasps. (editors, West-Eberhard, M-J. & S. Turillazzi) Oxford University Press, Oxford.
* 2005. (with T. Giray and M. Giovanetti
Juvenile hormone, reproduction, and worker behavior in the neotropical social wasp Polistes canadensis
Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA 102(9):3330-3335.
* 2005
The behavior of the primitively social wasp Montezumia cortesioides Willink (Vespidae, Eumeninae) and the origins of vespid sociality
Ecology Ethology and Evolution 17:51-65.
*2008
Inclusive fitness theory and eusociality.
Nature. 471(7339):10.1038/nature09831. doi:10.1038/nature09831.

Phenotypical plasticity

* 1986.
Alternative adaptations, speciation, and phylogeny
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 83(5):1388-1392.
* 1989
Phenotypic plasticity and the origins of diversity
Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 20:249-278.
* 1998
Evolution in the light of developmental and cell biology, and vice versa
Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA 95:8417-8419.
* 2002
Development and selection in adaptive evolution
Trends in Ecology & Evolution 17(2):65.
* 2003. Developmental plasticity and evolution. Oxford University Press, New York.
* 2005
Developmental plasticity and the origin of species differences
Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA 102, Suppl. 1:6543-6549.
* 2005
Phenotypic accommodation: Adaptive innovation due to developmental plasticity
Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B ( Molecular and Developmental Evolution) 304B:610-618.
* 2007
Dancing with DNA and flirting with the ghost of Lamarck
Biology & Philosophy 22(3):439-451.
* 2007
Developmental Plasticity, Evolution and the origins of disease
in Nesse, R. (ed.), Evolution and Medicine: How New Applications Advance Research and Practice, The Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection, Henry Stewart Talks Ltd, London (online at http://www.hstalks.com/bio)
* 2007
Are genes good markers of biological traits
175–193. In Biological Surveys. National Research Council Committee on Advances in Collecting and Utilizing Biological Indicators and Genetic Information in Social Science Surveys. Weinstein, M., Vaupel, J. W. and Wachter, K.W. (editors), National Academies Press, Washington.
* 2008
Toward a Modern Revival of Darwin's Theory of Evolutionary Novelty
Philosophy of Science, 75:899-908.

Sexual selection

* 1979
Sexual selection, social competition, and evolution
Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. 51(4):222-234.
* 1983
Sexual selection, social competition, and speciation
Quart. Rev. Biol. 58(2):155-183.
* 2005
The maintenance of sex as a developmental trap due to sexual selection
Quarterly Review of Biology 80(1):47-53.
*2014
Darwin's forgotten idea: The social essence of sexual selection
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. Volume 46, Part 4, October 2014, Pages 501-508

Other

* 2005
Howard E. Evans 1919-2002
Biographical Memoirs, Volume 86. National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 1–19.
* 2005. (with P.C. Agre, S. Altman, F.R. Curl and T.N. Wiesel)
Using ethics to fight bioterrorism
Science 309:1013-1014.

Honors and awards

* 1963. Phi Beta Kappa (University of Michigan)
*1963. Phi Beta Kappa (University of Michigan)
*1963. Woodrow Wilson Fellow (Hon.)
*1965-66. Rackham Fellow, University of Michigan
*1966. Edward C. Walker Scholar, University of Michigan
*1968-69. Milton Fellow, Harvard University
*1968. Summer Research Fellow, E.N. Huyck Preserve
*1982. Distinguished Visiting Scientist, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
*1987. Elected Vice President, Society for the Study of Evolution
*1988. Elected Member National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.
*1992. Elected President, Society for the Study of Evolution
*1996. Elected Member American Academy of Arts and Sciences
*2002. Elected Foreign Member National Academy of Sciences of Costa Rica
*2003
Sewell Wright Award, American Society of Naturalists

*2003
Hawkins Award, American Association of Publishers
(best scholarly book of 2003 (Developmental Plasticity and Evolution))
*2004. Hamilton Lecturer, International Society of Behavioral Ecology, Jyvaskyla Finland
*2005. Elected Foreign Member, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome
*2009. Elected Fellow, Animal Behavior Society
*2010–present


*2012. ttp://www.animalbehaviorsociety.org/web/awards-quest.php Quest Award for Lifetime Achievement Animal Behavior Society
*2014
Hamilton Award, International Union for the Study of Social Insects

References

External links

Publications with pdfs

Research Bibliography

{{DEFAULTSORT:West-Eberhard, Mary Jane
1941 births
Living people
American entomologists
Women entomologists
21st-century American biologists
Extended evolutionary synthesis
Hymenopterists
Smithsonian Institution people
University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni
Harvard University alumni
University of Valle people
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Evolutionary biologists
Women evolutionary biologists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers