Donald Ward Tinkle (December 3, 1930 – February 21, 1980) was a prominent

herpetologist Herpetology (from Ancient Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (Gymnophiona)) and reptiles (in ...

ecologist Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

, and

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biol ...

at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

until his illness and death at age 49. He is best known for his intensive demographic studies of lizards, which involved full censuses of local populations repeated over several years to obtain

life table In actuarial science and demography, a life table (also called a mortality table or actuarial table) is a table which shows, for each age, the probability that a person of that age will die before their next birthday ("probability of death"). In ...

parameters such as age at maturity, survivorship, and reproductive effort. He was a pioneer in developing life history theory along with key students including Henry Wilbur, Michael Hirshfield, and Arthur Dunham, and he was an important collaborator with Dr. Richard D. Alexander in the application of individual selection theory and

sociobiological Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within the study of ...

ideas to varied organisms including humans. Tinkle was a student of the renowned herpetologist Fred Cagle, receiving a PhD at

Tulane University The Tulane University of Louisiana (commonly referred to as Tulane University) is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by a cohort of medical doctors, it b ...

after conducting studies of freshwater turtles in the southeastern United States with future herpetologist and author J. Whitfield Gibbons as his undergraduate assistant. Before becoming director of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, he held a one-year Maytag Chair at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public university, public research university in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is o ...

in 1972 where he influenced the careers of several young herpetologists, including Laurie J. Vitt and Justin D. Congdon. After his return to the Michigan campus at Ann Arbor, he initiated a project in 1974 at the University's Edwin S. George Reserve that became the longest running and most intensive study ever conducted on the ecology of freshwater turtles. That study continued until 2008 under the direction of Justin D. Congdon. A species of lizard, ''Phyllodactylus tinklei'', was named in his honor by James R. Dixon in 1966. As of 2020 the species is considered a synonym of ''

Phyllodactylus xanti ''Phyllodactylus xanti'' is a species of lizard in the Family (biology), family Phyllodactylidae. It is endemic to northwestern Mexico. It is also known as the leaf-toed gecko (leaf-toed gecko, among many other species) or Raza Island leaf-toed g ...

''. www.reptile-database.org.

References

External links

A list of Tinkle's publications

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tinkle, Donald W 1930 births 1980 deaths American herpetologists American ecologists University of Michigan faculty 20th-century American zoologists

References

Further reading

External links