Tony Sinclair (biologist)
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Anthony Ronald Entrican Sinclair (born March 25, 1944) is a
professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...
of
zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...
at the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...
. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:


Education and early life

The son of Sir Ronald Ormiston Sinclair, Tony Sinclair spent his early childhood in the African bush in
Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
, where his love for
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
and animals led him to study for degrees in
zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...
at
Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located on Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England and VI of Scotland, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale ...
. For his doctoral dissertation, Sinclair conducted research into the ecology of
African Buffalo The African buffalo (''Syncerus caffer)'' is a large sub-Saharan African bovine. The adult African buffalo's horns are its characteristic feature: they have fused bases, forming a continuous bone shield across the top of the head, referred to ...
under
Niko Tinbergen Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen ( , ; 15 April 1907 – 21 December 1988) was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning th ...
at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
with supervision from Hugh Lamprey at the Serengeti Research Institute.


Research and career

Sinclair is an ecologist and leading authority on the
ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...
,
population dynamics Population dynamics is the type of mathematics used to model and study the size and age composition of populations as dynamical systems. Population dynamics is a branch of mathematical biology, and uses mathematical techniques such as differenti ...
and community structures of large mammals. He is the former Director of the Biodiversity Research Center at UBC. His work is of importance for the management and conservation of the environment in Africa, North America and Australia. He is particularly interested in the areas of predator sensitive foraging, predator–prey theory, migration and the regulation of populations. By conducting long-term research on large mammals in the
Mara Mara or MARA may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Mara (''Doctor Who''), an evil being in two ''Doctor Who'' serials * Mara (She-Ra), fictional characters from the ''She-Ra and the Princesses of Power'' and ''The New Advent ...
Serengeti The Serengeti ( ) ecosystem is a geographical region in Africa, spanning the Mara and Arusha Regions of Tanzania. The protected area within the region includes approximately of land, including the Serengeti National Park and several game r ...
ecosystem and elsewhere in
East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...
, Sinclair showed the ways in which different animal populations are regulated. In the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem his research demonstrated periodic rinderpest outbreaks acted as a limiting factor for buffalo and wildebeest until the 1950s when rinderpest was greatly reduced by a vaccination program. He has also investigated how plant-eating animals are able to co-exist with each other, even when they have overlapping food sources. For example, he analyzed Thomson Gazelle, wildebeest, and buffalo populations dynamics in the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem. His research showed that larger ungulates, such as wildebeest and buffalo, have food-limited populations, meaning their respective populations are limited by intraspecific competition. However, smaller ungulates, such as Thomson gazelle, have predator-limited populations because there are so many predator species that prey upon them in the Mara-Serengeti. Interestingly, zebras, although large, appear to have a predator-limited population because of low first-year survival rates. Sinclair's research has also extended beyond just large mammals. His group in the Serengeti researched vegetation characteristics of the highly dynamic Mara-Serengeti ecosystem. One paper published by his group, asserted that the reduction in abundance of a certain broad-leaved thicket was due to an increase in the grazers after a rinderpest outbreak in the early 20th century, frequent fires, and competition from grasses near streams and rivers. Secondly, his group found that wildebeest population recovery after disease outbreak resulted in less widespread bush fires and changes in tree density. These changes in tree density may have resulted in a change in the species abundance and richness of birds within Serengeti. Finally, his research in the early 2000s focused on transitions between savanna and woodland, and vice versa, and the factors affecting the transitions (elephants, bush fire, grazers). Sinclair's research has shown that all trophic levels and abiotic factors interact to create the complex and dynamic ecosystems we observe. Sinclair and his work are featured prominently in his book, The Serengeti Story, released in 2012, and the documentary film, ''
The Serengeti Rules ''The Serengeti Rules'' is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Nicolas Brown, and based on the book by Sean B. Carroll. The film explores the discoveries of five pioneering scientists— Tony Sinclair, Mary E. Power, Bob Paine, John Te ...
'', which was released in 2018.


Awards and honours

In 1996, he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Canada judges to have "made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life" ...
(FRSC) and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2002.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair, Tony 1944 births Living people 20th-century Canadian zoologists Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Canadian fellows of the Royal Society Alumni of the University of Oxford Academic staff of the University of British Columbia Place of birth missing (living people)