Peter Robert Marler

Background

MARLER, Peter was born on February 24, 1928 in London, England. Son of Robert A. and Gertrude Hunt Marler.

Education

Born in Slough, England, Marler graduated from University College London with a Bachelor of Science in 1948, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Botany in 1952. In 1954, he graduated from the University of Cambridge with a second Doctor of Philosophy in zoology.

Career

A 1964 Guggenheim Fellow, he was emeritus professor of neurobiology, physiology and ethology at the University of California, Davis. From 1954 to 1956, he worked as a research assistant to William Homan Thorpe and Robert Hinde at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1957, he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1966, he became a professor at Rockefeller University, in 1969 became director of the Institute for in Animal Behavior, a collaboration between the New York Zoological Society (now the Wildlife Conservation Society) and Rockefeller University and in 1972 became director of the Field Center for Ethology and Ecology.

In 1989, Marler became a professor at the University of California, Davis. He retired in 1994, but took over the management of the local Center for Animal Behavior from 1996 to 2000.

He died on July 5, 2014 of pneumonia while his family was evacuated from his Winters home because of the nearby Monticello wildfire. Marler was an internationally recognized researcher in the field of bird song.

Through his work with songbirds, he helped gain fundamental insights into the acquisition of song.

He also studied the development of communication skills in several primate species: chimpanzees and gorillas, along with Jane Goodall and Hugo van Lawick, and the southern green monkey, in collaboration with Tom Struhsaker, Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth. His work greatly informed our understanding of memory, learning, and the importance of auditory and social experience. His work group included many well-known ornithologist and behavioral scientists, including Masakazu Konishi, Fernando Nottebohm, Susan Peters, Don Kroodsma, Bill Searcy, Steve Nowicki, Ken Yasukawa, and John Wingfield.

Foreign a more complete list of collaborators, students, and mentors see his entry in Neurotree. and Direction finding Sherry.

Achievements

• Marler was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2008. His nomination reads:.

Membership

Royal Society; National Academy of Sciences]

Marler was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2008.

Interests

• Gardening, natural history.

Connections

Married Judith Gallen in 1954.