The Darwin–Wallace Medal is a medal awarded by the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

for "major advances in evolutionary biology". Historically, the medals have been awarded every 50 years, beginning in 1908. That year marked 50 years after the joint presentation by

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

and

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural se ...

of two scientific papers—''

On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection" is the title of a journal article, comprising and resulting from the joint presentation of two scientific papers to the ...

''—to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858. Fittingly, Wallace was one of the first recipients of the medal, in his case it was, exceptionally, in gold, rather than the silver version presented in the six other initial awards. However, in 2008 the Linnean Society announced that due to the continuing importance of evolutionary research, the medal will be awarded on an annual basis beginning in 2010.

Awardees

1908

The first award was of a gold medal to

, and silver medals to six other distinguished scientists: *

Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of t ...

August Weismann August Friedrich Leopold Weismann FRS (For), HonFRSE, LLD (17 January 18345 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Cha ...

Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new sp ...

Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto- ...

* E. Ray Lankester * Eduard Strasburger

1958

20 silver medals were awarded: *

Edgar Anderson Edgar Shannon Anderson (November 9, 1897 – June 18, 1969) was an American botanist. He introduced the term ''introgressive hybridization'' and his 1949 book of that title was an original and important contribution to botanical genetics. HIs wo ...

* E. Pavlovsky *

Maurice Caullery Maurice Jules Gaston Corneille Caullery (5 September 1868, Bergues – 13 July 1958, Paris) was a French biologist. Biography He was born in Bergues in north France on 5 September 1868. His early education was in Douai. He began as a lectu ...

Bernhard Rensch Bernhard Rensch (21 January 1900 – 4 April 1990) was a German evolutionary biologist and ornithologist who did field work in Indonesia and India. Starting his scientific career with pro-Lamarckian views, he shifted to selectionism and became ...

Ronald A. Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who a ...

* G. Gaylord Simpson * C. R. Florin *

Carl Skottsberg Carl Johan Fredrik Skottsberg (1 December 1880 – 14 June 1963) was a Swedish botanist and explorer of Antarctica. Life Skottsberg was born in Karlshamn on 1 December 1880 the son of Carl Adolf Skottsberg a schoolmaster and his wife, Maria L ...

Roger Heim Roger Heim (February 12, 1900 – September 17, 1979) was a French botanist specialising in mycology and tropical phytopathology. He was known for his studies describing the anatomy of the mushroom hymenium, the systematics and phylogeny of high ...

* H. Hamshaw Thomas *

J. B. S. Haldane John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolog ...

Erik Stensiö Prof Erik Helge Osvald Stensiö HFRSE (2 October 1891 – 11 January 1984) was a Swedish paleozoologist. He later took his new surname from his place of origin and is occasionally referred to with both names (as Erik Andersson Stensiö, Erik ...

* John Hutchinson *

Göte Turesson Göte Wilhelm Turesson (6 April 1892 – 30 December 1970) was a Swedish evolutionary botanist who made significant contributions to ecological genetics, and coined the terms ecotype and agamospecies. He conducted extensive work to demonstra ...

Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. ...

Victor van Straelen Victor van Straelen (14 June 1889 – 29 February 1964) was a Belgian conservationist, palaeontologist and carcinologist. Van Straelen was born in Antwerp on 14 June 1889, and worked chiefly as a palaeontologist until his retirement in 1954. He ...

Ernst Mayr Ernst Walter Mayr (; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher o ...

D. M. S. Watson Prof David Meredith Seares Watson FRS FGS HFRSE LLD (18 June 1886 – 23 July 1973) was the Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College, London from 1921 to 1951. Biography Early life Watson was born in the Highe ...

* H. J. Muller *

John Christopher Willis John Christopher Willis FRS (20 February 1868 – 21 March 1958) was an English botanist known for his Age and Area hypothesis and criticism of natural selection. Education Born in Liverpool, he was educated at and University College, Liverpoo ...

(posthumously)

2008

13 silver medals were awarded, including 2 posthumously: *

Nick Barton Nicholas Hamilton Barton (born 30 August 1955) is a British evolutionary biologist. Education Barton was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge where he graduated with a first-class degree in Biological Sciences (Cambridge) in 1976 and gained his ...

* M.W. Chase *

Bryan Clarke Bryan Campbell Clarke (24 June 1932 – 27 February 2014) was a British Professor of genetics, latterly emeritus at the University of Nottingham. Clarke is particularly noted for his work on apostatic selection (which is a term he coined ...

Joseph Felsenstein Joseph "Joe" Felsenstein (born May 9, 1942) is a Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Genome Sciences and Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is best known for his work on phylogenetic inference, and is the author of ''Inferr ...

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...

(posthumously) * Peter R. Grant *

Rosemary Grant Peter Raymond Grant (born October 26, 1936) and Barbara Rosemary Grant (born October 8, 1936) are a British married couple who are evolutionary biologists at Princeton University. Each currently holds the position of emeritus professor. They ...

James Mallet James Mallet (born 15 March 1955 in London) is an evolutionary zoologist specialising in entomology. He was educated at Winchester College. He became professor of biological diversity at the Department of Biology, University College London. He wa ...

Lynn Margulis Lynn Margulis (born Lynn Petra Alexander; March 5, 1938 – November 22, 2011) was an American evolutionary biologist, and was the primary modern proponent for the significance of symbiosis in evolution. Historian Jan Sapp has said that "Lynn Ma ...

John Maynard Smith John Maynard Smith (6 January 1920 – 19 April 2004) was a British theoretical and mathematical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics und ...

(posthumously) *

Mohamed Noor Mohamed Noor is the Interim Dean of Arts & Sciences and a Professor in the Biology Department at Duke University (formerly holding the rotating titles of Earl D. McLean Professor, department chair, and dean of natural sciences). His specialties ...

H. Allen Orr H. Allen Orr (born 1960) is the Shirley Cox Kearns Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester. Education and career Orr earned his bachelor's degree in Biology and Philosophy from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. in Biology ...

Linda Partridge Professor Dame Linda Partridge (born 18 March 1950) is a British geneticist, who studies the biology and genetics of ageing (biogerontology) and age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Partridge is currently W ...

From 2010

Brian Charlesworth Brian Charlesworth (born 29 April 1945) is a British evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, and editor of ''Biology Letters''. Since 1997, he has been Royal Society Research Professor at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IE ...

(2010) * James A. Lake (2011) *

Loren H. Rieseberg Loren H. Rieseberg (born 1961) is a Canadian-American botanist. Born in Alberta, Canada, his family moved to the US. He graduated from Washington State University with a Ph.D. in 1987. He is a Professor of Botany at the University of British ...

(2012) *

Godfrey Hewitt Godfrey Matthew Hewitt (10 January 1940 – 18 February 2013) was a British professor and evolutionary geneticist at the University of East Anglia who was very influential in the development of the fields of molecular ecology, phylogeography, sp ...

(2013) *

Dolph Schluter Dolph Schluter (born May 22, 1955) is a Canadian professor of Evolutionary Biology and a Canada Research Chair in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia. Schluter is a major researcher in adaptive radiation and currently ...

(2014) * Roger Butlin (2015) *

Pamela S. Soltis Pamela Soltis (born November 13, 1957) is an American botanist. She is a distinguished professor at the University of Florida, curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, principal investigator of the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics an ...

and Douglas E. Soltis (2016) * John N. Thompson (2017) * Josephine Pemberton (2018) * David Reich and

Svante Pääbo Svante Pääbo (; born 20 April 1955) is a Swedish geneticist who specialises in the field of evolutionary genetics. As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. In 1997, he became founding dire ...

(2019) * Spencer Barrett (2020) *

Sarah Otto Sarah Perin "Sally" Otto (born October 23, 1967) is a theoretical biologist, Canada Research Chair in Theoretical and Experimental Evolution, and is currently a Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia. From 2008-2016, she was the ...

(2021) *

David Jablonski David Ira Jablonski (born 1953) is an American professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago. His research focuses upon the ecology and biogeography of the origin of major novelties, the evolutionary role of mass extinctions—i ...

(2022)

References