Eric Lee Charnov (born October 29, 1947) is an American evolutionary ecologist. He is best known for his work on

foraging Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Foraging theory is a branch of behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavi ...

, especially the marginal value theorem, and

life history theory Life history theory is an analytical frameworkVitzthum, V. (2008). Evolutionary models of women's reproductive functioning. ''Annual Review of Anthropology'', ''37'', 53-73 designed to study the diversity of life history strategies used by differen ...

, especially sex allocation and scaling/allometric rules. He is a

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

and a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. Two of his papers are Science Citation Classics. Charnov gained his B.S. in 1969 from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and his PhD in evolutionary ecology from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

in 1973. He is a Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) of Biology at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

and the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

. His research interests are: metabolic ecology (temperature and body size in the determination of biological times and rates) and evolutionary ecology:

population genetics Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as Adaptation (biology), adaptation, ...

evolutionary game theory Evolutionary game theory (EGT) is the application of game theory to evolving populations in biology. It defines a framework of contests, strategies, and analytics into which Darwinian competition can be modelled. It originated in 1973 with John M ...

, and optimization models to understand the evolution of life histories, sex allocation,

sexual selection Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in which members of one biological sex choose mates of the other sex to mate with (intersexual selection), and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex ( ...

, and

decisions.

Bibliography

* Charnov, E.L. 1993. Life History Invariants. Oxford University Press, 167 pp. * Charnov, E.L. 1982. The Theory of Sex Allocation. Princeton University Press, 355 pp.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Charnov, Eric 1947 births University of Washington alumni University of New Mexico faculty Living people MacArthur Fellows American ecologists Evolutionary ecologists Population geneticists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences University of Michigan alumni