Peter Marler

Peter Robert Marler ForMemRS (February 24, 1928 – July 5, 2014) was a British-born American ethologist and zoosemiotician known for his research on animal sign communication and the science of bird song.

Born in Slough, England, Marler graduated from University College London with a BSc in 1948, and a Ph.D. in botany in 1952.

In 1954, he graduated from the University of Cambridge with a second Ph.D. in zoology.

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.

A 1964 Guggenheim Fellow, he was emeritus professor of neurobiology, physiology and ethology at the University of California, Davis.

In 1966, he became a professor at Rockefeller University, in 1969 became director of the Institute for Research 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 Research Center for Ethology and Ecology.

Marler was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1970, the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1971, and the American Philosophical Society in 1983.

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.

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

His nomination reads:

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.

Peter Marler developed the first properly semiotic approach to animal communication.

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, Christopher Clark, Bill Searcy, Steve Nowicki, Ken Yasukawa, and John Wingfield.