Rate My Professor Mark Elgar
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About Mark
Professor Mark Elgar was Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Biology and Animal Behaviour in the School of BioSciences, Faculty of Science, at the University of Melbourne. He completed his BSc (Hons) at Griffith University in 1980 and earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1985, supervised by Professor Nick Davies, with a thesis on flocking and foraging strategies in house sparrows. After postdoctoral positions as Science and Engineering Research Fellow at the University of Oxford (1985-1987) and University Research Fellow and Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales (1987-1990), he joined the University of Melbourne in 1991 in a tenured position initially as a vertebrate zoologist. He advanced to Professor in 2005, served as Associate Dean (Postgraduate Programs) in the Faculty of Science (2006-2009 or 2012-2016), Domain Leader (Ecology & Evolution) in the School of BioSciences (2018-2019), and elected Member of the University Council (2004-2007). Elgar also co-chaired a bio-inspired design initiative and contributed to university committees on teaching, learning quality, research integrity, and publications.
Elgar's research in behavioural and evolutionary ecology examined sexual conflict, cooperation, visual and chemical signalling, foraging behaviour, sexual cannibalism, sperm competition, pheromone diversity, spider web structures, and insect antennal morphology influenced by environmental factors. His seminal contributions include the highly cited review 'Predator vigilance and group size in mammals and birds: a critical review of the empirical evidence' (Biological Reviews, 1989; 1442 citations), 'The evolution of pheromone diversity' (Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2008; 458 citations), 'Gender differences in publication output: towards an unbiased metric of research performance' (PLoS ONE, 2006; 399 citations), and the edited book 'Cannibalism: Ecology and Evolution among Diverse Taxa' (1992). Other notable works cover basal metabolic rates in mammals (Functional Ecology, 1987), sexual cannibalism in spiders (1992 chapter), and silk decorations in orb-web spiders (Biological Reviews, 2000). He held prominent editorial roles as Editor-in-Chief of Behavioral Ecology (2006-2011) and Australian Journal of Zoology (2007-2011), Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2014-2024), Associate Handling Editor of Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology (1994-2016), and Editorial Board Member of Journal of Ethology (2005-2025). Elgar developed and taught a Massive Open Online Course on Animal Behaviour that reached over 100,000 learners worldwide and engaged in public outreach via articles in Pursuit and The Conversation on topics from insect communication to human evolution.
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