Avishag Kadman-Zahavi (born 1922 in Haifa

Haifa

Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...

) is an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i professor emeritus of Plant Physiology

Plant physiology

Plant physiology is a subdiscipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of plants. Closely related fields include plant morphology , plant ecology , phytochemistry , cell biology, and molecular biology.Fundamental processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, plant nutrition,...

 at The Volcani Center for Agricultural Research, Bet-Dagan, Israel. She is best known for her close collaboration with her husband Amotz Zahavi

Amotz Zahavi

Amotz Zahavi is an Israeli evolutionary biologist, a Professor Emeritus at the Zoology Department of Tel Aviv University, and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel...

, who developed together with her the so-called Handicap principle

Handicap principle

The handicap principle is a hypothesis originally proposed in 1975 by biologist Amotz Zahavi to explain how evolution may lead to "honest" or reliable signaling between animals who have an obvious motivation to bluff or deceive each other...

, a sociobiological

Sociobiology

Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,...

 approach to the theory of natural selection

Natural selection

Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....

.

A lifelong naturalist, Avishag Kadman met Amotz Zahavi at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 during their studies in the field of biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 and married him in 1954. Since then, besides following her own field of research, she has collaborated with Amotz in the study of the babblers

Old World babbler

The Old World babblers or timaliids are a large family of mostly Old World passerine birds. They are rather diverse in size and coloration, but are characterised by soft fluffy plumage. These are birds of tropical areas, with the greatest variety in Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent...

 and in the development of his ideas, often serving as the "devil's advocate". Her research interests are basic and applied aspects of the effects of light on plant development (photoperiodism

Photoperiodism

Photoperiodism is the physiological reaction of organisms to the length of day or night. It occurs in plants and animals.Photoperiodism can also be defined as the developmental responses of plants to the relative lengths of the light and dark periods...

, phytochrome

Phytochrome

Phytochrome is a photoreceptor, a pigment that plants use to detect light. It is sensitive to light in the red and far-red region of the visible spectrum. Many flowering plants use it to regulate the time of flowering based on the length of day and night and to set circadian rhythms...

, photomorphogenesis

Photomorphogenesis

In developmental biology, photomorphogenesis is light-mediated development. The photomorphogenesis of plants is often studied by using tightly-frequency-controlled light sources to grow the plants.-Germination:...

).

Since her retirement Avishag Kadman-Zahavi has continued her research at the
Yair center for agricultural research at Hatzeva

Hatzeva

Hatzeva is a moshav in southern Israel. Located in the Arava, 12 km north of Ein Yahav, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Central Arava Regional Council. It is named after the nearby Hatzeva Fortress. In 2005, it had a population of about 400. Hatzeva was originally founded in 1965 as a...

.

Avishag and Amotz Zahavi have two daughters and two grandchildren.

Sources

• The biographical details were learned from the German edition of: Amotz Zahavi & Avishag Zahavi: The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle. Oxford University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0195100358; additional source: Naama Zahavi-Ely, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA