Charles Sibley
Encyclopedia
Charles Gald Sibley was an American
ornithologist and molecular biologist. He had an immense influence on the scientific classification of bird
s, and the work that Sibley initiated has substantially altered our understanding of the evolutionary history of modern birds.
Sibley's taxonomy has been a major influence on the sequences adoped by ornithological organizations, especially the American Ornithologists' Union
.
Charles Sibley is of no known family relation to renowned bird artist David Sibley
.
(A.B. 1940; Ph.D. 1948 in Zoology, University of California, Berkeley
.
Minor fields: Paleontology, Botany), he did his first fieldwork in Mexico
in 1939 and 1941, then in Solomon Islands
, Bismarck Archipelago
, New Guinea
, and the Philippines
during World War II
while on leave from the U.S. Navy, in which he was Ensign to Lieutenant in the Communications and Medical Service Corps. He was based for much of the war at Emirau Island
, in what is now New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea
. His first job after college was from 1948-1949 as Instructor in Zoology and Curator of Birds, University of Kansas
, followed from 1949-1953 as Assistant Professor of Zoology, San Jose State College, California. From 1953-1965 he was Associate Professor then Professor of Zoology and director of the ornithological laboratory at Cornell
. From 1965–1986 he was Professor of Biology and William Robertson Coe Prof. of Ornithology, Dept of Biology; and Curator of Birds at the Peabody Museum at Yale
. From 1986–1992 he was Dean's Professor of Science and Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University
, and from 1993 until his death he was Adjunct Professor of Biology at Sonoma State University
.
Sibley developed an interest in hybridisation and its implications for evolution and taxonomy and, in the early 1960s he began to focus on molecular studies: of blood proteins, and then the electrophoresis
of egg-white proteins.
By the early 1970s Sibley was pioneering DNA-DNA hybridisation
studies, with the aim of discovering, once and for all, the true relationships between the modern orders of birds. These were highly controversial to begin with, and regarded by colleagues as anything from snake-oil salesmanship on the one hand to Holy Writ on the other (Ahlquist, 1999). With the passage of time and ever-improving laboratory methods, the balance of scientific opinion has shifted closer to the latter interpretation, though the picture is by no means clear-cut and simple. Some of Sibley's results – such as the close relationship of galliform birds
and waterfowl
and their distinctness from other neognaths
– have been verified. Other results such as the inclusion of diverse groups into the Ciconiiformes
have turned out to be very much in error.
Sibley became estranged from his American co-workers for a time and corresponded with overseas colleagues extensively. But by the mid to late 1980s, Sibley's ongoing work had reversed the trend. His revised phylogeny of living birds in the light of DNA analysis, published in various forms from 1986–1993 was both controversial and highly influential.
In 1986 he was elected a Member, National Academy of Sciences
, U.S.A. In 1988 Sibley and Jon Ahlquist were awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal
from the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected President of the International Ornithological Congress in 1990. His landmark publications, Phylogeny and Classification of Birds (written with Ahlquist) and Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World (with Burt Monroe
) are among the most-cited of all ornithological works, the former setting out the influential Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy
.
, writing Sibley's obituary in Emu
, commented that he was:
Partly due to personality conflicts, Sibley had few long-term collaborations with other scientists, with the notable exception of Jon Ahlquist. However, he was effective in persuading others to provide him with the blood, tissue, and egg white samples which were the key to his work.(Ahlquist 1999, p. 856)
, although the families knew each other: one of Charles' daughters babysat David, and David's father Fred worked for Charles at Yale.
There is some family resemblance, and Charles did a fair amount of genealogical research but could only establish that any relationship was no closer than fourth cousin.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ornithologist and molecular biologist. He had an immense influence on the scientific classification of bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s, and the work that Sibley initiated has substantially altered our understanding of the evolutionary history of modern birds.
Sibley's taxonomy has been a major influence on the sequences adoped by ornithological organizations, especially the American Ornithologists' Union
American Ornithologists' Union
The American Ornithologists' Union is an ornithological organization in the USA. Unlike the National Audubon Society, its members are primarily professional ornithologists rather than amateur birders...
.
Charles Sibley is of no known family relation to renowned bird artist David Sibley
David Allen Sibley
David Allen Sibley is an American ornithologist. He is the author and illustrator of The Sibley Guide to Birds, considered by many to be the most comprehensive guide for North American field identification....
.
Life and work
Educated in CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
(A.B. 1940; Ph.D. 1948 in Zoology, University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
Minor fields: Paleontology, Botany), he did his first fieldwork in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
in 1939 and 1941, then in Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
, Bismarck Archipelago
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea.-History:...
, New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
while on leave from the U.S. Navy, in which he was Ensign to Lieutenant in the Communications and Medical Service Corps. He was based for much of the war at Emirau Island
Emirau Island
Emirau Island, also called Emira, is an island in the Bismarck Archipelago located at . It is currently part of the New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea. The local language is a dialect of the Mussau-Emira language...
, in what is now New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
. His first job after college was from 1948-1949 as Instructor in Zoology and Curator of Birds, University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
, followed from 1949-1953 as Assistant Professor of Zoology, San Jose State College, California. From 1953-1965 he was Associate Professor then Professor of Zoology and director of the ornithological laboratory at Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
. From 1965–1986 he was Professor of Biology and William Robertson Coe Prof. of Ornithology, Dept of Biology; and Curator of Birds at the Peabody Museum at Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. From 1986–1992 he was Dean's Professor of Science and Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
, and from 1993 until his death he was Adjunct Professor of Biology at Sonoma State University
Sonoma State University
Sonoma State University is a public, coeducational business and liberal arts college affiliated with the California State University system. The main campus is located in Rohnert Park, California, United States and lies approximately south of Santa Rosa and north of San Francisco...
.
Sibley developed an interest in hybridisation and its implications for evolution and taxonomy and, in the early 1960s he began to focus on molecular studies: of blood proteins, and then the electrophoresis
Electrophoresis
Electrophoresis, also called cataphoresis, is the motion of dispersed particles relative to a fluid under the influence of a spatially uniform electric field. This electrokinetic phenomenon was observed for the first time in 1807 by Reuss , who noticed that the application of a constant electric...
of egg-white proteins.
By the early 1970s Sibley was pioneering DNA-DNA hybridisation
DNA-DNA hybridisation
DNA-DNA hybridization generally refers to a molecular biology technique that measures the degree of genetic similarity between pools of DNA sequences. It is usually used to determine the genetic distance between two species...
studies, with the aim of discovering, once and for all, the true relationships between the modern orders of birds. These were highly controversial to begin with, and regarded by colleagues as anything from snake-oil salesmanship on the one hand to Holy Writ on the other (Ahlquist, 1999). With the passage of time and ever-improving laboratory methods, the balance of scientific opinion has shifted closer to the latter interpretation, though the picture is by no means clear-cut and simple. Some of Sibley's results – such as the close relationship of galliform birds
Galliformes
Galliformes are an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding domestic or game bird, containing turkey, grouse, chicken, New and Old World Quail, ptarmigan, partridge, pheasant, and the Cracidae. Common names are gamefowl or gamebirds, landfowl, gallinaceous birds or galliforms...
and waterfowl
Waterfowl
Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans....
and their distinctness from other neognaths
Neognathae
Neognaths are birds within the subclass Neornithes of the class Aves. The Neognathae include virtually all living birds; their sister taxon Palaeognathae contains the tinamous and the flightless ratites....
– have been verified. Other results such as the inclusion of diverse groups into the Ciconiiformes
Ciconiiformes
Traditionally, the order Ciconiiformes has included a variety of large, long-legged wading birds with large bills: storks, herons, egrets, ibises, spoonbills, and several others. Ciconiiformes are known from the Late Eocene...
have turned out to be very much in error.
Sibley became estranged from his American co-workers for a time and corresponded with overseas colleagues extensively. But by the mid to late 1980s, Sibley's ongoing work had reversed the trend. His revised phylogeny of living birds in the light of DNA analysis, published in various forms from 1986–1993 was both controversial and highly influential.
In 1986 he was elected a Member, National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, U.S.A. In 1988 Sibley and Jon Ahlquist were awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal
Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal
The Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for meritorious work in zoology or paleontology published in a three- to five-year period." Named after Daniel Giraud Elliot, it was first awarded in 1917....
from the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected President of the International Ornithological Congress in 1990. His landmark publications, Phylogeny and Classification of Birds (written with Ahlquist) and Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World (with Burt Monroe
Burt Monroe
Burt Leavelle Monroe, Jr was an American ornithologist, a member of the American Ornithologists' Union since 1953, as Director of the Commission of classification and nomenclature and president from 1990 to 1992.- His studies :Burt L...
) are among the most-cited of all ornithological works, the former setting out the influential Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy
Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy
The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy is a bird taxonomy proposed by Charles Sibley and Jon Edward Ahlquist. It is based on DNA-DNA hybridization studies conducted in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s....
.
Acid tongue
During the 1970s, Sibley was a highly controversial figure in ornithological circles, for both professional and personal reasons. His friend Richard SchoddeRichard Schodde
Richard Schodde, OAM is an Australian botanist and ornithologist.Schodde studied at the University of Adelaide where he received a BSc in 1960 and a PhD in 1970. During the 1960s he was a botanist with the CSIRO Division of Land Research and Regional Survey in Papua New Guinea...
, writing Sibley's obituary in Emu
Emu (journal)
Emu, subtitled Austral Ornithology, is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union. The journal was established in 1901 and is the oldest ornithological journal published in Australia...
, commented that he was:
... a rebel with a cause. In argument he would bulldoze through, brooking no contradiction. Critics were baited with an acid tongue, and, in fits of temper, he could be a cruel mimic. In short, lesser mortals were not tolerated easily and, as has been said by others, collegiate friends were few. ... I never found him malicious or vindictive, even against those who had tried to bring him down. Nor was he particularly sophisticated or cultured, just a big, up-front Yank possessed by 'the big picture' in avian phylogeny and convinced of the righteousness of his cause and invincibility of his intellect. (Schodde 2000)
Partly due to personality conflicts, Sibley had few long-term collaborations with other scientists, with the notable exception of Jon Ahlquist. However, he was effective in persuading others to provide him with the blood, tissue, and egg white samples which were the key to his work.(Ahlquist 1999, p. 856)
Other ornithological Sibleys
Charles Gald Sibley is of no known family relation to renowned bird artist David SibleyDavid Allen Sibley
David Allen Sibley is an American ornithologist. He is the author and illustrator of The Sibley Guide to Birds, considered by many to be the most comprehensive guide for North American field identification....
, although the families knew each other: one of Charles' daughters babysat David, and David's father Fred worked for Charles at Yale.
There is some family resemblance, and Charles did a fair amount of genealogical research but could only establish that any relationship was no closer than fourth cousin.