Garth I. Murphy

Garth Ivor Murphy (1922–2001) was an American biological and fishery oceanographer best known for his contributions to understanding of the population dynamics of Pacific sardine and of the evolution of iteroparity and reproductive lifespan.[1][2][3]

Garth I. Murphy
Born(1922-11-07)7 November 1922
Portland, Oregon
Died5 May 2001(2001-05-05) (aged 78)
Woodland, California
Alma materUC Berkeley, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scientific career
FieldsBiological oceanography, fisheries oceanography
InstitutionsScripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Hawaiʻi

Education and career

Murphy obtained his first degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.[3] In 1959 he became the first CalCOFI coordinator.[1][3] He was the first person to earn a doctorate from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1965.[3] He was appointed a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaiʻi in 1965.[1]

Scientific work

Murphy was interested in the reasons of the decline in the California sardine population.[2] He argued that the reduced number of reproductive year classes in the population, caused both by the fisheries and by the environment, had made the population more vulnerable to environmentally-caused fluctuations in reproductive success.[1] Murphy used his experience with sardine[1] to suggest that variable juvenile survival can select for iteroparity even when average demographic parameters would suggest semelparity.[4] Modern textbooks interpret this as an example of bet hedging.[5]

References
  1. Smith, Paul E. (2001). "Garth I. Murphy 1923–2001" (PDF). CalCOFI Reports. 42: 8.
  2. "Garth Ivor Bassett, Murphy". Bassett Family Association Database. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  3. "Garth I. Murphy; Ichthyologist Helped Protect Fish Species". Los Angeles Times. 9 May 2001. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  4. Murphy, Garth I. (1968). "Pattern in life history and the environment". The American Naturalist. 102 (927): 391–403. doi:10.1086/282553. JSTOR 282553. S2CID 84883291.
  5. Roff, Derek A. (2001). Life History Evolution. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780878937561.
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