Amotz Zahavi

Amotz Zahavi (; 14 August 1928 – 12 May 2017) was an Israeli evolutionary biologist, a professor in the department of zoology at Tel Aviv University, and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. His main work concerned the evolution of signals, particularly those signals that are indicative of fitness, and their selection for "honesty".

Biography Amotz Zahavi was influenced to study zoology by the director of the zoo at Tel Aviv, Heinrich Mendelssohn.

Scientific career

Zahavi with wild Arabian babblers, whose social behavior he studiedZahavi is best known for his work on the handicap principle, which explains the evolution of characteristics, behaviors or structures that appear contrary to the principles of Darwinian evolution in that they appear to reduce fitness and endanger individual organisms. Evolved by sexual selection, these act as signals of the status of the organism, functioning to e. g. attract mates. He expanded it with theories on honest signalling and the idea that selection would favour signals that impose a higher cost, those that are not easily cheated on. He worked in particular on the Arabian babbler, a long-lived and social bird with altruistic behaviour among unrelated individuals, not explainable by kin selection. Zahavi reinterpreted these behaviours according to his signal theory and its correlative, the handicap principle. The altruistic act is costly to the donor, but may improve attractiveness to potential mates, a form of competitive altruism.

Zahavi is credited with co-developing the information centre hypothesis in 1973 with Peter Ward. The information centre hypothesis states that birds live in communal roosts primarily to gain information on food resource locations from other roost individuals.

Awards In 1980, The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Zahavi and two other colleagues, were awarded the Israel Prize for SPNI's special contribution to society and the State, for the environment.

In 2011, Zahavi received the Fyssen Foundation's International Prize for the evolution of social communication.

In 2016, Zahavi received a prize for lifetime achievement from the Israel Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

Published works

Zahavi, A. and Zahavi, A. (1997). The handicap principle: a missing piece of Darwin's puzzle. Oxford University Press. Oxford.