Bio-bibliography

Italy

Leo Pardi

1989 Balzan Prize for Ethology

Leo Pardi is one of the greatest authorities in the field of ethology. His fundamental discoveries on the hierarchical organization of social life and its physiological impact on wasps and on the astronomical orientation of crustacean amphipods which live on the coastline have thrown new light on the social organization of animals and on their mechanisms of spatial behaviour.

Leo Pardi was born in Pisa on August 23, 1915;

he is an Italian citizen;

Professor of Zoology at Pisa University (since 1943);

Professor of Zoology at Turin University from 1953 to 1962;

Professor al Zoology at Florence University from 1962 to 1980;

Professor of Ethology at Florence University from 1980 to 1987, Professor Emeritus since 1988;

Director of the Zoological Museum of Florence University from 1963 to 1972;

Director of the Center for the Study of Tropical Fauna and Ecology of the Italian Research Council from 1971 to 1985;

conducted research in the Munich Zoology Institute (under the direction of Karl von Frisch) and in the Zurich Polytechnical Zoology Institute (under the direction of Jakob Seiler);

Director of the Italian Journal of Zoology (Monitore Zoologico Italiano) from 1967 to 1988;

President of the Italian Zoological Union from 196t to 1963;

Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the Accademia Nazionale di Entomologia;

corresponding member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz (Federal Republic of Germany) and of the Accademia delle Scienze in Turin;

honorary member al the Italian Zoological Union.

Some of his most important works are:

— Ricerche sui Polistini – 7. La “dominazione e il ciclo ovarico annuale in Polistes gallicus. (L.). Boll. lst. Entom. Università di Bologna 15: 25-84. (1946);

— Dominance order in Polistes Wasps. Physiological Zoology 21: 1-11. (1948);

— Ricerche sull’orientamento di Talitrus saltator. (Montagu) (Crustacea-Amphipoda). Z. vergl. Physiol. 35: 459-5 18. (1953);

— Innate components in the solar orientation of littoral Amphipoda. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 25: 395-401. (1960);

— Polymorphismus bei sozialen Faltenwespen. In: Gerh. I-I. Schmidt (Ed), Die sozialen lnsekten. Polymorphisrnus und Kastenbildung. Stuttgart: Akadem. Verlagsges. 116-145. (1975);

— Inheritance of solar direction finding in sandhoppers: Mass crossing experiments. J. comp. Physiol. 151: 435-440. (1983);

— Die Orientierung der Strandflohkrebse im Grenzbereich Meer/Land, In: M. Lindauer (Ed), Information Processing in animals, 4. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Math.naturwiss. Kl., Mainz. Stuttgart: Fischer. (1987). (In collaborazione con E. Scapini);

— Zonal recovery in equatorial sandhoppers: interaction between magnetic and solar orientation. NATO ASI Series. New York & London: Plenum Press.