About

Berra Vitae (Executive Summary)

Tim M. Berra, Ph.D.  Academy Professor Emeritus of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology. The Ohio State University-Mansfield Campus, berra.1@osu.edu

Degrees: B. S. Biology, St. Louis University 1965; M. S. Biology, Tulane University 1967; Ph.D. Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans 1969

Positions: Fulbright Post-doctoral Fellow, Australian National University 1969-1970; Lecturer in Biology, University of Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby PNG 1971; Assistant Professor Zoology, The Ohio State University 1972-1976; Associate Professor Zoology, OSU 1976-1985; Professor of Zoology, OSU 1985-1995; Emeritus Professor 1995-2014; Emeritus Academy 2014, 2019-present

Fulbright Awards: 1969-70 Post-doc Australian National University Canberra; 1979 Senior Research Fellow Monash University Melbourne Australia; 2009 Senior Specialist Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, Australia.

Other International Positions: Visiting Professor, Univ of Concepcion, Chile 1992; Univ of Otago, New Zealand 1996; Charles Darwin University, Australia 2010-present.

Honors: NSF EPSCoR (ESTABLISHED PROGRAM TO STIMULATE COMPETITIVE RESEARCH) Visiting Scholar, University of Guam Marine Laboratory February 2023.

Friend of Darwin Award, 2022, National Center for Science Education.

Fellow of the Linnean Society, Fellow of the Ohio Academy of Science.

Conservationist of the Year, 2011, Richland Soil & Water Conservation District.

Service: Editor-in-Chief, Ohio Journal of Science 1981-1985. 

Board of Trustees and Conservation & Collection Management Committee, Columbus Zoo 1992-2000.

American Society of Ichthyologists & Herpetologists Board of Governors 1989-2000, 2010-2022. Member 50+ years.

Books: Ten books, mostly published by university presses. Here are some of them.

Evolution and the Myth of Creationism 1990, Stanford Univ. Pr.

A Natural History of Australia 1998, UNSW Pr. & Academic Pr.

Freshwater Fish Distribution 2007, Univ. Chicago Pr. 2nd ed.

Charles Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man 2009, Johns Hopkins Uni P 

Darwin and His Children: His Other Legacy 2013, Oxford Univ. Pr.

Bourbon: What the Educated Drinker Should Know 2019, Acclaim Pr.

The Peopling of Polynesia: From Taiwan to Easter Island. 2025. Acclaim Press (in press).

Journal Articles. Over 100 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals. Sample below:

Berra, Tim M., G. Alvarez, and F. C. Ceballos.  2010. Was the Darwin/Wedgwood dynasty adversely affected by consanguinity? BioScience 60(5): 376-383.

Berra, Tim M., G. Alvarez, and Kate Shannon. 2010. The Galton-Darwin-Wedgwood Pedigree of H. H. Laughlin. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 101: 228-241.

Berra, Tim M. 2010. Clarification of field characters for three freshwater sharks and a photographic atlas of Glyphis glyphis and G. garricki from the Adelaide River, Northern Territory, Australia. The Beagle, Records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory: 26: 33-38.

Sommer, J. A., C. Li, J. Brozek, M. L. Bessert, G. Orti, and Tim M. Berra.  2011. Low genetic diversity in nurseryfish, Kurtus gulliveri (Perciformes: Kurtidae) and an appraisal of its breeding system using microsatellite loci. The Beagle, Records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory:  27: 179-188.

Berra, Tim M. 2013. Wallace’s Acceptance of Darwin’s Priority in his own Words. The Linnean 29 (2): 23-40.    

Alvarez, G., F. C. Ceballos, and Tim M. Berra. 2015. Darwin was right: Inbreeding depression on male fertility in the Darwin family. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 114: 474–483.

Berra, Tim M. 2015. Darwin’s Paradigm Shift., p. 735-743 In. Richard Johnson-Sheehan and Charles Paine (Eds.). Writing Today. 3rd ed. Pearson Education, New York. 

Berra, Tim M. 2015. Darwin’s Harbingers. The Linnean 31(1): 11-19.

Crook, D. A., D. Wedd, and Tim M. Berra. 2015. Analysis of otolith 87Sr/86Sr to elucidate salinity histories of Nurseryfish Kurtus gulliveri (Perciformes:Kurtidae) in a tropical lowland river in northern Australia. Freshwater Science 34(2): 609-619.

He, You, Tim M. Berra, and Dion Wedd. 2016. A microtomographic osteology of the forehead hook of nurseryfish, Kurtus gulliveri (Perciformes: Kurtidae). Copeia 2016 (4): 897-906.

Tim M. Berra, Dion Wedd, and You He. 2016. Larval nurseryfish, Kurtus gulliveri (Perciformes: Kurtidae), in the Adelaide River of the Northern Territory: their season, fellow travelers and unusual rib anatomy. Australian Journal of Zoology: 64: 262-266. 

Hayman, John, Gonzalo Álvarez, Francisco C. Caballos, and Tim M. Berra. 2017. The Illnesses of Charles Darwin and his Children: A lesson in consanguinity. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 20: 1-11.

Tim M. Berra and Dion Wedd. 2017. Salinity and spawning of nurseryfish, Kurtus gulliveri, in the Adelaide River of northern Australia with notes on electrofishing and photos of a male carrying eggs. Environmental Biology of Fishes 100: 959-967.