Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 11, 2026

Eric Charnov

Eric Lee Charnov is an American evolutionary ecologist. He is best known for his work on foraging, especially the marginal value theorem, and life history theory, especially sex allocation and scaling/allometric rules. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Two of his papers are Science Citation Classics.

Last revised
Jul 11, 2026
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Eric L. Charnov
Born (1947-10-29) October 29, 1947
Alma materUniversity of Washington
Scientific career
FieldsEcology
InstitutionsUniversity of New Mexico
University of Utah
ThesisOptimal Foraging: Some Theoretical Explorations (1973)
Gordon Orians
Doctoral students
James J. Bull

Eric Lee Charnov (born October 29, 1947) is an American evolutionary ecologist. He is best known for his work on foraging, especially the marginal value theorem, and life history theory, especially sex allocation and scaling/allometric rules. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Two of his papers are Science Citation Classics.

Charnov gained his B.S. in 1969 from the University of Michigan and his PhD in evolutionary ecology from the University of Washington in 1973. He is a Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) of Biology at the University of New Mexico1 and the University of Utah.

His research interests are: metabolic ecology (temperature and body size in the determination of biological times and rates) and evolutionary ecology: population genetics, evolutionary game theory, and optimization models to understand the evolution of life histories, sex allocation, sexual selection, and foraging decisions.

Bibliography

Bibliography

  • Charnov, E.L. 1993. Life History Invariants. Oxford University Press, 167 pp. ISBN 0-19-854071-X
  • Charnov, E.L. 1982. The Theory of Sex Allocation. Princeton University Press, 355 pp. ISBN 0-691-08312-6
References

References

  1. "Eric L. Charnov". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 6 October 2019.