On models predicting abundance of species and endemics for the Darwin finches in the Galapagos Archipelago. Evolution 18(2): 339-42 (with T. H. Hamilton).
On predicting insular variation in endemism and sympatry for Darwin finches in the Galapagos Archipelago. Amer. Natur. 101(918): 161-172 (with T. H. Hamilton).
Phythonichthys asodes, a new heterenchylid eel from the Gulf of Panama. Bull. Mar. Sci 22(2): 355-364 (with R. H. Rosenblatt).
Species abundance: Natural regulation of Insular Variation. Science 142(3599): 1575-1577 (with T. H. Hamilton).
Temperature physiology of the sea snake Pelamis platurus: An index of its colonization potential in the Atlantic Ocean. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (USA) 68(6): 1360-1363 (with J. B. Graham and M. K. Hecht).
The environmental control of insular variation in bird species abundance. Proceeding of the National Academy of Science. 52(1): 132-140 (with T. H. Hamilton and R. H. Barth).
The sea-level canal controversy. Biological Conservation 3(Oct.): 33-336.
Member, 5th Year Review Committee of the Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management, Australia
Ira Rubinoff. 1965. Mixing oceans and species. Natural History 74(7): 69-72.
Understanding the biodiversity of Planet Earth is the most interesting of human endeavors. Where better to pursue this interest than in the tropics?
As STRI director for 34 years, a lot of innovative things were enabled under my watch. One of the most important was the addition of the five peninsulas to the Barro Colorado Nature Monument, which created a buffer zone around Barro Colorado Island and added research areas that allow for manipulative experiments. Some of the big research accomplishments included the establishment of the 50-hectare forest dynamics plot on Barro Colorado, which led to the Center for Tropical Forest Science and today’s ForestGEO network that has more than 60 plots around the globe. We innovated the use of construction cranes to gain access to the forest canopy for the study of canopy biodiversity and gas exchange between the biosphere and the atmosphere. We also probably opened one of the first, if not the first, molecular lab in the tropics, established a telemetry system to monitor moving organisms in the forest around the clock, and we developed two ocean marine laboratories.
Please note: I no longer advise students. Prospective interns, fellows and postdoctoral researchers should contact STRI’s academic programs office.
To answer the question, we examine four species of the fish genus Bathygobius, two species of which are found on the Atlantic coast and two on the Pacific. The differences allopatric species had presumably arisen due to separation of the original common gene pool by the closure of the Isthmus of Panama. By using artificial hybridization experiments and laboratory breeding tests we were able to show that the species on the same side of the Isthmus are completely reproductively separated by pre-mating behavioral isolating mechanisms. The allopatric (transisthmian) species, although now morphologically different, have still not, after 3 million years, evolved complete reproductive isolation, and hybridization in aquaria occurs regularly when presented with no choice of mates or with unbalanced sex ratios of allopatric species.
I’m currently exploring the possibility of establishing a graduate-level university at STRI that would train students from around the world and allow them to spend their full graduate careers doing research in the tropics. Hundreds of students have completed Ph.D. research at STRI but they are generally required to return to their home institutions for at least a year to complete their doctoral degrees. Establishing a graduate-level university based in the tropics would, in a significant way, help address the global imbalance between the world’s best universities, 94 percent of which are in the temperate zone, and Earth’s biodiversity, 80 percent of which is found in the tropics.
1963 Ph.D., Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1961 M.A., Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1959 B.S., Queens College, Queens, New York
Rubinoff, Ira. 2013. A Century of the Smithsonian Institution on the Isthmus of Panama. ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America, 12(3): 62-66.
Rubinoff, Ira; Bermingham, Eldredge; Lydeard, Charles; Davies, Stuart James. 2007. Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatories. In: The Full Picture. Geneva: Tudor Rose on Behalf of Group on Earth Observations, pp.82-84.
Rubinoff, Ira; Leigh, Egbert Giles, Jr. 1990. Dealing with Diversity: The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Tropical Biology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 5(4): 115-118.
Rubinoff, Ira; Graham, Jeffrey B.; Motta, Jorge. 1986. Diving of the Sea Snake Pelamis platurus in the Gulf of Panamá. I. Dive Depth and Duration. Marine Biology, 91(2): 181-191.
Rubinoff, Ira. 1983. A strategy for preserving tropical forests. In: Sutton, S. L., Tropical Rain Forest: Ecology and Management. Oxford: The British Ecological Society, pp.465-476.
