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The Evolution Of Melanism
''The Evolution of Melanism: a study of recurring necessity; with special reference to industrial melanism in the Lepidoptera'' is a 1973 science book by the Lepidopterology, lepidopterist Bernard Kettlewell. The book includes Kettlewell's original papers in the journal ''Heredity (journal), Heredity'' on his classic predator, predation experiments on the peppered moth. It also covers Kettlewell's experiments in Shetland on other Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). The book is centered on the authors research of evolution of industrial melanism in peppered moths. It does not goes much in-depth about the evolution of melanism in other species as the title might suggest. The book introduces the reader with a 50-page long chapter about melanism. Then, the book goes in-depth about industrial melanism. Finally, the peppered moth ''Biston betularia'' is discussed in all its known details of that time. Knowledge of the genetics of the melanistic forms of the moths, the knowledge of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Melanism
Industrial melanism is an evolutionary effect prominent in several arthropods, where dark pigmentation (melanism) has evolved in an environment affected by industrial pollution, including sulphur dioxide gas and dark soot deposits. Sulphur dioxide kills lichens, leaving tree bark bare where in clean areas it is boldly patterned, while soot darkens bark and other surfaces. Darker pigmented individuals have a higher fitness in those areas as their camouflage matches the polluted background better; they are thus favoured by natural selection. This change, extensively studied by Bernard Kettlewell, is a popular teaching example in Darwinian evolution, providing evidence for natural selection. Kettlewell's results have been challenged by zoologists, creationists and the journalist Judith Hooper, but later researchers have upheld Kettlewell's findings. Industrial melanism is widespread in the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), involving over 70 species such as ''Odontopera bide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Books On Lepidoptera
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clarendon Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics known as the Delegates of the Press, who are appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 500 years, OUP has primarily focused on the publication of pedagogical texts and c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kettlewell's Experiment
Kettlewell's experiment was a biological experiment in the mid-1950s to study the evolutionary mechanism of industrial melanism in the peppered moth (''Biston betularia''). It was executed by Bernard Kettlewell, working as a research fellow in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. He was investigating the cause of the appearance of dark-coloured moth since Industrial Revolution in England in the 19th century. He conducted his first experiment in 1953 in the polluted woodland of Birmingham, and his second experiment in 1955 in Birmingham as well as in the clean woods of Dorset. The experiment found that birds selectively prey on peppered moths depending on their body colour in relation to their environmental background. Thus, the evolution of a dark-coloured body provided a survival advantage in a polluted locality. The study concluded that "industrial melanism in moths is the most striking evolutionary phenomenon ever actually witnessed in any organism, animal or plant. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peppered Moth Evolution
The evolution of the peppered moth is an evolutionary instance of directional colour change in the moth population as a consequence of air pollution during the Industrial Revolution. The frequency of dark-coloured moths increased at that time, an example of industrial melanism. Later, when pollution was reduced, the light-coloured form again predominated. Industrial melanism in the peppered moth was an early test of Charles Darwin's natural selection in action, and it remains a classic example in the teaching of evolution. In 1978, Sewall Wright described it as "the clearest case in which a conspicuous evolutionary process has actually been observed." The dark-coloured or ''melanic'' form of the peppered moth (var. ''carbonaria'') was rare, though a specimen had been collected by 1811. After field collection in 1848 from Manchester, an industrial city in England, the frequency of the variety was found to have increased drastically. By the end of the 19th century it almost com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Melanism
Industrial melanism is an evolutionary effect prominent in several arthropods, where dark pigmentation (melanism) has evolved in an environment affected by industrial pollution, including sulphur dioxide gas and dark soot deposits. Sulphur dioxide kills lichens, leaving tree bark bare where in clean areas it is boldly patterned, while soot darkens bark and other surfaces. Darker pigmented individuals have a higher fitness in those areas as their camouflage matches the polluted background better; they are thus favoured by natural selection. This change, extensively studied by Bernard Kettlewell, is a popular teaching example in Darwinian evolution, providing evidence for natural selection. Kettlewell's results have been challenged by zoologists, creationists and the journalist Judith Hooper, but later researchers have upheld Kettlewell's findings. Industrial melanism is widespread in the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), involving over 70 species such as ''Odontopera bide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Of Moths And Men
''Of Moths and Men'' is a book by journalist Judith Hooper about the Oxford University ecological genetics school led by E.B. Ford. The book specifically concerns Bernard Kettlewell's experiments on the peppered moth which were intended as experimental validation of evolution. She highlights supposed problems with the methodology of Kettlewell's experiments and suggests that these issues could invalidate the results obtained, ignoring or disparaging evidence supporting natural selection while repeatedly implying that Kettlewell and his colleagues committed fraud or made careless errors. Subject matter experts have described the book as presenting a " conspiracy theory" with "errors, misrepresentations, misinterpretations and falsehoods". The evolutionary biologist Michael Majerus spent the last 7 years of his life systematically repeating Kettlewell's experiments, demonstrating that Kettlewell had in fact been correct. Allegations of poor experimental practice Hooper alleg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judith Hooper
Judith Hooper (born April 15, 1949, in San Francisco, California"Judith Hooper". ''Contemporary Authors Online''. Gale. October 19, 2005. Retrieved August 12, 2008.) is an American journalist. Hooper has worked as an editor and writer for the magazine ''Omni (magazine), Omni''. With her husband, Dick Teresi, she co-wrote the books ''The Three-Pound Universe'' (1986) and ''Would the Buddha Wear a Walkman? A Catalogue of Revolutionary Tools for Higher Consciousness'' (1990). She is also the author of the controversial ''Of Moths and Men'' (2002), which argues that the Peppered moth evolution, peppered moth experiments carried out by Bernard Kettlewell were flawed. Hooper writes in the book's prologue, "I am not a creationist, but to be uncritical about science is to make it into a dogma." However, geneticist Michael Majerus has taken issue with many of Hooper's claims about Kettlewell, concluding that she misunderstood natural selection and the details of peppered moth predation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolution In Action
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation tends to exist within any given population as a result of genetic mutation and recombination. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or more rare within a population. The evolutionary pressures that determine whether a characteristic is common or rare within a population constantly change, resulting in a change in heritable characteristics arising over successive generations. It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecules. The theory of evo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Majerus
Michael Eugene Nicolas Majerus (13 February 1954 – 27 January 2009) was a British geneticist and professor of evolution at the University of Cambridge. He was also a teaching fellow at Clare College, Cambridge. He was an enthusiast in Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and became a world authority in his field of insect evolutionary biology. He was widely noted for his work on moths and ladybirds and as an advocate of the science of evolution. He was also an enthusiastic educator and the author of several books on insects, evolution and sexual reproduction. He is best remembered as an ardent supporter and champion of experiments on peppered moth evolution. Biography The son of Fernand and Muriel Majerus, Michael Majerus took an early interest in insects. He got his first butterfly net at the age of four. His father, a Luxembourg national by origin, encouraged him by taking him for field trips on weekends and bringing him home specimens from his travels. He wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heredity
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents. Through heredity, variations between individuals can accumulate and cause species to evolve by natural selection. The study of heredity in biology is genetics. Overview In humans, eye color is an example of an inherited characteristic: an individual might inherit the "brown-eye trait" from one of the parents. Inherited traits are controlled by genes and the complete set of genes within an organism's genome is called its genotype. The complete set of observable traits of the structure and behavior of an organism is called its phenotype. These traits arise from the interaction of its genotype with the environment. As a result, many aspects of an organism's phenotype are not inherited. For example, suntanned skin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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