Evolutionary question, answered
A new paper published in the Royal Society’s Biology Letters journal, shows that early experimental studies of the peppered moth, as taught to many American high school students, are “completely correct,” co-author James Mallet, Distinguished Lecturer on Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, said. The research is particularly noteworthy, Mallet said, because it settles a decade-long controversy about whether the moths are a good example of natural selection at work. Though the moths are typically a mottled black-and-white color, scientists in England at the time of Queen Victoria began seeing increased numbers of all-black moths following the start of the Industrial Revolution. Studies later showed that the moths had benefited from the black color because they were better able to camouflage themselves against the trunks of soot-stained trees. Later research also showed that, as air quality improved, the moths’ evolution reversed course, and the number of black insects fell dramatically. Despite decades of research that...