The Peppered Moth
Natural Selection
All About The Peppered Moth or Darwin's Moth
Natural Selection
Natural selection is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution, which Darwin proposed as a simple but often misunderstood idea. For natural selection to occur there needs to be:
- variation within a population. (Industrial revolution- changes tree colour)
- organisms compete for limited resources. (Black peppered moths vs. white peppered moths)
- more offspring than can be supported. (More black trees= too many white moths)
- organisms with favourable characteristics survive to reproduce. (More black trees=more black moths)
- traits are passed on from one generation to the next as genetic information. (More and more black peppered moths breed, white are dying from natural selection)
As a result, over successive generations, the black moths came to outnumber the pale forms in towns and cities. Since moths are short-lived, this evolution by natural selection happened quite quickly. For example, the first black Peppered Moth was recorded in Manchester in 1848 and by 1895 98% of Peppered Moths in the city were black.
Charles Darwin
Dr Bernard Kettlewell
Doctor Bernard Kettlewell, born 24 February 1907- 11 May 1979, was a British Genetiicist, lepidopterist, and medical doctor. He performed research on the influence of industrial melanism on the peppered moth colour change. His experimentations proved a classic example of natural selection.