Fifty per cent and all that: what Haldane actually said

In 1924, J. B. S. Haldane used the observation of increasing melanic frequencies in peppered moths (Biston betularia L.) to illustrate strong selection in a natural population. Since the phenomenon was first observed, there has been criticism and misinterpretation of work on industrial melanism in moths coming from a number of directions, increasingly on the Internet. Haldane’s calculation, its reception and his other interests in peppered moths are reviewed. An example of Internet comments attributing opinions to him, and their origin and background, are discussed.

Genetic convergence of industrial melanism in three geometrid moths

The rise of dark (melanic) forms of many species of moth in heavily coal-polluted areas of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, and their post-1970s fall, point to a common selective pressure (camouflage against bird predators) acting at the community level. The extent to which this convergent phenotypic response relied on similar genetic and developmental mechanisms is unknown. We examine this problem by testing the hypothesis that the locus controlling melanism in Phigalia pilosaria and Odontopera bidentata , two species of geometrid moth that showed strong associations between melanism and coal pollution, is the same as that controlling melanism in Biston betularia , previously identified as the gene cortex . Comparative linkage mapping using family material supports the hypothesis for both species, indicating a deeply conserved developmental mechanism for melanism involving cortex . However, in contrast to the strong selective sweep signature seen in British B. betularia , no significant association was detected between cortex -region markers and melanic morphs in wild-caught samples of P. pilosaria and O. bidentata , implying much older, or diverse, origins of melanic morph alleles in these latter species.