ReviewHeredity2013
The peppered moth and industrial melanism: evolution of a natural selection case study.
Review in Heredity, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed, 223 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Urbanisation Drives Microevolution in the Egyptian Fruit Bat (Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Scientists' Warning on the Rapid Evolution of Parasites in the Anthropocene.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Burn Selection: How Fire Injury Shaped Human Evolution.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2026Review
- The genetics and evolution of moth melanism in the absence of strong natural selection.National science review · 2026Article
- Genetic, phenotypic, and environmental drivers of local adaptation and climate change-induced maladaptation in a migratory songbird.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Inferring fitness seascapes from evolutionary histories.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Wing spot in a tropical and a temperate drosophilid: C = C enrichment and conserved thermal response.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- A review of Leishmania infections in American Phlebotomine sand flies - Are those that transmit leishmaniasis anthropophilic or anthropportunists?★.Parasite (Paris, France) · 2025Review
- Gene acquisition by giant transposons primes eukaryotes for rapid evolution via horizontal gene transfer.Science advances · 2024Article
- Article
- Exploring polymorphism in a palatable prey: predation risk and frequency dependence in relation to distinct levels of conspicuousness.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Dominant gingers - Discovery and inheritance of a new shell polymorphism in the great pond snailEcology and evolution · 2023Article
- Genetic depletion does not prevent rapid evolution in island-introduced lizards.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Species- and sex-dependent changes in body size between 1892 and 2017, and recent biochemical signatures in rural and urban populations of two ground beetle species.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Citizen science reporting indicates geographic and phenotypic drivers of road use and mortality in a threatened rattlesnake.Current zoology · 2023Article
- A Quantitative Theory for Genomic Offset Statistics.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Shell color polymorphism in marine gastropods.Evolutionary applications · 2023Review
- Rapid adaptation in a fast-changing world: Emerging insights from insect genomics.Global change biology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
From the outset multiple causes have been suggested for changes in melanic gene frequency in the peppered moth Biston betularia and other industrial melanic moths. These have included higher intrinsic fitness of melanic forms and selective predation for camouflage. The possible existence and origin of heterozygote advantage has been debated. From the 1950s, as a result of experimental evidence, selective predation became the favoured explanation and is undoubtedly the major factor driving the frequency change. However, modelling and monitoring of declining melanic frequencies since the 1970s indicate either that migration rates are much higher than existing direct estimates suggested or else, or in addition, non-visual selection has a role. Recent molecular work on genetics has revealed that the melanic (carbonaria) allele had a single origin in Britain, and that the locus is orthologous to a major wing patterning locus in Heliconius butterflies. New methods of analysis should supply further information on the melanic system and on migration that will complete our understanding of this important example of rapid evolution.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.