By Jonathan Webb Science reporter,
BBC News
1 June 2016
Scientists have discovered the
specific mutation that famously turned moths black during the Industrial
Revolution.
In an iconic evolutionary case
study, a black form of the peppered moth rapidly took over in industrial parts
of the UK during the 1800s, as soot blackened the tree trunks and walls of its
habitat.
Now, researchers from the
University of Liverpool have pinpointed the genetic change that caused this
adaptation.
They have also calculated the
most likely date for the mutation - 1819.
Their study appears
in the journal Nature, alongside a second paper,
which describes how the same gene allows tropical butterflies to switch between
different colour schemes.
Dr Ilik Saccheri has been working
on the peppered moth since setting up his Liverpool laboratory 15 years ago, he
told Science in Action on
the BBC World Service.
"When I started working on
it I was surprised, given how well known it is, that no-one had actually tried
to... characterise the underlying genetics controlling the physical appearance
of this moth," he said.
"It's a graphic example of
rapid evolutionary change. In the days before we could track mutation and
change in bacteria and viruses, there weren't many examples of visible change
within a human lifetime."
And it was indeed an early
discovery; black moths, strikingly different from the insect's usual mottled
white, were first spotted in 1848 - 10 years before the concept of natural
selection was formally outlined by Darwin and Wallace.
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