Everything about Bernard Kettlewell totally explained
Henry Bernard Davis Kettlewell (
24 February 1907 -
1979) was a
British geneticist,
lepidopterist and
medical doctor, who carried out important research into the influence of
industrial melanism on natural selection in moths, showing why moths are darker in polluted areas.
Early life
Kettlewell was born in
Howden,
Yorkshire, was educated at
Charterhouse School, and from 1926 studied medicine with
zoology at
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1929 he began clinical training at
St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, then in 1935 joined a general medical practice in
Cranleigh,
Surrey. He also worked as an anesthetist at St. Luke's Hospital,
Guildford. During
World War II, from 1939 to 1945, he worked for the
Emergency Medical Service at
Woking War Hospital.
He emigrated to
South Africa in 1949, and from then until 1954 was a researcher at the
International Locust Control Centre at
Cape Town University, investigating methods of locust control and going on expeditions to the
Kalahari, the
Knysna Forest, the
Belgian Congo and
Mozambique.
Peppered moth investigation and experiments
His grant was to study
industrial melanism in general, and in particular the
peppered moth Biston betularia which had been studied by
William Bateson in the 1890s. Kettlewell's research from three surveys between 1952 and 1972 appeared to show a static pattern with a high frequency of the dark-coloured
carbonaria phenotype in industrial regions, and the light coloured
typica moths becoming the most common in more rural areas. In the first of
Kettlewell's experiments moths were released into an aviary to observe how insectivorous birds reacted. He showed that the birds ate the moths, and found that where the camouflage of the moths made them difficult for him to see against a matching background, the birds too had difficulty in finding the moths. Most famously he then carried out experiments involving releasing then recapturing marked moths in polluted woodlands in
Birmingham, and in unpolluted rural woods at Deanend Wood,
Dorset,
England. He demonstrated experimentally the efficiency of natural selection as an evolutionary force: light-coloured moths are more conspicuous than dark-coloured ones in industrial areas, where the vegetation is darkened by pollution, and are therefore easier prey for birds, but are less conspicuous in unpolluted rural areas, where the vegetation is lighter in colour, and therefore survive predation better. His experiment led to better understanding of industrial melanism and its effects on the evolution of species.
In 1979 Kettlewell died from an accidental drug overdose.
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