>"To end, may I put on record to you, that my view is that the rise and fall
>of the carbonaria form of the peppered moth has resulted from changes in
>the environments in which this moth lives.
(At the risk of opening this can of worms again...) Well, Mr Majerus
opinion is in. Just exactly how much data does he have that birds are the
principal predators? Check his data.
Of all the people I know, including both amateur and
>professional entomologists who have experience of this moth, I know of none
>who doubts that differential bird predation is of primary importance in the
>spread and decline of melanism in the peppered moth."
That settles it. *All * agree that birds are the major predators. Where
are the data? If there were data, you can bet he would not be citing so
many opinions....
>our picture of the rise and spread of melansim is sketchy.
The interpretation that visual predation in a likely driving
>force is supported by experiment and is parsimonious given what has been so
>well established about crypsis in other insects.
Opinions differ about the relative
>importance of migration and other forms of selection. It is essential to
>define the problems, to question assumptions, and challenge dogma. This is
>norm in all active fields of research.
I would add this: Even if all
>of the experiments relating to melanism in peppered moths were jettisoned,
>we would still possess the most massive data set on record documenting what
>Seawall Wright(1978) called "...the clearest case in which a conspicuous
>evolutionary process has been actually observed." Certainly there are
>other examples of natural selection. Our field would be in mighty bad
>shape if there weren't. Industrial melanism in the peppered moth remains
>one of the best documented and easiest to understand. [Bruce S. Grant,
>_Fine Tuning The Peppered Moth Paradigm_, Book Review (of Majerus's book)
>in _Evolution_ 53(3), 1999, p. 984 ]
I rest my case.
Art
http://geology.swau.edu