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Ecological genetics is the study of genetics (itself a field of biology) from an ecological perspective. While molecular genetics studies the structure and function of genes at a molecular level, ecological genetics (and the related field of population genetics) studies wild populations of organisms.
Although work on natural populations had been done previously, it is acknowledged that the field was founded by the Briton E.B. Ford in the early 20th century. Ecological genetics is the title of his 1964 'magnum opus' on the subject. Other notable ecological geneticists would include Theodosius Dobzhansky's work on Hawaiian fruit flies.
The most famous example of an ecological genetics study is the of the peppered moth, Biston betularia, though there are many others.
Advances in biochemical techniques during the 1980s and 1990s allowed much more data to be derived about the genetic characteristics of natural populations.
See also
References
- Ford E.B. (1964). Ecological Genetics
- Cain A.J. and W.B. Provine (1992). Genes and ecology in history. In: R.J. Berry, T.J. Crawford and G.M. Hewitt (eds). Genes in Ecology. Blackwell Scientific: Oxford. (Provides a good historical background)
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