Edward Bagnall Poulton
Encyclopedia
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
. He became Hope Professor of Zoology
Hope Professor of Zoology
The Hope Professor of Zoology is a professorship at Oxford University. The first Hope Professor was John Obadiah Westwood. The current holder is Charles Godfray.* John Obadiah Westwood The Hope Professor of Zoology is a professorship at Oxford University. The first Hope Professor was John...
at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
in 1893.
Life
Between 1873 and 1876, he studied at Jesus College, OxfordJesus College, Oxford
Jesus College is one of the colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship Street, Cornmarket Street and Market Street...
under George Rolleston
George Rolleston
George Rolleston MA MD FRCP FRS was an English physician and zoologist. He was the first Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology to be appointed at the University of Oxford, a post he held from 1860 until his death in 1881...
and the anti-Darwinian entomologist John Obadiah Westwood
John Obadiah Westwood
John Obadiah Westwood was an English entomologist and archaeologist also noted for his artistic talents.Born in Sheffield, he studied to be a lawyer but abandoned that for his scientific interests....
, graduating with a first-class degree in natural science. He maintained an unbroken connection with the college for seventy years as scholar, lecturer and Fellow (appointed to a fellowship in 1898) until his death. He was known as a generous benefactor to the college, providing silver for the high table and redecorating the Old Bursary amongst other donations.
Family
Edward Poulton lived with his family at 56 Banbury RoadBanbury Road
Banbury Road is a major arterial road in Oxford, England, running from St Giles' at the south end, north towards Banbury through the leafy suburb of North Oxford and Summertown, with its local shopping centre. Parallel and to the west is the Woodstock Road, which it meets at the junction with St...
in North Oxford
North Oxford
North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the College....
, a large Victorian Gothic house designed by John Gibbs
John Gibbs (architect)
John Gibbs was a British Gothic Revival architect based in Wigan, Manchester, and Oxford, England.- Life :John Gibbs was initially in Oxford but he moved to Wigan in the 1850s and then Manchester in the north of England....
and built in 1866.
Poulton's son, Ronald Poulton-Palmer
Ronald Poulton-Palmer
Ronald William Poulton was an English rugby union footballer, who captained and was killed in The First World War....
played international rugby
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
for England and was killed in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. His daughter, Janet Palmer, married Charles Symonds
Charles Symonds
Sir Charles Putnam Symonds KBE CB was an English neurologist.His initial medical training was at Guy's Hospital, followed by specialised training at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery...
in 1915 and died in 1919.
Career
Poulton was throughout his career a Darwinist, believing in natural selection as the primary force in evolution. He not only admired Charles DarwinCharles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, but also defended the father of neo-Darwinism
Neo-Darwinism
Neo-Darwinism is the 'modern synthesis' of Darwinian evolution through natural selection with Mendelian genetics, the latter being a set of primary tenets specifying that evolution involves the transmission of characteristics from parent to child through the mechanism of genetic transfer, rather...
, August Weismann
August Weismann
Friedrich Leopold August Weismann was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin...
. Poulton was one of the group of biologists who first translated Weismann's work into English, and he defended Weismann's idea of the continuity of the germ-plasm
Germ plasm
Germ plasm or polar plasm is a zone found in the cytoplasm of the egg cells of some model organisms , which contains determinants that will give rise to the germ cell lineage. As the zygote undergoes mitotic divisions the germ plasm is ultimately restricted to a few cells of the embryo...
. In the course of these translations, he noted that recent researches had reduced or perhaps entirely removed the role of acquired characters in species formation.
In his 1896 work on Darwin, Poulton described the Origin of Species as "incomparably the greatest work" the biological sciences had seen. Critics of natural selection, Poulton contended, had not taken the time to understand it. This is an evaluation which is much more widely held today than it was then. The contemporary ignorance of the mechanism of inheritance stood in the way of a full understanding of the mechanism of evolution.
In 1897 Poulton canvassed members during meetings of the Entomological Society of London
Royal Entomological Society of London
The Royal Entomological Society of London is devoted to insect study. It has a major national and international role in disseminating information about insects and improving communication between entomologists....
. He discovered that many doubted a selectionist origin for mimicry. Of those he asked, only three fully supported Batesian mimicry and Müllerian mimicry
Müllerian mimicry
Müllerian mimicry is a natural phenomenon when two or more harmful species, that may or may not be closely related and share one or more common predators, have come to mimic each other's warning signals...
. The others doubted the inedibility/unpalatability of the models (some investigators even performed taste tests!) or were not convinced that birds were effective selective agents. External and internal forces remained popular alternatives to natural selection.
The arrival of genetics
The rediscovery of MendelGregor Mendel
Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance...
's work filled a critical gap in evolution theory, but at first this was not realised, and many thought it antithetical to selection. There was a long debate between Poulton and Reginald Punnett
Reginald Punnett
Professor Reginald Crundall Punnett FRS was a British geneticist who co-founded, with William Bateson, the Journal of Genetics in 1910. Punnett is probably best remembered today as the creator of the Punnett square, a tool still used by biologists to predict the probability of possible genotypes...
, one of Bateson
William Bateson
William Bateson was an English geneticist and a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge...
's disciples and the first Professor of Genetics at Oxford. Punnett's Mimicry in butterflies (1915) rejected selection as the main cause of mimicry. He noted:
- The absence of transitional forms and the frequent lack of mimicry in male butterflies were unexplained by selectionist theory.
- The enigma of polymorphic mimicry. Some species of butterfly mimicked not merely one, but several models. In breeding experiments these polymorphs cleanly segregated according to Mendel’s law of segregation.
- Evidence of birds as selective agents was slight and little was known of birds' discriminatory powers, and
- The gradual accumulation of minute variations did not fit with the facts of heredity.
For Punnett, none of these observations were explained by gradual selectionism. Instead he thought mimicry had arisen from sudden mutational jumps (saltations). Once a mimic was formed by mutation, natural selection might play a conservative role.
However, one by one, each of these objections were shown to be without substance. Evidence from field observations and experiments showed that birds were often the agents of selection in insects. Evidence that small-scale mutations were common arrived as soon as breeding experiments were designed to detect them: it was a consequence of experimental methods that early mutations were so noteworthy. Explanations for polymorphism were advanced by E.B. Ford and Dobzhansky
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Theodosius Grygorovych Dobzhansky ForMemRS was a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the unifying modern evolutionary synthesis...
and colleagues, who developed experimental methods for populations in the wild. The question of polymorphism is discussed further in polymorphism (biology)
Polymorphism (biology)
Polymorphism in biology occurs when two or more clearly different phenotypes exist in the same population of a species — in other words, the occurrence of more than one form or morph...
.
The gradual coming-together of field observations and experimental genetics is part of the evolutionary synthesis
Modern evolutionary synthesis
The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biological specialties which provides a widely accepted account of evolution...
which took place in the middle of the twentieth century. As is now obvious, mutations increase the amount of heritable variation in a population, and selection is how we describe the differential viability of those variants. Poulton's account is much closer to our present-day view of evolution; Punnett was right to ask his difficult questions, but perhaps unwise in reaching conclusions before the issues were properly investigated. This interesting field of research is still quite active.
Poulton's Presidential Address to the British Association in 1937 at the age of 81 reviewed the history of evolutionary thought. The work of J.B.S. Haldane, R.A. Fisher and Julian Huxley
Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
was vitally important for showing the relationships between Mendelism and natural selection. The observations and experiments of many biologists had "immensely strengthened and confirmed" the researches on mimicry and warning colours of pioneers like Bates
Henry Walter Bates
Henry Walter Bates FRS FLS FGS was an English naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection in a shipwreck...
, Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
, Meldola
Raphael Meldola
Raphael Meldola FRS was a British chemist and entomologist. He was Professor of Organic Chemistry in the University of London, 1912–5.- Life :...
, Trimen
Roland Trimen
Roland Trimen FRS was a British-South African entomologist, best-known for South African Butterflies , a collaborative work with Colonel James Henry Bowker....
and Müller
Fritz Müller
Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller , better known as Fritz Müller, and also as Müller-Desterro, was a German biologist and physician who emigrated to southern Brazil, where he lived in and near the German community of Blumenau, Santa Catarina...
.
Legacy
Poulton is remembered as an early originator of the biological species concept. According to MayrErnst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist...
, Poulton invented the term sympatric in relation to species, and he also invented the term aposematism
Aposematism
Aposematism , perhaps most commonly known in the context of warning colouration, describes a family of antipredator adaptations where a warning signal is associated with the unprofitability of a prey item to potential predators...
for warning colouration.
Poulton, along with Julian Huxley
Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
, J.B.S. Haldane, R.A. Fisher and E.B. Ford
E.B. Ford
Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford FRS Hon. FRCP was a British ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford became interested in lepidoptera, the group of insects which includes butterflies and moths...
, promoted the idea of natural selection through many years when it was denigrated.
Poulton was succeeded by G.D. Hale Carpenter
Geoffrey Douglas Hale Carpenter
G.D. Hale Carpenter MBE MA DM FRS was a British entomologist and physician. He worked first at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and in Uganda, on tse-tse flies and sleeping sickness...
as Hope Professor of Entomology at Oxford University from 1933–1948.
Awards and honours
- Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1889.
- President of the Linnean Society (1912–1916)
- Awarded the Royal SocietyRoyal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
's Darwin MedalDarwin MedalThe Darwin Medal is awarded by the Royal Society every alternate year for "work of acknowledged distinction in the broad area of biology in which Charles Darwin worked, notably in evolution, population biology, organismal biology and biological diversity". First awarded in 1890, it was created in...
in 1914 - Awarded the Linnean SocietyLinnean Society of LondonThe Linnean Society of London is the world's premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history. It publishes a zoological journal, as well as botanical and biological journals...
's Linnean MedalLinnean MedalThe Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London was established in 1888, and is awarded annually to alternately a botanist or a zoologist or to one of each in the same year...
in 1922. - KnightedKnight BachelorThe rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1935. - President of the British Association for the Advancement of ScienceBritish Association for the Advancement of Scienceframe|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
(BAAS) for 1937.
See also
- Animal colourationAnimal colourationAnimal coloration is the general appearance of an animal resulting from the reflection or emission of light from its surfaces. The mechanisms for colour production in animals include pigments, chromatophores, structural coloration, and bioluminescence....
- AposematismAposematismAposematism , perhaps most commonly known in the context of warning colouration, describes a family of antipredator adaptations where a warning signal is associated with the unprofitability of a prey item to potential predators...
- Frequency dependent selectionFrequency dependent selectionFrequency-dependent selection is the term given to an evolutionary process where the fitness of a phenotype is dependent on its frequency relative to other phenotypes in a given population. In positive frequency-dependent selection the fitness of a phenotype increases as it becomes more common...
- Mimicry
- Polymorphism (biology)Polymorphism (biology)Polymorphism in biology occurs when two or more clearly different phenotypes exist in the same population of a species — in other words, the occurrence of more than one form or morph...
Published works
Poulton had over 200 publication spanning over sixty years. His most widely known work was probably The Colours of Animals.- Poulton E.B. 1890. The colours of animals: their meaning and use, especially considered in the case of insects. Kegan Paul, London.
- Poulton E.B. 1896. Charles Darwin and the theory of natural selection.
- Poulton E.B 1904. What is a species? (Presidential address to the Entomological Society of London, Jan 1904) Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1903
- Poulton, E.B. 1908. Essays on evolution. London, Cassell.
- Poulton, E.B. 1915. Science and the Great War: The Romanes LectureRomanes LectureThe Romanes Lecture is a prestigious free public lecture given annually at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, England.The lecture series was founded by, and named after, the biologist George Romanes, and has been running since 1892. Over the years, many notable figures from the Arts and Sciences have...
for 1915 Clarendon Press, Oxford.
External links
- Brief biography
- Biography
- Mallet, J. 2004. Poulton, Wallace and Jordan: how discoveries in Papilio butterflies initiated a new species concept 100 years ago. Systematics and Biodiversity 1(4): 441–452. pdf.