(September 15, 2016 at 9:20 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:(September 15, 2016 at 7:38 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: The moths where glued in place for the picture. Which wouldn't be a problem, however it is misleading in the explanation, as the moths do not normally rest on the tree trunks, but on the underside of leaves (as your article states).
Quote:Peppered moths do not rest exclusively on tree trunks, but they do rest there. Of the forty-seven moths one researcher found in the wild, twelve were on trunks and twenty were on trunk/branch joints. (The other fifteen were on branches). The numbers and proportion on trunks near light traps were even higher (Majerus 1998, 123). Wells's claim that the moths do not naturally land on trunks is simply a falsehood
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB601_1.html
So he found 47 moths... And what sample size was this of the total population? Where was he looking? I don't think that the issue is with natural selection here. The cause of the change in frequency may very well be related to the pollution. The issue is with the explanation and the many assumption that are being made.
From http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/rev...56291.html
Quote:Yet during the seven years of Majerus's study, thousands of peppered moths must have passed through the woodland near his house, so 135 moths were a tiny fraction of the total. Furthermore, as he himself acknowledged in a 2007 lecture in Sweden, his results might have been "somewhat biased towards the lower parts of the tree, due to sampling technique."
Indeed. If peppered moths normally rest high in the upper branches, as several researchers concluded in the 1980s, then doing statistics on those visible to an observer on the ground (even one who climbs part-way up some trees, as Majerus did), is bound to suffer from sampling bias. Imagine someone looking over the side of a boat and concluding that most fish in the sea live within ten feet of the surface.
