Ford, Edmund Brisco

▪ British population geneticist

born April 23, 1901, Papcastle, Cumberland, England

died January 22, 1988, Oxford, Oxfordshire

      British population geneticist who made substantial contributions to the genetics of natural selection and defined and developed the science of ecological genetics.

      Ford joined the faculty at the University of Oxford in 1927; he was made professor of ecological genetics in 1963, becoming emeritus professor in 1969. He was the author of many works on genetics and zoology, including the important books Mendelism and Evolution (1931), Ecological Genetics (1964), and Genetic Polymorphism (1965). In collaboration with Julian Huxley (1923–26), he performed some of the earliest research on the genetic control of growth. Working with freshwater crustaceans, he found that genes control both the time of occurrence and the rate of physiological processes. By his quantitative studies of animal populations in nature and his genetic experiments in the laboratory, he identified some of the conditions under which natural selection occurs. The techniques he developed, such as marking animal specimens and counting them later to estimate population change, became basic to the science of ecological genetics. His later works include Genetics and Adaptation (1976), Understanding Genetics (1979), and Taking Genetics into the Countryside (1981).

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