Ecological genetics
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.
| Subfields of genetics |
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| Classical genetics | Ecological genetics | Molecular genetics | Population genetics | Quantitative genetics |
| Related topics: Genomics | Reverse genetics |
| Basic topics in evolutionary biology |
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| Processes of evolution: macroevolution - microevolution - speciation |
| Mechanisms: selection - genetic drift - gene flow - mutation |
| History: Charles Darwin; - The Origin of Species - modern evolutionary synthesis |
| Subfields: population genetics - ecological genetics - molecular evolution - phylogenetics - systematics - evo-devo |
| List of evolutionary biology topics | Timeline of evolution |