| Reference number | EC/1989/06 |
| Previous numbers | Cert XXII, 150 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Cain, Arthur James: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Date | 1986 |
| Description | Citation typed |
| Citation | Distinguished for his many contributions to ecological genetics, taxonomy, and evolution. With the late Professor P.M. Sheppard, FRS, he started studies on the ecological genetics of colour and banding polymorphisms in land molluscs. Cain and Sheppard's work on Cepaea, one of the first studies to demonstrate natural selection by predators acting on a colour polymorphism is now regarded as a classic. It generated a long series of further studies by Cain, including the formal genetic analysis of the variation, the discovery of 'area effects' and the analysis of climatic influences, making elegant use of sub-fossil material to follow changes in time as well as space. More recently he has turned to the study of variation in shell shape. In population genetics he has clarified the concept of 'adaptive value'. He has also made important contributions to the theory and practice of taxonomy, on the problems of homology, phyletic weighting and taxonomic 'importance', on the status of the genus, and on the relevance of natural selection to our understanding of variation between taxonomic categories. |
| Access status | Closed |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | Name | Dates |
| NA2265 | Cain; Arthur James (1921 - 1999) | 1921 - 1999 |