Alfred Russel Wallace, Unsung Naturalist Hero Quiz

Answer: evolution by natural selection

Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin both arrived at strikingly similar conclusions based on their observations of the diversity of life on Earth. Wallace already had a belief in transmutation of species, and set out to test this hypothesis in Borneo, the Malay archipelago, and the Amazon, amongst other places. Like Darwin, Wallace was also influenced by the writings of Thomas Malthus on population dynamics. Wallace and Darwin eventually exchanged letters about their coinciding hypotheses that would soon become the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Answer: medicine

Wallace, around age 14, initially went to work in London with his brother John, an apprentice builder. He was later hired by his brother William as an apprentice surveyor, and worked this profession until age 20. He next found work at the Collegiate School of Leicester as a master teaching surveying, drawing, and mapmaking. Wallace's brother William passed away in 1845, prompting Alfred and his brother John to briefly take over his surveying business, which soon failed. Next, John and Alfred started another civil engineering and architecture firm.

Answer: Mischief

The crew of the Mischief intended to collect animal and insect specimens from the Amazon rainforest and sell them to collectors in the United Kingdom. Wallace and Henry Bates spent the better part of a year collecting at Belém do Pará, hoping to find evidence of transmutation of species. They were later joined by botanist Richard Spruce, as well as Alfred's younger brother Herbert Wallace. After roughly four years collecting in South America, Wallace set sail back to the United Kingdom aboard the brig Helen. A month into the return voyage, the Helen caught fire, destroying all of Wallace's specimens. Wallace only managed to save from the fire his diary and a few sketches. The crew then spent 10 days in a lifeboat before being picked up by the brig Jordeson and returned to the UK.

HMS Beagle was the ship aboard which Charles Darwin spent about five years on his famous voyage around the world. Victoria, amongst other vessels, was the ship upon which Ferdinand Magellan became the first ever explorer to circumnavigate the globe on a single voyage. The Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was torpedoed by the Germans in 1915, killing 1,198 people and effectively bringing the United States into World War I.

Answer: Wallacea

More specifically, the Wallace Line separates Wallacea from Sundaland. Wallacea includes the following major islands: Sulawesi (formerly Celebes), Maluku Islands (excluding the Aru Islands), Komodo, Flores, Sumba, and Timor. The islands to the west of the Wallace Line are home to mammals most similar to those of East Asia, including apes, tigers, and rhinoceroses. Wallacea, however, is home to very few land mammals. Wallacea itself exhibits a mix of species descended from both Asian and Australian ecozones.

Answer: Wallace's Flying Frog

Wallace's Flying Frog is a type of moss frog found between the Malay Peninsula and western Indonesia. It is mostly found in tropical and subtropical lowland rainforests. These frogs normally inhabit the highest parts of trees, but will "parachute" down to pools on the forest floor during breeding season.

This and many other species helped to inspire Wallace to conceive of his theory of natural selection, about which he wrote a letter to Charles Darwin in 1858 while still on his Malay exploration.

In 1869, "The Malay Archipelago" was published, outlining Wallace's studies during this voyage, and soon became one of the most influential journals on scientific and naturalist exploration.

Answer: Linnean Society of London

Named after Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus, the Linnean Society of London was founded in 1788. This joint reading of Wallace's and Darwin's papers was the first exhibition of their independently arrived at theory of evolution by natural selection. The papers were read by John Joseph Bennett, secretary of the society. Despite Wallace not having intended for his essay to be published, it soon was, along with Darwin's extract and a letter from him to Asa Gray. This association with the much more well known Charles Darwin allowed Wallace greater access to the elite scientific circles of the time.

The Consortium of European Taxonomy Facilities (CETAF) was founded in 1996 by a group of ten prominent botanical gardens and natural history museums. The Harrison Institute was founded in 1930 as a UK charity involved in biodiversity and mammal taxonomy studies in the Old World tropics and subtropics. The Natural History Museum of London was founded in 1881, and is now famous for its dinosaur exhibits.

Answer: adaptation to environmental pressures

All of these concepts are now considered important mechanisms in the evolution of species. Wallace's paper focused more on organisms' abilities to adapt to various environmental changes and pressures; and it can be said that this idea encompasses virtually all other mechanisms of natural selection (for the environment contains everything that affects organisms).

Geographical isolation is an important mechanism of speciation, and is commonly called "allopatric speciation". Genetic drift, first outlined by Sewall Wright in 1929, is a process by which gene alleles are increased or decreased by random chance, as opposed to being selected for by reproductive success. The founder effect, first described by Ernst Mayr in 1952, is the loss of genetic variation due to a new population being formed by a small subset of a larger population.

Answer: reproductive isolation due to hybridization barriers

The Wallace Effect essentially describes how two populations, which have grown more distinct from one another, eventually produce less and less viable hybrid offspring, thus further selecting against such hybridization. This effect is sometimes now referred to as "heterozygote disadvantage" or "reinforcement". It is an important mechanism in sympatric speciation, which is speciation amongst populations in the same (or overlapping) geographic regions.

Ring species occur when populations genetically diverge around the perimeter of a geographic feature (i.e. a mountain range), such that the populations at each end are distinct enough to prevent successful hybridization. Genetic codominance is when two or more gene alleles are expressed at the same time, instead of one being completely dominant over the other. Predator-prey arms race is sometimes called "evolutionary arms race", and deals with the escalating adaptations between predator and prey, often leading to elaborate forms and behaviors specific to the relationship.

Answer: wide diversity of species

Wallace's newfound views were at certainly at odds with some of Darwin's, who continued to expound viable naturalistic explanations to these phenomena. It is debated as to whether Wallace's adoption of spiritualism caused his doubts of the ability of natural selection to explain these events, or whether he had never actually believed that these phenomena were the result of natural processes.

Many other contemporary naturalists of Wallace disagreed with these views. Charles Lyell was perhaps the most prominent supporter of Wallace's general views on natural selection and evolution.

Answer: "My Life"

"My Life" was published in 1905, by Chapman and Hall. Within it, Wallace includes accounts of his friendships with notable scientists, such as Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, and Thomas Henry Huxley. Wallace also describes his many expeditions, including those to Asia, South America, and Australia.

"Island Life" was an earlier publication by Wallace, written after his Malay expedition, detailing the relationships between species and their climate and environment.