Alfred Russel Wallace

1. Alfred Russel Wallace

3. Born: January 8, 1823 United Kingdom Died: November 7, 1913 (aged 90) Broadstone, Dorset, England Nationality: British

4. Fields: Exploration, evolutionary biology, zoology, biogeography, and social reform Known for: Co-discovery of natural selection Pioneering work on biogeography Wallace Line Wallace Effect

5. He was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858.

6. Natural selectionis the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key of mechanism of evolution, the change in heritable traits of a population over time. Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection"; he compared it with artificial selection (selective breeding).

7. Wallace did extensive fieldwork, first in the Amazon River basin and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts; a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia.

8. He made many other contributions to the development of evolutionary theory besides being co-discoverer of natural selection. These include the concept of warning colouration in animals and the Wallace effect, a hypothesis on how natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridisation.

9. Unlike Charles Darwin, Wallace began his career as a travelling naturalist already believing in the transmutation of species.

10. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and called "Father of Biogeography".