Spreading the evolutionary synthesis: Theodosius Dobzhansky and genetics in Brazil

Abstract

The so-called Evolutionary Synthesis, the present paradigm for evolutionary explanations, was established during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. One of the leading scientists contributing to this was Theodosius Dobzhansky, a Russian born geneticist who emigrated to the United States of America in 1927 to study with Thomas Hunt Morgan. He was also responsible for the development of Drosophila genetics in Brazil, which was the main organism employed in experimental studies of evolution. Dobzhansky had several opportunities to visit Brazil starting in 1943, to do field and laboratory work as well as teaching. All these activities were fundamental in the spreading of new concepts, methodology, and objectives of the Synthesis to a new audience. This paper discusses the results of the interaction between Dobzhansky and a group of young Brazilian researchers, particularly from the University of São Paulo.

“A most bountiful source of inspiration:” Dobzhansky’s evolution of tropical populations, and the science and politics of genetic variation

“…As Glick (1994) pointed out, genetics in Brazil can be traced back to 1917, when the subject was studied as an applied agricultural science at the Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (see also Araújo, 2004;Souza et al, 2013). By the mid-1930s, the Brazilian physician André Dreyfus (who was self-taught in genetics) chaired the faculty of biology at the newly founded University of São Paulo.…”

“…T he Russian-American evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky has been the subject of considerable philosophical and historical scholarship, including how he integrated the methods of field naturalism and laboratory experimentation in ways that helped produce the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis and how he leveraged his biological expertise to defend liberal, cosmopolitan, and democratic values in the midst of the Second World War, the Cold War, and the problematization of race (Lewontin, 1974;Gould, Lewontin, 1979;Mayr, Provine, 1980;Beatty, 1987aBeatty, , 1987bPaul, 1987;Gould, 2002;Gannett, 2013;Subramanian, 2014;Yudell, 2014;Jackson, Depew, 2017). Moreover, Dobzhansky has been at the center of analyses on the institutionalization of genetics as a science in Brazil, where he spent most of his time outside of Russia and the US with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation (Glick, 1994(Glick, , 2008Cunha, 1998;Marinho, 2001;Pavan, Cunha, 2003;Araújo, 2004;Sião 2007;Formiga, 2008;Souza et al, 2013;Magalhães, Vilela, 2014;Souza, Santos, 2014;Santos, Silva, Gibbon, 2015). This article bridges both sets of literature by situating Dobzhansky's work in Brazil within the mid-twentieth-century science of genetic variation and the politics of diversity.…”

The emergence of human population genetics and narratives about the formation of the Brazilian nation (1950–1960)

“…3 de São Paulo (USP or University of São Paulo), founded in 1934, won prominence in developing research in genetics. Dreyfus, a graduate of the Medical School of Rio de Janeiro, was a pioneer in promoting Mendelian genetics in Brazil (Araújo, 2004;Glick, 1994;Monte Sião, 2007). Research in genetics at USP expanded significantly from the 1940s on, especially with the stimulus of the Rockefeller Foundation (Cueto, 1994;Marinho, 2001).…”

Conservation implications of adaptation to tropical climates from a historical perspective

“…Shortly afterwards, Dobzhansky turned his eye towards the tropics. In 1941 he wrote in a letter to Sewall Wright regarding an upcoming research venture in Brazil (Araújo, , p. 470): ‘I think there is a possibility of much to be gained by studying population structure in species living in a climate that changes little as possible during the year.’ Over the next decade Dobzhansky spent many months doing research on Brazilian Drosophila culminating in his influential 1950 paper ‘Evolution in the tropics’ where he noted that the ‘changeable environments’ of temperate systems ‘put the highest premium on versatility rather than on perfection in adaptation’ (see Bonebrake & Mastrandrea, for further discussion). Additionally, much like von Humboldt, Dobzhansky (, p. 217) understood that the tropics were not so simply uniform and that ‘the limiting factor for life in the tropics is often water rather than temperature’.…”