1880-1959

Russian geneticist who helped initiate the modern evolutionary synthesis and founded population genetics. He connected fluctuating population size to Darwinian evolution in Waves of Life (1905). His interest in Drosophila (fruit fly) genetics was partially stimulated by T. H. Morgan's research and by Herman J. Muller's 1922 visit to Moscow. In "On Certain Aspects of the Evolutionary Process from the Point of View of Evolutionary Genetics" (1926) he introduced Mendelian genetics into the study of the evolutionary process.