Research Description
Much of Crow’s research has been in the area of theoretical population genetics, but he has often ventured into the laboratory. Over a career that spanned more than 50 years, Crow and his collaborators studied a variety of traits in Drosophila, dissected the genetics of DDT resistance, measured the effects of minor mutations on the overall fitness of populations, described the behavior of mutations that do not play the selection game by Darwin’s rules, and investigated many other subjects. His theoretical work has touched virtually every important subject in population genetics. Crow developed the concept of genetic load, has contributed to the theory of random drift in small populations, has studied of the effects of non-random mating and age-structured populations, and has considered the question, “What good is sex?” He also developed ways to estimate inbreeding in human populations by making use of the way in which surnames are “inherited,” and was a world expert on the genetic effects of low level ionizing radiation In addition to his many research publications, Crow published many reviews and appreciations of the work of his colleagues. His book on population genetics, written with Motoo Kimura, is a combination of textbook and monograph a major contribution to the literature of population genetics research and still the classic in its field.
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