[HN Gopher] A mutation turned ants into parasites in one generation
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       A mutation turned ants into parasites in one generation
        
       Author : theafh
       Score  : 103 points
       Date   : 2023-05-08 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | GauntletWizard wrote:
       | Mutations turn individual cells into parasites all the time; We
       | call it "Cancer". With how many roles and profiles that our cells
       | can adopt, I'm incredibly unsurprised that there's modes and
       | forms that are purely parasitic,
       | 
       | I would imagine that in most large populations, there are a
       | decent number of parasites. The simple answer is this - Everyone
       | it a "parasite" sometimes. Everyone is sometimes sick, wounded,
       | or simply unlucky and requiring help. It's a standard part of
       | living. In brutal nature, the sick and injured simply die. In
       | social species, though, the sick and injured are cared for, with
       | other members of the group, tribe, society or species giving
       | 
       | It's of little surprise, then, that the genes and regulation that
       | control "Where to signal for help" can become corrupted or
       | overactive". In large, complex species, you'll see the groups
       | carrying out a balancing act. Packs of dogs can both nurse
       | members back to health and exile unproductive members. But at the
       | larger by count scale, it's harder to rack the individual, so I'm
       | not surprised that the systems break down somewhat more.
        
       | explaininjs wrote:
       | These reproduce asexually, which makes the concept of speciation
       | harder to pinpoint.
       | 
       | Has science ever observed speciation via natural selection
       | amongst a sexually reproducing cohort?
        
         | _Nat_ wrote:
         | > Has science ever observed speciation via natural selection
         | amongst a sexually reproducing cohort?
         | 
         | Theories of speciation do seem to lean toward asexuality.
         | 
         | I mean, at an extreme, we can consider asexual-reproduction
         | through cloning -- where genetic-mutations simply get cloned
         | along different lines, allowing for increasingly divergent
         | genetics.
         | 
         | But even when we're talking about sexual-reproduction,
         | [theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation#Modes )
         | often focus on [bottlenecks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popu
         | lation_bottleneck ) (e.g., an isolated population on an island)
         | -- which, while nominally " _sexual_ " in the sense of
         | individuals still engaging in sexual-reproduction, is asexual
         | in the sense of the isolated-population disengaging from
         | sexual-reproduction with other populations.
         | 
         | Where, generally, greater population-level asexuality might be
         | expected to lead to greater divergence.
        
       | zyang wrote:
       | They are scrum masters.
        
         | dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
         | Influencers, travel bloggers/vloggers, FatFIRE's.
        
       | kazinator wrote:
       | I'm skeptical of the claim that the inquiline behavior is
       | something complex. The ant isn't literally aware of "I'm as
       | social parasite and therefore do all these things". It's just
       | behaving randomly.
       | 
       | Arguably, the complex behavior is, in fact, _not_ laying eggs in
       | other colonies, which the mutation breaks.
       | 
       | Scientists should be skeptical of a elaborate hypotheses like "a
       | new, complex behavior has emerged via a single mutation", and
       | look for the simplest possible interpretations of what is
       | observed. Occam's Razor and all that. For any hypothesis, you
       | have to look for reasons and ways it might be false.
        
       | SeanAnderson wrote:
       | Kinda reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsbe1pD8ocE
        
       | timschmidt wrote:
       | This explains vampires.
        
       | Borrible wrote:
       | That is nothing.Wait until the stars are right.
       | 
       | https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bcs3_b3VXSU
        
         | Qem wrote:
         | That is a great B-movie.
        
       | mock-possum wrote:
       | Really fascinating and terrifying how much your entire way of
       | life can hinge on the expression of one bit of DNA like this. I
       | wonder what this would look like if ants had free will and could
       | choose how to live for themselves - would there be ants that
       | would choose not to follow that deviant parasitic strategy, and
       | instead try to integrate / conform?
        
         | BulgarianIdiot wrote:
         | You're asking questions which have more to do with our own
         | higher cognition instincts and how our mind factors social
         | behavior, rather than how an ants sees it. So maybe the
         | examples should move towards how society deals with parasites
         | who lack critical social features like empathy, morality,
         | honesty. And if studies are correct, it seems we let them rise
         | to the top.
        
         | tedunangst wrote:
         | It's hardly one bit. The "single mutation" was a complete
         | chromosome duplication.
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-08 23:00 UTC)