[HN Gopher] A mutation turned ants into parasites in one generation ___________________________________________________________________ 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-05-08 23:00 UTC)