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Text of the page (random words):
s there is no worker aggression and there is free movement among nests on a vast scale the energy that might have been put into fighting and territoriality flows into the common good more ants such a concept a form of genuine anarchism in the animal world was thought to be impossible given existing theory these ants live in colonies where relatives exist but with so much migration throughout a network stretching thousands of kilometers each ant worker is mostly surrounded by total strangers that share none of their genes only one other species has ever been known to organize themselves in such a fashion and if you re reading these words right now you know who you are to understand how unicolonial ants have come to be the way they are we must first understand what they re not kin selection has proposed that cooperation will emerge in groups that are made up of close relatives hamilton s rule beautiful in its simplicity proposed that cooperation occurs when the cost to the actor c is less than then the benefit to the recipient b multiplied by the genetic relatedness between the two r this equation is written out simply as rb c lion siblings often cooperate as teams and benefit through kin selection source scotch macaskill wildlife pictures com to put this into context an alpha male lion and his brother share half of their genes so have a genetic relatedness of 0 5 suppose this brother recognizes that the alpha male is getting old and could easily be taken down if so the brother could potentially have eight additional cubs just to pull out an arbitrary number but instead that brother decides to help the alpha male to maintain his position in the pride and as a result the alpha ends up having the eight additional cubs himself while the brother only has five the brother has lost out on 3 potential cubs but even so because he assisted his brother he has still maximized his overall reproductive success from a genetic point of view 0 5 x 8 4 3 he could have attempted to usurp his brother and perhaps had the eight cubs himself but he wouldn t have been in any better of a position as far as his genes were concerned reciprocal altruism follows this same basic idea but proposes a mechanism that could work for individuals that are unrelated in this scenario cooperation occurs when the cost to the actor c is less than the benefit to the recipient b multiplied by the likelihood that the cooperation will be returned w or wb c this has been demonstrated among vampire bats who regurgitate blood into a stranger s mouth if they weren t able to feed that night previous experience has shown the actor that they re likely to get repaid if they ever go hungry one night themselves this theory requires that individuals be part of a single group with low levels of immigration and emigration so that group members will be likely to encounter each other on a regular basis previously it was argued that all ants followed an extreme form of kin selection because of their unique process of reproduction females develop from fertilized eggs and have paired chromosomes that is one from each parent however males develop from unfertilized eggs and only have a single chromosome from their mother as a result female workers share up to 75 percent of their genes with sisters but only 50 percent with their mother or their own offspring if they were to reproduce worker ants therefore have greater genetic success by not reproducing but instead helping to raise and protect their legion of closely related sisters ant reproduction gives rise to genetic sisterhood source unattributed this explanation has been somewhat clouded given more recent evidence that queens engage in polyandry mating with multiple males a queen will frequently mate with up to five different males and store their combined sperm around 100 million of them in a special compartment called the spermatheca by releasing a single sperm at a time the queen can control the number of eggs she lays however because there are multiple fathers the genetic relationship between the female worker ants is reduced female workers may therefore only be related by 25 percent with the females they re helping to raise why would female workers continue to be non reproductive and help rear distant relatives when they could have twice the reproductive success by having their own offspring while there are strategies female workers employ to maximize their own reproductive success like preferrentially rearing eggs that they are more closely related to or in some rare cases reproducing themselves it still remains puzzling why ants have been so successful given this seeming contradiction if you add to this the realities of multiple queens in a single nest polygyny and supercolonies that are composed of thousands of such nests polydomy the problem becomes insurmountable if worker ants share zero percent of their genes with those they re cooperating with as is the case in these unicolonies then why cooperate what do they have to gain this is the problem that helantera and colleagues are seeking to understand in their latest paper while the authors emphasize a range of possible explanations i want to focus on just one that has been generating a great deal of interest in the last few years group selection the extreme cooperation of unicolonial ants has been suggested to be an example of selection occurring on levels higher than the individual such as the superorganism group or even population group selection is the idea that under certain circumstances genes will be selected for because they benefit the overall success of the group rather then simply the individual while it is usually assumed that these populations will have a high level of relatedness making the promotion of the group an extended form of kin selection the authors suggest a scenario in which group selection could apply even among unrelated group members giant ants terrorize humanity in them source warner bros this is a possibility i like to call ronald reagan s alien invasion hypothesis in a speech before the united nations on sept 21 1987 reagan stated that in our obsession with antagonisms of the moment we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond i occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world so under this possibility a common threat to all colony members would outweigh the low level of genetic similarity because unless everyone pulls together the entire group is in jeopardy if one colony was competing with a rival colony then selection for individual selfishness could drive the population to extinction while selection for cooperation would allow the colony to thrive under this view extant unicolonial populations are the ones that have not yet succumbed to selfishness relatedness and mutual policing select against selfishness in non unicolonial populations but stop applying when relatedness decreases to zero however constraints arising from the natural history of the species or pleiotropic effects of selfish genes might prevent selfish genotypes from arising even under zero relatedness this cooperation could then continue long after the initial threat was gone under the force of phylogenetic inertia perhaps in the future selection would cause the unicolony to break into smaller more genetically similar colonies once the impetus for group selection no longer exists or perhaps the benefits of cooperating with strangers simply outweighs the costs of competition and natural selection has produced a genuinely altruistic society unicolonial cooperation has inspired activist art such as this print from the beehive collective source beehive collective at the current time there are 31 known unicolonial ant populations around the globe this is a small minority given the more than 12 000 described species however given that research on unicolonial ants is so new there is still a great deal of research that needs to take place concerning this unique experiment of the natural world at the very least unicolonies provide us with a source of inspiration and the ability to marvel at the amazing beauty and diversity of the natural world with the knowledge that stable supercolonies composed of strangers continue to thrive in nature perhaps there s something we could learn from those creatures that first invented this approach references hamilton w d 1964 the genetical evolution of social behaviour i and ii journal of theoretical biology 7 1 16 and 17 52 trivers r l 1971 the evolution of reciprocal altruism quarterly review of biology 46 35 57 helantera h strassman j e carrillo j queller d c 2009 unicolonial ants where do they come from what are they and where are they going trends in ecology and evolution doi 10 1016 j tree s009 01 013 read more superorganisms and group selection posted by eric michael johnson at 4 58 pm 9 comments labels evolution multilevel selection mar 31 2009 loss of biodiversity and extinctions anup shaw over at global issues has collected an exhaustive collection of recent analysis on the loss of biodiversity in the last few years as i wrote in my recent post rivalry among the reefs the loss of up to 1 3 of coral reefs in recent years could result in unprecedented extinctions of ocean biodiversity while occupying only 0 2 percent of the world s oceans coral reefs sustain 25 percent of species diversity an oceanographic public works project that has been in existence for 3 5 billion years current estimates are that one third of the world s coral reefs are in imminent danger of extinction in an international survey of these most diverse ecosystems in our oceans researchers determined that global climate change is increasing the average temperature of the earth s oceans this is killing the photosynthetic algae that has adapted into a pristine symbiotic relationship with their hosts coral bleaching on a global scale is the result and mass extinction will be the inevitable conclusion unless this trend is reversed but loss of biodiversity in the oceans is only one region currently experiencing crisis the collection of studies and warnings from experts around the world that anup has gathered are truly staggering see below for a sample of some of what he posts already resources are depleting with the report showing that vertebrate species populations have declined by about one third in the 33 years from 1970 to 2003 at the same time humanity s ecological footprint the demand people place upon the natural world has increased to the point where the earth is unable to keep up in the struggle to regenerate world wide fund for nature october 24 2006 the world environmental situation is likely to be further aggravated by the increasingly rapid large scale global extinction of species it occurred in the 20th century at a rate that was a thousand times higher than the average rate during the preceding 65 million years this is likely to destabilize various ecosystems including agricultural systems jaan suurkula physicians and scientists for responsible application of science and technology february 6 2004 if current estimates of amphibian species in imminent danger of extinction are included in these calculations then the current amphibian extinction rate may range from 25 039 45 474 times the background extinction rate for amphibians it is difficult to explain this unprecedented and accelerating rate of extinction as a natural phenomenon malcom maccallum journal of herpetology july 17 2007 junk food chains including kfc and pizza hut are under attack from major environmental groups in the united states and other developed countries because of their environmental impact intensive breeding of livestock and poultry for such restaurants leads to deforestation land degradation and contamination of water sources and other natural resources for every pound of red meat poultry eggs and milk produced farm fields lose about five pounds of irreplaceable top soil the water necessary for meat breeding comes to about 190 gallons per animal per day or ten times what a normal indian family is supposed to use in one day if it gets water at all vandana shiva stolen harvest south end press 2000 pp 70 71 read more loss of biodiversity and extinctions posted by eric michael johnson at 10 15 am 0 comments labels climate crisis conservation mar 29 2009 darwin s controversy of the corals the reef tank is currently hosting my new post that tells the story of one of the largest controversies in the history of science it involves charles darwin a son defending his father s honor and the threat of nuclear annihilation intrigued go over and check it out as well as some great posts by other fellow science bloggers here is a quick taste it took the threat of nuclear annihilation between the two greatest powers of the 20th century to solve one of the most profound scientific controversies of the 1800s in 1952 dr harry ladd a researcher for the us geological survey convinced the us war department to drill holes deep into the bikini and eniwetok atolls just prior to their obliteration by hydrogen bombs the reason for the drilling had little to do with the nuclear tests as part of operation crossroads but was simply to conduct an experiment based on the hypothesis of coral reef formation first proposed by charles darwin in 1837 read the rest here read more darwin s controversy of the corals posted by eric michael johnson at 9 08 am 0 comments labels evolution history of science mar 25 2009 drunk gorillas of virunga less gorillas in the mist and more gorillas getting pissed mountain gorilla after a few too many bamboo shots image andy rouse daily mail this mountain gorilla has been drinking alcoholic sap fermented in bamboo shoots in the highlands of rwanda the next day the nature photographer andy rouse noticed that the gorillas were a bit worse for wear when i went back the next day it was all very quiet as if they were nursing gorilla sized hangovers for additional photos see the uk daily mail read more drunk gorillas of virunga posted by eric michael johnson at 2 14 pm 0 comments labels gorillas humor primates mar 24 2009 bonobos in the garden of eden our primate cousins could turn the question of human origins upside down could the bonobo homeland also be the origin of our common ancestor image cyril ruoso time in an interview with dan harris on nightline bonobo researcher dr bila isia inogwabini recently suggested that humans may have first evolved in the western area of the democratic republic of congo rather than in east africa where most of the fossil evidence has been discovered i really strongly feel that people may have evolved from this region he said it s a big claim yes i understand but i really think it is worth it to put it on the table genetic evidence suggests that humans bonobos and chimpanzees shared...