Now there is a video about the biggest ant paper of the year.
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Now there is a video about the biggest ant paper of the year.
@futurebird So, do the queens of one species store the DNA of males of the other species so they can clone it? And does that DNA get passed from one queen to another over the generations..?
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@futurebird So, do the queens of one species store the DNA of males of the other species so they can clone it? And does that DNA get passed from one queen to another over the generations..?
@futurebird Oh, does the Messor Ibericus colony keep a supply of Messor Structor clones around? And have they been cloning them for millions of years..?!
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@futurebird Oh, does the Messor Ibericus colony keep a supply of Messor Structor clones around? And have they been cloning them for millions of years..?!
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the details of this but it seems like they have been doing this for millions of years.
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@llewelly @Quantensalat @futurebird
Makes you wonder how frequently this kind of thing happens but we don't notice due to our Victorian framing of sex.
There could easily be a million "species" doing this (and more) and we just haven't noticed.
@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
Stuart, Llewelly can you you help me understand this bit from the paper?
"This strategy may have been selected either to benefit from potential worker hybrid vigour or to prevent queen-only production due to the fixation of a caste-biasing genotype"
It's in the section about "Maintenance of a clonal lineage of males"
I understand the hybrid vigor bit, but what do they mean by "fixation of a caste-biasing genotype" ?
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@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
Stuart, Llewelly can you you help me understand this bit from the paper?
"This strategy may have been selected either to benefit from potential worker hybrid vigour or to prevent queen-only production due to the fixation of a caste-biasing genotype"
It's in the section about "Maintenance of a clonal lineage of males"
I understand the hybrid vigor bit, but what do they mean by "fixation of a caste-biasing genotype" ?
@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
They are talking about the evolutionary benefits of Social Hybridogenesis. What's going on with these ants goes beyond Social Hybridogenesis.
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@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
They are talking about the evolutionary benefits of Social Hybridogenesis. What's going on with these ants goes beyond Social Hybridogenesis.
@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
This paper does the same thing many math papers (and talks) do. They start out obviously trying to write for the more general audience. Explaining all of the basic concepts as they come up. But, when they get into the exciting bit they become giddy and stop breaking everything down with as much care.
It's that meme where a student is in a math class and the board says "1+1=2" then she looks away for one second and looks back and it's full of calculus.
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@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
This paper does the same thing many math papers (and talks) do. They start out obviously trying to write for the more general audience. Explaining all of the basic concepts as they come up. But, when they get into the exciting bit they become giddy and stop breaking everything down with as much care.
It's that meme where a student is in a math class and the board says "1+1=2" then she looks away for one second and looks back and it's full of calculus.
@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
But I am like a snow plow, I will figure this out.
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@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
Stuart, Llewelly can you you help me understand this bit from the paper?
"This strategy may have been selected either to benefit from potential worker hybrid vigour or to prevent queen-only production due to the fixation of a caste-biasing genotype"
It's in the section about "Maintenance of a clonal lineage of males"
I understand the hybrid vigor bit, but what do they mean by "fixation of a caste-biasing genotype" ?
@futurebird @stuartyeates @Quantensalat I don't understand that part either. Maybe, by "prevent queen-only production" they are hypothesizing that without the M. structor sperm the queens could only produce queens, and not workers or males? I'm not sure that's what they meant, it's only a guess.
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@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
But I am like a snow plow, I will figure this out.
@futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly
I'll be delighted if you can explain it afterwards
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@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
Stuart, Llewelly can you you help me understand this bit from the paper?
"This strategy may have been selected either to benefit from potential worker hybrid vigour or to prevent queen-only production due to the fixation of a caste-biasing genotype"
It's in the section about "Maintenance of a clonal lineage of males"
I understand the hybrid vigor bit, but what do they mean by "fixation of a caste-biasing genotype" ?
@futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
I haven't read the paper, but I'd interpret it to mean that the species may have developed such a strong tendency to suppress reproductive male offspring in favour of reproductive females that it risked becoming fixed in parthenogenetic reproduction with no males. This is true of various insect lineages. Having an external source of sperm would ensure sexual reproduction can continue.
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@futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
I haven't read the paper, but I'd interpret it to mean that the species may have developed such a strong tendency to suppress reproductive male offspring in favour of reproductive females that it risked becoming fixed in parthenogenetic reproduction with no males. This is true of various insect lineages. Having an external source of sperm would ensure sexual reproduction can continue.
@dhobern @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
That makes sense. I'm still confused about what a "caste-biasing genotype" is. I assume caste here means the reproductive caste of queen. So, if they became ants that just used queen producing parthenogenesis and there were no males that would be a "cast-biased genotype" which reduces species adaptability and all of the other benefits of sexual reproduction?
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@dhobern @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
That makes sense. I'm still confused about what a "caste-biasing genotype" is. I assume caste here means the reproductive caste of queen. So, if they became ants that just used queen producing parthenogenesis and there were no males that would be a "cast-biased genotype" which reduces species adaptability and all of the other benefits of sexual reproduction?
@dhobern @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
Also, this paper has caused me to wonder if there are some further or unique benefits to hybridization for eusocial animals: mainly that this strategy can also help ensure that it's only the queen whose eggs can continue the lineage. I wonder what happens to the hybrid workers eggs if they ever lay any. It seem to create a more extreme distinction between the reproductive and worker castes. But, I need to keep reading.
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@dhobern @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
That makes sense. I'm still confused about what a "caste-biasing genotype" is. I assume caste here means the reproductive caste of queen. So, if they became ants that just used queen producing parthenogenesis and there were no males that would be a "cast-biased genotype" which reduces species adaptability and all of the other benefits of sexual reproduction?
@futurebird @dhobern @stuartyeates @Quantensalat I'm not sure what it means either, but it does seem "only produces queens" is a caste-biasing phenotype, but since that's exactly one caste, it's an extreme end-member, at least to me. So biased towards a specific caste, there are no other castes.
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@dhobern @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
That makes sense. I'm still confused about what a "caste-biasing genotype" is. I assume caste here means the reproductive caste of queen. So, if they became ants that just used queen producing parthenogenesis and there were no males that would be a "cast-biased genotype" which reduces species adaptability and all of the other benefits of sexual reproduction?
@futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
Yes. Imagine genetic variation within the species. Adding some queens produce male and queen offspring in a "normal" ratio, but some queens evolve to bias progeny to produce extra queens. The latter may propagate more of their genes so may be more evolutionarily successful. The risk is that this is a runaway process that ends with only the biased genotype continuing to exist in the population. At that point the biased genotype is said to be fixed.
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@futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly
I'll be delighted if you can explain it afterwards
@Quantensalat @futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly fwiw, I'm an evolutionary biologist by profession (more molecular than population, tho), and can try to clarify anything that gives your snow plow trouble. Though I know essentially nothing about ants.
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@Quantensalat @futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly fwiw, I'm an evolutionary biologist by profession (more molecular than population, tho), and can try to clarify anything that gives your snow plow trouble. Though I know essentially nothing about ants.
@Quantensalat @futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly somehow missed the whole thread and didn't see @dhobern there answering your specific question.
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@Quantensalat @futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly somehow missed the whole thread and didn't see @dhobern there answering your specific question.
@notoriousiptg @Quantensalat @stuartyeates @llewelly @dhobern
Yes! I think I understand it now. But I may ask more question in the future.
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@stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat
They are talking about the evolutionary benefits of Social Hybridogenesis. What's going on with these ants goes beyond Social Hybridogenesis.
@futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat after reading this paper, I've a question of my own (ok, so many.. But top of the list). In the left most panel of fig 1 they mention "typical hybridogenesis" which I guess is the Pelophylax water frog (wikipedia). they mention "discarding" the other species genome.
I immediately wonder how that works?!
Does the cell "know" one genome from another? That would require evolution of some reader/writer system that says which is which. There is a paper (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01134041) that implies this is the case but no mechanism is proposed.
To me that seems evolutionarily difficult. Im trying to imagine a mechanism that doesn't require new functions for proteins but only something like "start making lots of eggs, many will be crap" since that's easier to dial up. But unsure if the data fit such a model.
I know, less to do with ants, but now I'm gonna need to do a deep dive to see if anybody has at least proposed how this works (or maybe it's more obvious to ppl who study this sort of thing
️). -
@futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat after reading this paper, I've a question of my own (ok, so many.. But top of the list). In the left most panel of fig 1 they mention "typical hybridogenesis" which I guess is the Pelophylax water frog (wikipedia). they mention "discarding" the other species genome.
I immediately wonder how that works?!
Does the cell "know" one genome from another? That would require evolution of some reader/writer system that says which is which. There is a paper (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01134041) that implies this is the case but no mechanism is proposed.
To me that seems evolutionarily difficult. Im trying to imagine a mechanism that doesn't require new functions for proteins but only something like "start making lots of eggs, many will be crap" since that's easier to dial up. But unsure if the data fit such a model.
I know, less to do with ants, but now I'm gonna need to do a deep dive to see if anybody has at least proposed how this works (or maybe it's more obvious to ppl who study this sort of thing
️).@notoriousiptg @futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat In line with the pile eggs theory, it seems like there must be some combination of the genomes that is viable, and some combo that is not. And the hybrids which survive to maturity are the viable combinations.
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@notoriousiptg @futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat In line with the pile eggs theory, it seems like there must be some combination of the genomes that is viable, and some combo that is not. And the hybrids which survive to maturity are the viable combinations.
@notoriousiptg @futurebird @stuartyeates @llewelly @Quantensalat The Ants Canada captions today referenced an ability of black crazy ants to selectively reuse ancient drone DNA to prevent inbreeding since they have so many queens and breed in the nest. And I was like, hold on, so the ants DO have the ability to 'read' DNA, or is it that they selectively store ant semen, or ... what?
