4 ms·

I assume over time, the diamondback female moth would be able to determine which males produce stale offspring and avoid them. There has to be some science to s

by psaux 7y ago

I assume over time, the diamondback female moth would be able to determine which males produce stale offspring and avoid them. There has to be some science to selective breeding. I am groc’ng now, I swore I watched a show where a beetle evolved to have selective mating distinction. Prior to Netflix and Prime, Discovery was my morning, lunch, and dinner, learned so much.

fifnir 7y ago
> the diamondback female moth would be able to determine I'll rephrase: If some females for whatever reason avoid the engineered males, they will produce more offspring
- red75prime 7y ago
  ... if probability of finding unengineered male is greater than probability of producing viable offspring with engineered male (it was 4% for OX513A, if I remember correctly).
- danShumway 7y ago
  Good distinction. Evolution is hard to talk about, I still often have to take a step back and try to reword things that I'm talking about. Somewhat obviously, females that happen to produce a larger number of viable offspring will produce a larger number of viable offspring. That means over time, a lot of the new viable offspring will be coming from those females. Which means over time, a lot of the species will have similar genes to those females. Which means that if the females all share a common mutation, over time a lot of the species will have that mutation.
Accujack 7y ago
The males that produce only male offspring that survive are identical to males that don't. Both types of matings produce eggs that hatch larva. The females die before the eggs hatch, so they never see the offspring, thus it's difficult for them to "learn" anything. The modified males produce only viable male offspring, so no female offspring survive to allow the evolutionary mechanism to work - all the females that live to adulthood are born from female and male parents that were unmodified, so there's no chance of the "modified" genes affecting female numbers.
- beerandt 7y ago
  I think the main concern isn't the modified genes being passed on, but the genetic results of selective pressure against a population with those modified genes. Pulling this out of thin air, but what if a female had a mutation that allows mating with multiple males. Or multiple batches of eggs before they die. This trait would have a big advantage in a population of mostly sterile males, but also: You'd inadvertantly create a super breeder lineage. Stealing from the obvious: in Jurassic Park, it's the equivalent of selecting for dinos that can change sex to reproduce. The scientists didn't insert that particular trait, but ended up accidently selecting for it, by pressure in the form of a single sex population. (I'm not suggesting spontaneous sex change in mosquitos, just inadvertent selection that might benefit their reproductive ability.) Maybe I'm way off. It just seems like there's more than one way this could go wrong.
  - Accujack 7y ago
    >Pulling this out of thin air, but what if a female had a mutation that allows mating with multiple males. Or multiple batches of eggs before they die. True, but your example essentially says "What if a mutation happened that completely negated the limiting effect of the genetic modifications that have been done." If something this unlikely happens to the moth, of course it's going to change everything. If it happened to a non genetically engineered population of moths, it would change everything for them, too. If I recall the plot of that book, the scientists in question made the mistake of wholesale copying strings of frog DNA to fill in "gaps" in the Dino DNA they were reconstructing. Apart from being ludicrous from a scientific point of view, the idea is that they copied genes that allowed for a sex change by the organism possessing those genes. It wasn't anything to do with evolution. Evolution doesn't work on individuals at all, it works on populations over many generations. Until the "dinosaurs" in the story actually reproduced, evolution had no effect on them - it simply could not, because individuals don't change to respond to selection pressure... they either reproduce successfully or don't. Dinos that had been engineered to not reproduce couldn't evolve at all, hence the "oops we copied the frog's sex change ability to the dinos" plot point.
    - 7y ago

by psaux 7y ago

fifnir 7y ago

> the diamondback female moth would be able to determine I'll rephrase: If some females for whatever reason avoid the engineered males, they will produce more offspring

red75prime 7y ago
... if probability of finding unengineered male is greater than probability of producing viable offspring with engineered male (it was 4% for OX513A, if I remember correctly).
danShumway 7y ago
Good distinction. Evolution is hard to talk about, I still often have to take a step back and try to reword things that I'm talking about. Somewhat obviously, females that happen to produce a larger number of viable offspring will produce a larger number of viable offspring. That means over time, a lot of the new viable offspring will be coming from those females. Which means over time, a lot of the species will have similar genes to those females. Which means that if the females all share a common mutation, over time a lot of the species will have that mutation.

Accujack 7y ago

The males that produce only male offspring that survive are identical to males that don't. Both types of matings produce eggs that hatch larva. The females die before the eggs hatch, so they never see the offspring, thus it's difficult for them to "learn" anything. The modified males produce only viable male offspring, so no female offspring survive to allow the evolutionary mechanism to work - all the females that live to adulthood are born from female and male parents that were unmodified, so there's no chance of the "modified" genes affecting female numbers.

beerandt 7y ago
I think the main concern isn't the modified genes being passed on, but the genetic results of selective pressure against a population with those modified genes. Pulling this out of thin air, but what if a female had a mutation that allows mating with multiple males. Or multiple batches of eggs before they die. This trait would have a big advantage in a population of mostly sterile males, but also: You'd inadvertantly create a super breeder lineage. Stealing from the obvious: in Jurassic Park, it's the equivalent of selecting for dinos that can change sex to reproduce. The scientists didn't insert that particular trait, but ended up accidently selecting for it, by pressure in the form of a single sex population. (I'm not suggesting spontaneous sex change in mosquitos, just inadvertent selection that might benefit their reproductive ability.) Maybe I'm way off. It just seems like there's more than one way this could go wrong.
- Accujack 7y ago
  >Pulling this out of thin air, but what if a female had a mutation that allows mating with multiple males. Or multiple batches of eggs before they die. True, but your example essentially says "What if a mutation happened that completely negated the limiting effect of the genetic modifications that have been done." If something this unlikely happens to the moth, of course it's going to change everything. If it happened to a non genetically engineered population of moths, it would change everything for them, too. If I recall the plot of that book, the scientists in question made the mistake of wholesale copying strings of frog DNA to fill in "gaps" in the Dino DNA they were reconstructing. Apart from being ludicrous from a scientific point of view, the idea is that they copied genes that allowed for a sex change by the organism possessing those genes. It wasn't anything to do with evolution. Evolution doesn't work on individuals at all, it works on populations over many generations. Until the "dinosaurs" in the story actually reproduced, evolution had no effect on them - it simply could not, because individuals don't change to respond to selection pressure... they either reproduce successfully or don't. Dinos that had been engineered to not reproduce couldn't evolve at all, hence the "oops we copied the frog's sex change ability to the dinos" plot point.
  - 7y ago