11 ms·

While sad as a whole, the responsiveness of evolution is beautiful in this case. It also demonstrates that human efforts to stop poaching have not been success

by gpt5 5y ago

While sad as a whole, the responsiveness of evolution is beautiful in this case. It also demonstrates that human efforts to stop poaching have not been successful (otherwise this evolution wouldn’t happen), but luckily, nature responds.

lmilcin 5y ago
Put this in context of a lot of other species who were not able to evolve a mechanism like that. The way I understand this there was likely a very small population of elephants already without tusks, maybe some kind of genetic defect that happened to be an advantage once you add greedy people into the mix. Or what else is possible is that there was one off mutation that produced small family of elephants that poachers wouldn't touch and these spread over decades. Think about this, if today Covid mutated to kill almost all people but spared 0.1% with a certain gene, you would suddenly observe entire human population becoming immune to Covid. This does not necessarily mean any new genetic material or "nature responding". Maybe nobody noticed the gene and it suddenly became very visible and comprising large part of population (while it declined dramatically as elephant population did). We may have missed elephants without tusks because they were just freak of nature but now they become proliferating because it becomes an advantage. EDIT: Selective pressure is part of evolution process, but it is not enough for evolution. Evolution requires both mutation AND selection. So, if the mutation was present BEFORE poachers happened, you can't really say that Mother Nature RESPONDED to poaching by evolving new mechanism. The word "response" implies causal relationship between poachers and mutation+selection of better equipped elephants. But if the mutation has already been present then there is no causal relationship and this wasn't a new mechanism.
- jalgos_eminator 5y ago
  > This does not necessarily mean any new genetic material or "nature responding". But this is exactly how evolution works. There are always mutations in every generation, and sometimes those mutations are beneficial. These genes are being selected by the organism's environment, and if the environment changes, then the genes that are selected will be different. That is "nature responding". Elephants without tusks (or very small ones) are more likely to survive and produce offspring.
- KiranRao0 5y ago
  I would argue what you describe is Evolution as broken into the two pieces: Genetic Drift and Natural Selection. Genetic Drift is always occurring randomly. Some elephants had a "genetic defect" to live without tusks before poaching. Some humans had the 0.1% resistance to the hypothetical super-covid before the disease. As new environmental conditions emerge (human poaching, hypothetical super-covid, etc), some genes are far better adapted to the new environment (tuskless, covid resistance, etc). Those genes then thrive in the new environment and consume the available resources left by those killed off.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - addicted 5y ago
    > What I mean is that it is possible (and I think very likely) this isn't feat of nature suddenly evolving some new defense mechanism as response to poachers. That's not how evolution works. Evolution doesn't ever involve a "feat of nature suddenly evolving defense mechanisms". I don't understand this comment, unless it's a way to say the above, that evolution does not involve sudden spontaneous changes in response to an external stimuli.
geoffmanning 5y ago
Not sure 'beautiful' or 'lucky' are words i'd use to describe it. Did you catch that the males of tuskless mothers generally don't survive, decimating the male population? It's a tragic and desperate response, though quite incredible that such a dramatic evolutionary trait can occur. It makes me wonder what we could become, if only...
- _jal 5y ago
  > if only... If only humans were harvested for bony growths?
  - geoffmanning 5y ago
    LOL. Yes.
  - kuratkull 5y ago
    Tusks are not bones
- teeray 5y ago
  Life, uh, finds a way…
- vmception 5y ago
  Beautiful, lucky, bad Incredible, good
  - geoffmanning 5y ago
    Not quite sure what you're getting at. The definitions of those words can't simply be categorized as good or bad. Beautiful and lucky do, however, somewhat infer a positive outcome in the context they were used. Incredible infers neither positive nor negative. It means that it's simply extraordinary that such a thing could occur, outside the bounds of previous beliefs.
    - vmception 5y ago
officialjunk 5y ago
but the tusks had a purpose to defend and now they are defenseless.
- asdff 5y ago
  Stomping is a common way for elephants to deal with predators. Tusks are used a lot as a tool though.
- croes 5y ago
  If the probability to get killed for the tusks is higher than get killed by predators then it's an advantage.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    There are short-term and long-term advantages and disadvantages, though. From the article, it sounds like this may have protected them from human predation, but there may be significant long-term negative impacts on the species due to the lack of viable male offspring. Survive more easily for a couple generations, but go extinct as an all-female species after a couple more...
    - kadoban 5y ago
      What do the males die of exactly? Not clear to me.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        Seems like the mutation kills male embryos. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe7389 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe7389 > Survey data revealed tusk-inheritance patterns consistent with an X chromosome–linked dominant, male-lethal trait. Whole-genome scans implicated two candidate genes with known roles in mammalian tooth development (AMELX and MEP1a), including the formation of enamel, dentin, cementum, and the periodontium. One of these loci (AMELX) is associated with an X-linked dominant, male-lethal syndrome in humans that diminishes the growth of maxillary lateral incisors (homologous to elephant tusks).
asdff 5y ago
Its important to realize what this "response" actually is. Nature isn't actively doing anything. You have 100 elephants, maybe 5 are typically born without tusks. Suddenly you kill the other 95 for their tusks, leaving behind those 5 to survive and reproduce and next generation, 33 of your 100 elephants are without tusks or something like that. Over time, humans are acting as a predator in the environment, driving a selective pressure that reduces the fitness of the tusk trait relative to the no tusk trait
- croes 5y ago
  Nature is never doing anything.
  - elwell 5y ago
    This is both true and false.
- lowkey_ 5y ago
  I think the above commenter recognized that; that's exactly how these evolutions pretty much always work in nature, not unique to this case.
  - ehsankia 5y ago
    Right, but "natural selection" generally doesn't include human influence, but that's semantics. Would you also say that fruits that are selectively bred to be bigger and juicier are also under the influence of "natural selection"?
    - lowkey_ 5y ago
      I wouldn't, because a fruit bred to be bigger and juicier is engineered by humans for their own benefit, while an elephant evolving to not have tusks is evolution going against human benefit. I believe natural selection includes the influence of any species related to the species in question as predator or prey, and humans in this case are predators. We may historically be responsible for far more processes of natural selection than we're aware of! You're right that it's exceedingly rare to see us so directly play a role in natural selection today (as opposed to indirectly through affecting the environment), which makes this very interesting.
cromka 5y ago
I am not sure you read the article, because the number of large-scale side effects this single evolutionary treat evokes is in rather starting contrast with your "the responsiveness of evolution is beautiful in this case."
phkahler 5y ago
It's also interesting that a single mutation can cause this lack of tusks. That reinforces another concept for me - the ability to adapt is also important and has been selected for. Meaning simple genes to define structure are preferable to complex sets of them. On a related note, if "ability to evolve" is a characteristic that can be selected for that would explain why all complex life uses sexual reproduction. Mixing genes offers such advantages that most everything that can't do it is still basically bacteria.
- what_is_orcas 5y ago
  > It's also interesting that a single mutation can cause this lack of tusks. That reinforces another concept for me - the ability to adapt is also important and has been selected for. Meaning simple genes to define structure are preferable to complex sets of them. I wouldn't get too attached to that idea... in a lot of cases, having one gene responsible for producing a phenotype can be a very bad thing, like oncogenes (responsible for the growth of cancers) and a bunch that determine development and/or aging. > On a related note, if "ability to evolve" is a characteristic that can be selected for that would explain why all complex life uses sexual reproduction. Mixing genes offers such advantages that most everything that can't do it is still basically bacteria. Again, sometimes. There are lizards and bugs that clone themselves (parthanogenesis) which can be really handy for when the population isn't doing so hot.
redleggedfrog 5y ago
It's too bad there is not a gene for making the tusk highly radioactive or shoot out like rockets at the poachers. I guess that's asking a lot of evolution - it's already done a lot for us.
- UnFleshedOne 5y ago
  lol, elephants would be wiped out in a few years if they start doing something like that. First rule of dealing with humans is not to be too effective at it.

by gpt5 5y ago

lmilcin 5y ago

Put this in context of a lot of other species who were not able to evolve a mechanism like that. The way I understand this there was likely a very small population of elephants already without tusks, maybe some kind of genetic defect that happened to be an advantage once you add greedy people into the mix. Or what else is possible is that there was one off mutation that produced small family of elephants that poachers wouldn't touch and these spread over decades. Think about this, if today Covid mutated to kill almost all people but spared 0.1% with a certain gene, you would suddenly observe entire human population becoming immune to Covid. This does not necessarily mean any new genetic material or "nature responding". Maybe nobody noticed the gene and it suddenly became very visible and comprising large part of population (while it declined dramatically as elephant population did). We may have missed elephants without tusks because they were just freak of nature but now they become proliferating because it becomes an advantage. EDIT: Selective pressure is part of evolution process, but it is not enough for evolution. Evolution requires both mutation AND selection. So, if the mutation was present BEFORE poachers happened, you can't really say that Mother Nature RESPONDED to poaching by evolving new mechanism. The word "response" implies causal relationship between poachers and mutation+selection of better equipped elephants. But if the mutation has already been present then there is no causal relationship and this wasn't a new mechanism.

jalgos_eminator 5y ago
> This does not necessarily mean any new genetic material or "nature responding". But this is exactly how evolution works. There are always mutations in every generation, and sometimes those mutations are beneficial. These genes are being selected by the organism's environment, and if the environment changes, then the genes that are selected will be different. That is "nature responding". Elephants without tusks (or very small ones) are more likely to survive and produce offspring.
KiranRao0 5y ago
I would argue what you describe is Evolution as broken into the two pieces: Genetic Drift and Natural Selection. Genetic Drift is always occurring randomly. Some elephants had a "genetic defect" to live without tusks before poaching. Some humans had the 0.1% resistance to the hypothetical super-covid before the disease. As new environmental conditions emerge (human poaching, hypothetical super-covid, etc), some genes are far better adapted to the new environment (tuskless, covid resistance, etc). Those genes then thrive in the new environment and consume the available resources left by those killed off.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- addicted 5y ago
  > What I mean is that it is possible (and I think very likely) this isn't feat of nature suddenly evolving some new defense mechanism as response to poachers. That's not how evolution works. Evolution doesn't ever involve a "feat of nature suddenly evolving defense mechanisms". I don't understand this comment, unless it's a way to say the above, that evolution does not involve sudden spontaneous changes in response to an external stimuli.

geoffmanning 5y ago

Not sure 'beautiful' or 'lucky' are words i'd use to describe it. Did you catch that the males of tuskless mothers generally don't survive, decimating the male population? It's a tragic and desperate response, though quite incredible that such a dramatic evolutionary trait can occur. It makes me wonder what we could become, if only...

_jal 5y ago
> if only... If only humans were harvested for bony growths?
- geoffmanning 5y ago
  LOL. Yes.
- kuratkull 5y ago
  Tusks are not bones
teeray 5y ago
Life, uh, finds a way…
vmception 5y ago
Beautiful, lucky, bad Incredible, good
- geoffmanning 5y ago
  Not quite sure what you're getting at. The definitions of those words can't simply be categorized as good or bad. Beautiful and lucky do, however, somewhat infer a positive outcome in the context they were used. Incredible infers neither positive nor negative. It means that it's simply extraordinary that such a thing could occur, outside the bounds of previous beliefs.
  - vmception 5y ago

officialjunk 5y ago

but the tusks had a purpose to defend and now they are defenseless.

asdff 5y ago
Stomping is a common way for elephants to deal with predators. Tusks are used a lot as a tool though.
croes 5y ago
If the probability to get killed for the tusks is higher than get killed by predators then it's an advantage.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  There are short-term and long-term advantages and disadvantages, though. From the article, it sounds like this may have protected them from human predation, but there may be significant long-term negative impacts on the species due to the lack of viable male offspring. Survive more easily for a couple generations, but go extinct as an all-female species after a couple more...
  - kadoban 5y ago
    What do the males die of exactly? Not clear to me.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Seems like the mutation kills male embryos. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe7389 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe7389 > Survey data revealed tusk-inheritance patterns consistent with an X chromosome–linked dominant, male-lethal trait. Whole-genome scans implicated two candidate genes with known roles in mammalian tooth development (AMELX and MEP1a), including the formation of enamel, dentin, cementum, and the periodontium. One of these loci (AMELX) is associated with an X-linked dominant, male-lethal syndrome in humans that diminishes the growth of maxillary lateral incisors (homologous to elephant tusks).

asdff 5y ago

Its important to realize what this "response" actually is. Nature isn't actively doing anything. You have 100 elephants, maybe 5 are typically born without tusks. Suddenly you kill the other 95 for their tusks, leaving behind those 5 to survive and reproduce and next generation, 33 of your 100 elephants are without tusks or something like that. Over time, humans are acting as a predator in the environment, driving a selective pressure that reduces the fitness of the tusk trait relative to the no tusk trait

croes 5y ago
Nature is never doing anything.
- elwell 5y ago
  This is both true and false.
lowkey_ 5y ago
I think the above commenter recognized that; that's exactly how these evolutions pretty much always work in nature, not unique to this case.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  Right, but "natural selection" generally doesn't include human influence, but that's semantics. Would you also say that fruits that are selectively bred to be bigger and juicier are also under the influence of "natural selection"?
  - lowkey_ 5y ago
    I wouldn't, because a fruit bred to be bigger and juicier is engineered by humans for their own benefit, while an elephant evolving to not have tusks is evolution going against human benefit. I believe natural selection includes the influence of any species related to the species in question as predator or prey, and humans in this case are predators. We may historically be responsible for far more processes of natural selection than we're aware of! You're right that it's exceedingly rare to see us so directly play a role in natural selection today (as opposed to indirectly through affecting the environment), which makes this very interesting.

cromka 5y ago

I am not sure you read the article, because the number of large-scale side effects this single evolutionary treat evokes is in rather starting contrast with your "the responsiveness of evolution is beautiful in this case."

phkahler 5y ago

It's also interesting that a single mutation can cause this lack of tusks. That reinforces another concept for me - the ability to adapt is also important and has been selected for. Meaning simple genes to define structure are preferable to complex sets of them. On a related note, if "ability to evolve" is a characteristic that can be selected for that would explain why all complex life uses sexual reproduction. Mixing genes offers such advantages that most everything that can't do it is still basically bacteria.

what_is_orcas 5y ago
> It's also interesting that a single mutation can cause this lack of tusks. That reinforces another concept for me - the ability to adapt is also important and has been selected for. Meaning simple genes to define structure are preferable to complex sets of them. I wouldn't get too attached to that idea... in a lot of cases, having one gene responsible for producing a phenotype can be a very bad thing, like oncogenes (responsible for the growth of cancers) and a bunch that determine development and/or aging. > On a related note, if "ability to evolve" is a characteristic that can be selected for that would explain why all complex life uses sexual reproduction. Mixing genes offers such advantages that most everything that can't do it is still basically bacteria. Again, sometimes. There are lizards and bugs that clone themselves (parthanogenesis) which can be really handy for when the population isn't doing so hot.

redleggedfrog 5y ago

It's too bad there is not a gene for making the tusk highly radioactive or shoot out like rockets at the poachers. I guess that's asking a lot of evolution - it's already done a lot for us.

UnFleshedOne 5y ago
lol, elephants would be wiped out in a few years if they start doing something like that. First rule of dealing with humans is not to be too effective at it.