7 ms·

A mutation turned ants into parasites in one generation

150 points by theafh 3y ago

timschmidt 3y ago
This explains vampires.
Borrible 3y ago
That is nothing.Wait until the stars are right. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bcs3_b3VXSU https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bcs3_b3VXSU
- Qem 3y ago
  That is a great B-movie.
zyang 3y ago
They are scrum masters.
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 3y ago
  Influencers, travel bloggers/vloggers, FatFIRE's.
SeanAnderson 3y ago
Kinda reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsbe1pD8ocE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsbe1pD8ocE
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 3y ago
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.
- skadamou 3y ago
  The articles explanation for the origin of this super gene seems similarly complex. Relying on their being some previous version of ant that is not clonal is a step too far into speculation for me to consider that hypothesis too seriously. Or maybe I’m missing something? Maybe an entomologist would think differently!
  - matt_kantor 3y ago
    I'm no entomologist, but I'm sure there was some previous version of these ants that was not clonal. The last common ancestor of all ants was not clonal.
- kevviiinn 3y ago
  It isn't behaving randomly, no organism does. It is reacting to stimuli. The mechanism that determine how it reacts to the stimuli have just changed with the mutation
- melagonster 3y ago
  this is not a new complex behaviour, it happens in many different species.
mock-possum 3y ago
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?
- tedunangst 3y ago
  It's hardly one bit. The "single mutation" was a complete chromosome duplication.
- BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
  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.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > 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. Some of them, at least. Society has some defenses that shunts most of such cases to mental facilities, prisons, or just plain obscurity. The ones able to avoid those defenses, however, achieve tremendous success at the cost of everyone else. So just like with parasites in the animal world. But if we're walking up and down the ladder of abstraction, what about higher-level parasites? I'd call the advertising industry a successful one.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Think this is what we are doing. Few of our 'decision' are free, most are genetic. Genetic being, i was born with some propensity for some particular hormone, which leads to some particular decisions. It is completely beyond our ability to choose, because all of those pre-cursors already chose for us and it feels free. Of course we have free will, we just don't have free will to choose what we will. Schopenhauer had it right.
GauntletWizard 3y ago
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 3y ago
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_ 3y ago
  > 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation#Modes ) often focus on [bottlenecks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_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 -- with full-blown individual-level asexuality being an asymptotic-limit.
- tomrod 3y ago
  Yes, fruit flies. We are seeing it among some bird species too, observationally. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_speciation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_sp... [1] https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/podcast/the-bird-with-four-sexes https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/podcast/the-bir...
  - explaininjs 3y ago
    The man made fruit fly experiments are quite precisely the opposite of natural selection, which is what I'm looking for. As for the birds, there was never observed a time when that genetic anomaly was not present, so no evolution has been observed. Regardless, it isn't the case that the species has bifurcated itself into two subspecies, rather there are 4 genders in the single species and each gender only mates with a particular partner gender. How is this different from speciation? Easy: any organism can produce offspring of any gender, but they will all be the same species.
Obscurity4340 3y ago
Same thing happened with housing in North America. Life imitates ant
endwarsorgomars 3y ago
that sounds like a russian story :/
dumbotron 3y ago
> The exploited host workers then do everything for them, from taking care of their brood to protecting and feeding them. Such a relationship between species is called obligate parasitism, because the parasites cannot survive on their own. There's a lesson about wealth in here somewhere.
germandiago 3y ago
Interesting article. Reminds me of some humans.

150 points by theafh 3y ago

This explains vampires.

That is nothing.Wait until the stars are right. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bcs3_b3VXSU https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bcs3_b3VXSU

Qem 3y ago
That is a great B-movie.

zyang 3y ago

They are scrum masters.

dQw4w9WgXcQ 3y ago
Influencers, travel bloggers/vloggers, FatFIRE's.

SeanAnderson 3y ago

Kinda reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsbe1pD8ocE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsbe1pD8ocE

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kazinator 3y ago

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.

skadamou 3y ago
The articles explanation for the origin of this super gene seems similarly complex. Relying on their being some previous version of ant that is not clonal is a step too far into speculation for me to consider that hypothesis too seriously. Or maybe I’m missing something? Maybe an entomologist would think differently!
- matt_kantor 3y ago
  I'm no entomologist, but I'm sure there was some previous version of these ants that was not clonal. The last common ancestor of all ants was not clonal.
kevviiinn 3y ago
It isn't behaving randomly, no organism does. It is reacting to stimuli. The mechanism that determine how it reacts to the stimuli have just changed with the mutation
melagonster 3y ago
this is not a new complex behaviour, it happens in many different species.

mock-possum 3y ago

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?

tedunangst 3y ago
It's hardly one bit. The "single mutation" was a complete chromosome duplication.
BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
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.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > 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. Some of them, at least. Society has some defenses that shunts most of such cases to mental facilities, prisons, or just plain obscurity. The ones able to avoid those defenses, however, achieve tremendous success at the cost of everyone else. So just like with parasites in the animal world. But if we're walking up and down the ladder of abstraction, what about higher-level parasites? I'd call the advertising industry a successful one.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Think this is what we are doing. Few of our 'decision' are free, most are genetic. Genetic being, i was born with some propensity for some particular hormone, which leads to some particular decisions. It is completely beyond our ability to choose, because all of those pre-cursors already chose for us and it feels free. Of course we have free will, we just don't have free will to choose what we will. Schopenhauer had it right.

GauntletWizard 3y ago

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 3y ago

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_ 3y ago
> 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation#Modes ) often focus on [bottlenecks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_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 -- with full-blown individual-level asexuality being an asymptotic-limit.
tomrod 3y ago
Yes, fruit flies. We are seeing it among some bird species too, observationally. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_speciation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_sp... [1] https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/podcast/the-bird-with-four-sexes https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/podcast/the-bir...
- explaininjs 3y ago
  The man made fruit fly experiments are quite precisely the opposite of natural selection, which is what I'm looking for. As for the birds, there was never observed a time when that genetic anomaly was not present, so no evolution has been observed. Regardless, it isn't the case that the species has bifurcated itself into two subspecies, rather there are 4 genders in the single species and each gender only mates with a particular partner gender. How is this different from speciation? Easy: any organism can produce offspring of any gender, but they will all be the same species.

Obscurity4340 3y ago

Same thing happened with housing in North America. Life imitates ant

endwarsorgomars 3y ago

that sounds like a russian story :/

dumbotron 3y ago

> The exploited host workers then do everything for them, from taking care of their brood to protecting and feeding them. Such a relationship between species is called obligate parasitism, because the parasites cannot survive on their own. There's a lesson about wealth in here somewhere.

germandiago 3y ago

Interesting article. Reminds me of some humans.