How plants evolved to make ants their servants
phys.org
phys.org
But that said, this result should not be surprising if we would get our minds out of the very narrow species-oriented view of nature, where individuals and populations are selfish (even gluttonous) over-consumers and over-reproducers. This model is just wrong. Nature is a vast cooperation of thousands, millions of species. Cooperation at a larger scale that is very much like--in fact, might be called exactly the same--as our bodies, which are complex systems of interacting microorganisms, not all of which have a human genome.
Nature is one giant organism, and the species and individuals that we elevate to godly status are really just cogs and wheels in the grand scheme of things.
We got two queens and now they are growing a small colony. We are looking forward building a bigger formicarium as they grow. Patience is required.
I guess most Americans won't be surprised since it was a common educational activity in the 60s over there.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2113410-fijian-ants-gro...
Pre-ants they could have had variants with hollow ones mixed in. Once the hollow ones gave a significant advantage the other styles would fade away unless there were biochemical constraints.
I don't know for sure but I would expect slow evolution from hive insects - their reproductive members are a fraction and thus a smaller working genepool. Ironically the sessile but more genetically diverse plants could have outmaneuvered the ants. For an example of biochemical constraints take sickle cell anemia trait for instance. One copy makes red blood cells just deformed enough to function but give malaria resistance. Two however and the cells go conclave. The little bastard mosquitoes and their littler bastard malaria made for a nasty situation. In regions with endemic malaria no copies and you are probably screwed - malaria will probably kill you unless you flee the region - a risk in itself. With two you don't need to worry about malaria killing you - your sickle cell anemia will do it on its own just fine. With one you are a-okay but your children or mate stand a chance of getting either bad outcome.
The transmission method has leas to malaria as the number one historical killer.
> But scientists weren't sure how the evolutionary relationship between ants and plants got started.
How can a science-centric site get it so wrong?
Write software that A/B tests various titles. Measure the income from advertising click-throughs. Expand to A/B test various articles as well, optimizing for appeal to the kind of bored person who is susceptible to ordering miracle skin-creams at 2am.
Presto, crappy click-bait.
Editorial: Perhaps instead of blaming the public, science should look in the mirror, as well as hold those between it and the public accountable for errors, inconsistencies, hyperbole, confusing correlation with cause, etc.?
If you leave a publishing journal to optimize for views and/or clickthrough revenue, it becomes a dumpster fire.
If you don't want dumpster fires, somebody has to establish a set a of values and enforce them, even if they have "costs" in terms of popularity/clicks/attention.
or more accurate:
How ads favourable to humans gained reproductive advantage.
The avg tax payer is not interested in obscurity for the sake of accuracy. This is a flaw of the human mind, but something to be exploited rather than resisted when conveying complex ideas.
Of course there should be subtleties mentioned in these articles, but for a headline? I think it's ok to get people excited.
*I'm aware that evolution in particular is poorly misunderstood by some sections of the public, and anthropomorphism in this case may be worse than the general case I'm talking about.
> Of course there should be subtleties mentioned in these articles, but for a headline? I think it's ok to get people excited.
Just to disappoint them later? "Amazing thing! Okay, now that we have your attention, here's the boring truth with precious little detail, but you'll see that what we said was technically true or could be in the future."
That disappointment was what taught me as a child that people can write anything, it doesn't have to be accurate or true. So I guess some good comes out of it, but it's always been a huge turn off for me.
There's nothing wrong about that metaphor except your lack of imagination.
Seriously, you can see it as an evolutionary trap of specialization, getting into a deep (local) maximum without a feasible way out, should circumstances change.
It feels a little more “HaHaOnlySerious” with Tobacco, because it is clearly harmful to its “host organism,” whereas cultivated livestock and Cannabis (or Coffee) are arguably good for humans.
But tar is the byproduct of all smoked leaves, including cigars and marijuana. So you can certainly have a less toxic experience avoiding cigarettes, but smoking is still toxic.
We humans would think this way, wouldn’t we?
I feel bad for the first primitive alien race our descendants encounter, however many eons from now.
Cats domesticated themselves thanks to early farmers and granaries - the wildcat ancestors who had the shortest scatter distance and endeared themselves to humans got to spend more time pouncing on mice and rats that were flooding their stores as opposed to fleeing whenever the towering giants known as man came.
(Although I can't help but imagine a farmer getting spooked the first time a cat got in among the grainery where he was going to shoo the rat pile, again seeing a cat with a dead rat in its mouth and thinking the rats plaguing him are now giant cannibals.)
But why are they calling this process "evolution"? This is symbiosis not evolution.