Speed of animal evolution enhanced by cooperative behaviour – Phys.Org

May 29, 2017 by Stuart Roberts Credit: University of Cambridge

A study by scientists from the University of Cambridge has revealed how cooperative behaviour between insect family members changes how rapidly body size evolves with the speed of evolution increasing when individual animals help one another.

Cooperative behaviour is a key part of animal family life: parents help offspring by supplying them with food, and siblings can also work together to acquire food. The Cambridge study, published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, looked at the burying beetle unusual in the insect world as the parents feed their offspring.

Larvae in small broods are well supplied with food by their parents and grow large. In the parents' absence, larvae can also help each other to forage for food. However, in the absence of their parents, small broods of larvae are less effective at helping each other and can never grow as big.

"For our study, we played the role of natural selection. In some experimental beetle populations, we chose only the largest beetles to breed at each generation and in some we chose only the smallest beetles," said Benjamin Jarrett from the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, who led the study.

"Crucially, we also changed the social conditions within beetle families. In some populations, we allowed parents to help their offspring, but in other populations we removed the parents, and larvae had to help each other. We found that the social conditions made a big difference to how quickly beetle body size evolves over generations."

Beetles only evolved a larger body size when parents were present to help rear their young. In stark contrast, smaller body size only evolved when beetle parents were removed, and there were too few larvae to help each other.

The experiment helps explain how different species of burying beetle might have evolved their different body sizes. In general, larger species of beetle have more diligent parents than smaller species.

Burying beetles use the dead body of a small animal, like a mouse or bird, for reproduction. The parents shave and bury the carcass, to make it into an edible nest for their larvae. The larvae can feed themselves on the carrion, but the parent beetles also regurgitate partly digested food to them. The species used in this study has quite variable levels of parental care: occasionally larvae have to fend for themselves on the carcass because they have been abandoned by their parents.

"Previous work has focused on the puzzle of how cooperative behaviour evolves, because natural selection seems to favour animals that are selfish," said Professor Rebecca Kilner, who is senior author of this paper. "We have shown that what happens next, in evolutionary terms, is just as interesting. Once cooperation has evolved, it can change the way in which evolution then unfolds."

The researchers now hope to uses experimental evolution to understand what happens across many generations when changing the extent of parental care.

"We can remove parents from caring for their offspring in one generation, and we do this to their offspring too, and their grandoffspring, and so on," added Jarrett. "We currently have populations of beetles that have not had parents looking after them as they grow up for 25 generations.

"What this does is change what evolution is working on. Natural selection is usually acting on the combination of parents and offspring, and now, by removing parents, we have changed the traits on which evolution acts."

Explore further: Burying beetles: Could being a good father send you to an early grave?

More information: Cooperative interactions within the family enhance the capacity for evolutionary change in body size, Nature Ecology and Evolution, dx.doi.org/10.1038/241559-017-0178

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A study by scientists from the University of Cambridge has revealed how cooperative behaviour between insect family members changes how rapidly body size evolves with the speed of evolution increasing when individual ...

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Pheromones effect more rapid evolution.

care to link some studies to support that one?

Cap'n, is this the first time you've encountered Bubba? He's a classic crackpot. Just read a few of his posts and discover his singular fixation.

methinks that once we start seeing source material and the choices made we can narrow down the person behind the sock

Ross Nicholson, though often writes under B. Nicholson. Unfortunately if you press him for evidence, he will link to his own material, including his own self-published book.

No one has ever asked for references. All species ever studied rely upon pheromones to ascertain their numbers, determine resources, and regulate their fertility, including human beings. Humans have the largest and most active scent glands of any species. (Montagna, Sakolov (sp?)) Scents are why pubic hair is curly. Human pheromones contain chemicals which mark us as human beings. Sebaleic acid is found nowhere else in nature. (Nicolaides, N. Science Jan 1974) Sapienic acid is almost as rare. Pheromones are species specific and components are synergistic, just like: fish oil. Only fools believe that human beings have some innate need for deep sea fish oil. I think human beings need to kiss each other to get almost exactly the same chemicals from human skin surfaces. Harpies have no chemistry, they're religious believers that "bad thinking causes disease" which is obviously impossible to disprove. There are thousands of annotated facts in my book. Study it.

a book is not a study

i am not asking for anecdote nor your personal belief because that means you're promoting a faith, not science

you are on a science site making blanket statements that i am saying are wrong - so prove your point with evidence

and by evidence i mean reputable peer reviewed journal studies that can be replicated and thus validated

.

otherwise you're no different than any other religious crank

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.

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and so far it's not helping that bubba thinks a book of anecdote is somehow equivalent to a journal study...

Principia was self published. There's no stigma. This format allows only 1000 characters to get the basics across. There are thousands of references, yes, Montagna and Parakal, 1984, discusses curly hair in scent dissemination. Yes, the upper and middle meati have erectile tissues that engorge during intercourse and deflate on intromission. The same erectile tissues block upper and middle meati (where most smell takes place) with anger (obviously to prevent auto reception of pheromone). The reference to the otolaryngologist who scoped his wife during intercourse and also when she got mad at him is included. I saw the same thing in my studies. Indeed, I discovered that upper & middle meati ALWAYS move air front to back, never in reverse except at high velocity: sneezes. I used plastic models made from cadavers, & no, I don't have a personality. Neither do you. A couple of you (children perhaps? Who knows who you are?) mock me from anonymity. Read the book 1st. Then mock.

Sorry, I don't know how to make links. A lot of people believing something does not make it true. For instance, today is not "Tuesday", that is merely a consensus of opinion. Actually, there's nothing Tuesday about today, is there? There is no such thing as a personality, there are no "psychological" states. There is no such thing as an ego. Self concepts do not exist. There is a lot of work involved in disabusing oneself of such religious notions. From my perusing this site, which is useful to me occasionally, very few have done the work of confirmation needed to differentiate what is known vs what is merely assumed from consensus. Socratic logic can be helpful, but even Socrates' axioms cannot stand against experimental evidence to the contrary, if valid.

you have yet to provide any reputable evidence other than "because you say so"

even the text would be usable to the most basic internet literate user as you can copy/paste it back to the browser

read all 16 boxes and consider it before replying with yet another pheromone claim, especially considering the above link i presented showing there is, and i quote:" there is no robust bioassay-led evidence for the widely published claims that four steroid molecules are human pheromones: androstenone, androstenol, androstadienone and estratetraenol."

.

so your continued posting of pheromone BS is called faith, or belief, not science

Admittedly, some things I accept as true may be mere consensus. No one disputes that the more social a species, the more pheromone components it exhibits, the larger & more active the scent glands, etc., even though this might be just an artifact of the consensus, people falling into line, like Dead Poets Society (a film I worked on in my youth). It's an observation of one of my professors at SUNY-ESF, Silverstein, upon finding 25 components in a single pheromone. I remember his name only because he objected with anti-semitic virulence at my "Jewish" pronunciation of his name as ein (one in German) instead of een , or vice versa, I forget.

3- science has the added restriction of peer review which, as proven, though it is not 100% effective all the time, it is the best method to limit pseudoscience exposure, as it will destroy a scientists reputation should they post a blatant lie (see: https://en.wikipe...akefield )

4- the information in a study or in science is able to be checked without padding your own personal pocket whereas a private personal book pads your pocket regardless of the contents - you have a no lose situation where you get financial compensation regardless of the content. you could be posting a list of phone numbers from 1620 for all we know [hyperbole intended]

get the point yet?

science isn't about consensus any more than space exploration is about lemon meringue

when you hear about consensus in any science topic it is usually because the overwhelming repeatedly validated evidence all points towards a single point: gravity, climate change, GR/SR, etc

see that link above? or here: http://rspb.royal...full.pdf

Yes, the cure for crime is 250mg of healthy adult male facial skin surface lipid pheromone, and yes it is literally on the end of your nose if you are man enough. If you mishandle it as you collect it, you may wander off searching for leprechauns, but it is there, "overlooked" literally by everyone here but me.

i am a retired soldier, firefighter, investigator. i've been insulted by the best and you are not it LOL

so you're just another jvk wanna-be crank with a "buy my book" message

thanks for validating that one for me

Come on. Take a stand. Have some balls.

Thank-you for the lesson. I watched the Ted talk of the fellow in question talking about the Monel Chemical Senses work. If you read my chapter on pheromone chemistry in the book I wrote, you will see that the oddities seen in pheromones of other species manifest themselves in the 735 chemicals in human face grease. For instance, it's a hard cold fact that methylation presents on every even carbon of the chemicals from the feet in humans, never odd carbons, always even. Chemical identification was robust in Nicolaides' day, once identified, never disputed, I accept that. We know from at least 3 experiments that human pheromone reception is insidious.

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Speed of animal evolution enhanced by cooperative behaviour - Phys.Org