tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514599844429716727.post2044530608487285709..comments2023-05-09T02:16:41.518-06:00Comments on Female Triumvirate of Evolution Experts: Arms Races and Manipulation, Part 1Kristinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04350976542988396333noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514599844429716727.post-76708358934895274902007-01-11T21:24:00.000-06:002007-01-11T21:24:00.000-06:00And anytime you want me to talk about gross stuff ...<em>And anytime you want me to talk about gross stuff ...</em><br /><br />OK, we'll talk about gross stuff some time.<br /><br />Trivers and Haig would be an area that I could post on. I don't know how much this blog, as a "Female Triumvirate" thing, is meant to orient towards 'gendered' issues. Some of this parent-offspring conflict stuff is very gendered. (actually, all of it). It is in fact asymmetries in gender that cause some of the most interesting effects. <br /><br />For instance, the protein that is responsible for growing placental tissue in a fetus (the placenta is a part of the fetus, not the mother, and is responsible, essentially, for sucking maternal energy out of her) is coded for by a gene that comes from dad, not mom, in most/many mammals. (Certainly in humans). Why? How? <br /><br />Ahh, that's the rub...Greg Ladenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03973115018538144984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514599844429716727.post-44757184810507081682007-01-11T20:55:00.000-06:002007-01-11T20:55:00.000-06:00Have you read any of the stuff by David Haig on pa...<i>Have you read any of the stuff by David Haig on parent offspring conflict? Or Bob Trivers?</i><br /><br />Alas, no--I only even started reading Dawkins last year. I grew up on Stephen Jay Gould, but fell away from science for a long time, until all this intelligent design nonsense.<br /><br />There's so much that I want to read--but then there's all my texts for class (sigh). Gotta get on them, and Jonathan Vos Post's paper... I have some writing that I want to do...<br /><br />And anytime you want me to talk about gross stuff, I'm hip. ;-) (As you may expect I'm not really "one of the girlie girls.")Kristinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04350976542988396333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514599844429716727.post-56331106300763787942007-01-11T20:24:00.000-06:002007-01-11T20:24:00.000-06:00Thank you for reminding me of that disgusting scen...Thank you for reminding me of that disgusting scene in the Fly. Appreciate it. <br /><br />Have you read any of the stuff by David Haig on parent offspring conflict? Or Bob Trivers?<br /><br />PO conflict is Trivers' theory ... he first used the term and defined the math, etc. Haig's stuff is more recent and much, much spookier.Greg Ladenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03973115018538144984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514599844429716727.post-29202944653093680872007-01-11T12:33:00.000-06:002007-01-11T12:33:00.000-06:00Well, the extended phenotype bit did not exactly r...<i>Well, the extended phenotype bit did not exactly rock my world either. </i><br /><br />But I can imagine it doing that for other people who aren't reading stuff like this. After all, most people think of the children as the extended phenotype of the parents, however accurate that is.<br /><br />But after seeing <i>The Fly</I> (1980s version) and Jeff Goldblum consuming his liquid lunch, nothing much surprises me anymore. <br />Blech. <br />;-)Kristinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04350976542988396333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514599844429716727.post-83357129601901685132007-01-10T22:22:00.000-06:002007-01-10T22:22:00.000-06:00Well, the extended phenotype bit did not exactly r...Well, the extended phenotype bit did not exactly rock my world either. I just stuck that in to fit in with the overall post. <br /><br />This realization came to me during a lecture at a Cafe Scientifique session run by the Bell Mueum (for those of you in the Twin Cities ... this is worth looking up). It was a guy who pours hot metal down ant holes, then digs out the "sculpture" that results ... interesting science but a little strange. <br /><br />Anyway, what blows me away is the prospect that larva controlling, developmentally, what might be a deliterious trait in mom and aunty (oops, sorry, I did not mean to make that pun, but I'll leave it in place anyway) in order to blackmail them into service. <br /><br />Parent offspring conflict is a research interest of mine, so I was surprised to have never encountered this idea before...<br /><br />Kristine, yes, I'd be honored to post some time. <br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />GTLGreg Ladenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03973115018538144984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514599844429716727.post-80449214037631188382007-01-10T19:36:00.000-06:002007-01-10T19:36:00.000-06:00you can think of the adult morphology as an extend...<i>you can think of the adult morphology as an extended phenotype of the larva</i><br /><br />This did not rock my world too much (although it's <i>weird</i>.) I think that Gould wrote something similar regarding primate and hominid childhood development although he did not specifically that adulthood was an extended phenotype of the child--rather, that the child was almost an independent fetus.<br /><br />Thank you for taking the time to comment on this. Greg, you have so much to contribute and are certainly welcome to post here! I do not have a science degree so I'm happy to find that I am not terribly off the mark. Feel free to let me know if you want to post.Kristinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04350976542988396333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514599844429716727.post-3768546461044966102007-01-10T11:48:00.000-06:002007-01-10T11:48:00.000-06:00Dawkins believes that parents who manipulate their...<em>Dawkins believes that parents who manipulate their children have an advantage over parents who do not, but states that parents do not have any built-in advantage over their children by the mere fact of their being parents.</em><br /><br />Ants are interesting in this way. There are larva and adults. The larva develop into the adults (obviously) so in a way you can think of the adult morphology as an extended phenotype of the larva. (Sort of ... but bear with me for a moment on this.)<br /><br />Adult ants are built in such a way that the alimentary tube that runs from their thorax to their abdomen, through which any food they consume must pass, is so small that adult ants can consume nothing at all that is not liquid.<br /><br />Since adult ants can only consume liquid (not crumbs from picnics as is commonly thought) most of them have to get their nutrition from the larva. <br /><br />The adult ants bring food (picnic crumbs, etc.) to the larva and feed it to them. The larva then digest this and turn some of into nutritious ant-spit that the adults eat. <br /><br />Thus, the adult ants are basically waitrons that exist to serve the larva.<br /><br />On top of this, there are many ants in symbiotic relationships with plants, whereby the plants provide "honey dew" (or various other names) ... basically plant-produced synthetic ant-spit. It is of course because of the larva-adult relationship that this is possible ... the existing system is adjusted slightly and exploited by the plants. The adults are essentially addicted to ant-spit, and the plants are taking advantage of this by using synthetic ant spit as a payoff for the ants providing protection or whatever other function the plants are after.Greg Ladenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03973115018538144984noreply@blogger.com