Fish Evolve Immunity To Toxic Sludge

RedEaredSlider writes "Fish in the Hudson River and the harbor in New Bedford, Mass., have evolved resistance to PCBs. In the Hudson, a species of tomcod has evolved a way for a very specific protein to simply not bind to PCBs, nearly eliminating the toxicity. In New Bedford, the Atlantic killifish has proteins that bind to the toxin (just as they do in mammals) but the fish aren't affected despite high levels of PCBs in their cells. Why the killifish survive is a mystery."

Comments

Why would this be a surprise?

[the eric conspiracy]

Ananda Chakrabarty developed a microorganism that actual feeds on PCBs by simple selection in his lab some 40 years ago.

We have weeds that have evolved resistance to glyphosate in the wild. That is a much more impressive adaptation because glyphosate interferes with the production of key amino acids by plants.

Life on earth has been adapting and evolving to its environment for billions of years. Why would anyone think it would stop?

Re:Why would this be a surprise?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Single-celled organisms are generally a lot more flexible when it comes to environmental stress than multi-cellular organisms are, and among the latter, plants are generally more flexible than animals. Observing this kind of adaptation in animals is pretty impressive. Nobody expects life to stop adapting to the environment, but there are limits; e.g., humans aren't going to evolve resistance to being shot in the head, no matter how many times it happens.

Re:Survival of the fittest, NOT evolution

[SJHillman]

Evolution is essentially the same thing as survival of the fittest followed by passing its traits on to the offspring because it enabled the fittest to reproduce more or live long enough to reproduce... and over time, the offspring with that trait will begin outnumber other members of its species without the trait because they have a better chance of survival. Also, spontaneous evolution is an oxymoron.

cookoo canary

[epine]

It says a lot about PCB distribution and signal strength if multiple species have evolved responses over sub-century time frames.

It was convenient while it lasted for the fish who ingested our industrial waste stream to grow carbuncles and remove themselves from the human menu by simple visual inspection. But I guess we're heading back to the days where the host takes a brave first bite, and all the guests applaud if dinner proceeds. We'll all be double checking the Russian royal penumbra to ensure our host doesn't carry any midichlorians of Rasputin lineage.

Canaries in the coal mine all the way up the food chain. Tag, you're it.

Re:cookoo canary

[St.Creed]

I'll try a translation:

Up until now, it was easy to spot fish that was loaded to the gills with toxic chemicals, because they had weird growths. Now they have evolved resistances, you can't spot them by visual inspection anymore so it will be easier to insert toxic fish into the foodchain. We then return to the times were, if you had a dinner, the host was required to take a bite to show that nothing was poisonous. But for people who are genetically linked to people with a famous resistance to poison, like Rasputin, this may not even cause them to blink - so you also need to check whether your host is a descendant from Rasputin or other likely resistant folk (Borgia family would be candidates :)).

So basically, we had early warning signals from fish but now *we* have become the early warning signals (canaries in the coalmine) - and if we live, the food may be safe. Hurray for dumping chemicals in the water.

Ofcourse, the OP phrased this much nicer than my translation.

Re:Yeah creationist ?

[vadim_t]

Modern science is built around the idea that you can never actually prove a theory, only disprove it and build a better theory. When you stop trying to disprove your models and accept them as truth, you stop being a scientist and step into the realm of faith.

There's just two problems with that one:

1. There's enough evidence for evolution that it must be mostly correct
2. If evolution is flawed, it won't result in concessions towards the creationist stance

For instance, take Newton. Yes, he wasn't entirely correct. But what he figured out, in the conditions he tested it in, worked. That Newton wasn't 100% correct didn't suddenly mean that the reality was any more aligned with the view of Aristotle.

The same way, the argument isn't about whether evolution exists. That got figured out long ago, even before scientists figured out how genetics work. The current arguments are all about the details of it. That the current understanding isn't 100% correct isn't going to suddenly mean that the creationist stance is right, it's just going to mean that some of the details weren't entirely correct, like exactly how some features evolved, how important different mechanisms are, and so on.

Re:You make yourself look silly when...

[Spad]

Repeat after me: "Evolution does not work that way".

Evolution isn't something that magically allows plants and animals to adapt to a specific set of circumstances, that is an entirely random process. This mutation probably happened decades or centuries ago (or possibly even *due* to the PCBs, which would be ironic but difficult to prove) and has now, as you've said, been brought to prominence because all the fish without it have died off due to the high levels of PCBs in the water.

The fish *have* evolved immunity to the toxic sludge, but it's not a causative statement and hopefully wasn't intended as such.

Re:headlights

[bill_mcgonigle]

How long until deer evolve to not walk in front of my car?

They already have. Those are in the woods, safe and sound. You're doing your part to help clean up the evolutionary dead ends.