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Gut Microbes Can Split a Species
sciencehabit writes "The community of microbes in an animal's gut may be enough to turn the creature into a different species. Species usually split when their members become so genetically distinct — usually by living in separate environments that cause them to evolve different adaptations (think finches on different islands) — that they can no longer successfully breed with each other. Now researchers have shown that a couple groups of wasps have become new species not because their DNA has changed, but because the bacteria in their guts have changed — the first example of this type of speciation."
"I hate your guts" has always been a contraindication for breeding.
So, gut bacteria can make mating incompatible. What's new?
It's an artificial problem for the concept of "species", an outdated notion. Get it together, biologists.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Inability to breed is not a qualification for a species boundary.
Gut microbes influence is not surprising when you consider a human being is made more of gut microbes (10^14) than human cells (10^13). We even saw recently a paper about horizontal gene transfers between gut microbes and human cells, so perhaps we will have to consider a human being is mostly made of its guts microbes.
So, I guess I am a biologist, for what that's worth, though I usually hang out in the neuroethology / biomech side of things. However, back from the days when I thought I was going to be a statistical geneticist* I seem to recall that hymenoptera are haploid/diploid, which is to say that males only have a single set of chromosomes, whereas females have two.
Which leaves me a little confused to what exactly they did, as haploid offspring usually only have a single parent... (And something is totally messed up with my Science subscription, and I just spent half an hour futzing with it, even though I can just log in with my institutional subscription.) Ah, yes. Okay, they crossed the species, producing diploid females, and then the males in question were the F2 haploids. I feel better now. I mean, it kind of had to be that, but...
As a general note, the genetics of sex determination varies a lot. We tend to talk about sex determination in humans because, well, we're humans. But you *really* don't want to generalize. (And, of course, as you get to invertebrates things get particularly crazy. I work with hermaphroditic slugs, for instance...)
* I would still love to be a statistical geneticist, I'm just somewhat easily lead if people wave cool research in front of my face. Ooh! Protein folding and native state mechanics! Ooh! Biomechanics and motor control!
The whole idea of a species barrier is not actually that well defined in biology. It gets tossed around a lot, but there is not a hard and fast set of agreed upond definitions of what it means. If you have critters that can breed and produce viable offspring, but under normal circumstances will not because of timing or other issues, are they separate species? Or, for another instance, there are these lizards where successive groups of them occupy a more or less crescent shaped space. Each group can breed with the ones nearest it, but the ones at each end of the crescent can't breed with eachother.
Even if it's ill defined, it's a hard concept to entirely escape from, because breeding pools, and diversity both within and between different breeding pools are pretty hard to get away from. But in the community I don't see people getting particularly excited about the term species nearly as much as I see us getting excited about what is actually going on on the ground.
So McDonalds is the reason why Americans are becoming a different species?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I work with hermaphroditic slugs, for instance. ..)
That's not a nice thing to call your coworkers. I'm sure they are very hard working people. And it's very rude nowadays to call their sexuality into question. Sure, the guys may be a little fem, and the women may be butch, but they still have feelings, you insensitive clod.
And what's with the Picasso smiley, with both eyes on the same side of the face?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Wolbachia is a bacterial genus believed to infect up to ~90% of all insect species. It spreads rapidly through populations by allowing infected females to breed with any individual while infected males can only breed with infected females (the bacteria is passed on mother-to-child). Furthermore, many species actually depend on Wolbachia to become sexually viable, and in a few the bacteria actually induce the insects to undergo parthenogenesis (reproduction with females only).
Even now, Wolbachia is migrating north through California's fruit fly population. Last year I heard it had reached the Sacramento area.
.: Semper Absurda