Re: The rebellion of the ant slaves
- From: John Edser <edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 13:03:43 -0400 (EDT)
William Morse <wdNOSPAmorse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:-
Some of its victims (ants from the genus Temnothorax) strike back
with murderous larvae. Alexandra Achenbach and Susanne Foitzik from
Ludwig Maximillians Universty in Munich found that some of the
kidnapped workers don't bow to the whims of their new queen. Once
they have matured, they start killing the pupae of their captors,
destroying as many as two-thirds of the colony's brood.
Ants that are targeted by slave-makers take massive hits to their
colonies and they are under intense pressure to resist these
marauders. But all the defences discovered so far happen before the
raids have been successfully completed. They involve better
fighting skills, quicker reaction times when enemies are spotted,
hastier escapes and so on.
Some scientists have suggested that strategies like this would be
impossible to develop because the enslaved workers are caught in an
evolutionary trap. Far away from their own colony, and sterile
themselves, there is no way for them to increase their reproductive
success. But Achenbach and Foitzik have rejected this idea - their
conclusion is that by conducting assassinations within their new
home, they severely reduce the slave-makers' numbers and their
ability to conduct raids. That safeguards the future of their
relatives.
Achenbach and Foitzik collected 88 colonies of the slave-making
P.americanus ant that had abducted workers from three species of
Temnothorax. They found that the workers clearly care for the
larvae, and nearly all of them were raised until their pupated. But
at that point, the slaves' behaviour changed dramatically, taking
on a more homicidal bent ... (cont)
Sorry to be so late in following on this one. Thanks so much for
pointing out that research. This behavior would seem to qualify as an
example of group selection, since the damage done by the enslaved
workers will tend to benefit all the Temnothorax colonies in the
area, not just the one they are abducted from.
JE:-
Hi Bill,
If we regard each ant colony as a single fertile individual then each
ant becomes reduced to just a fitness part of one fertile individual
(this includes the queen). Using this more simple, mono-centric,
Darwinian view, group selection is not required.
In eusocial species the fertility of each organism remains closely
regulated so that in most cases only a single individual, the queen,
represents a fertile form. When more than one queen is involved the
colony can be explained as two or more individuals acting mutually via a
shared body similar to conjoined individuals. In eusocial forms the
queen remains fitness dependent on the sterile casts which feed and
nurture her and they in turn, fitness dependent on a queen for
reproduction. IOW, the dependent fitness of each form is never simply
additive (the fitness of a eusocial colony is not the simple addition of
the fitness of each individual which comprises it). Therefore, a
eusocial colony does not constitute a group (a population) and therefore
cannot be validly explained using "group selection. Put more exactly,
the fitness of eusocial forms cannot be represented only using
reversible intersecting sets of fitness (here the fitness of the colony
IS the simple sum of the fitness of each individual). Individuals are
not populations and vice versa only because of the very different way
their fitnesses relate. There are only two options: independently
additive and dependently non additive. Can anybody provide a third?
Empirically, eusocial fitnesses are represented by increasingly complex,
critically non reversible (non additive), nested sets of fitness. Here
the fitness of sterile casts can be proposed set nested 100% within the
fitness of a fertile queen OR the reverse. Since the survival rates of
eusocial queens are almost entirely determined by the sterile casts
which serve her but in turn, the sterile cast's reproductive rates
remain 100% controlled by their queen, the fitness of each eusocial cast
can only be set nested within a queen's fitness and not the reverse. In
this respect a eusocial colony is much more like a single Darwinian body
(fertile adult organism) where however, eusocial body parts display
independent legs, jaws and eyes etc i.e. eusocial body parts _have a
higher level of survival independence_. However, at no time are eusocial
individuals granted _reproductive independence_ . IOW eusocial
individuals present a unique organism composed of modular body parts
providing a spectacularly successful adaptation in which a single
Darwinian body can spread itself out over an environment taking what it
requires (horror stories cannot compete with nature). This provides
advantages and disadvantages like any other adaptation. In this case a
bizarre disadvantage is characterized by modular slaves acting as an
infection.
The universal eusocial requirement seems to be a sealed place and time
for social containment over a critical stage of development in order to
allow pheromones to closely regulate each individuals fertility. If
biologists needed any proof that fertility represents _the single most
important criterion for any proposed unit of selection_ then eusocial
species provide it. IOW, it is only the total number of strictly fertile
forms that a proposed unit of selection reproduces per population that
matters, i.e. not how long they live or anything else because life spans
etc remain set nested 100% within ONE individuals reproductive total per
population. In falsifiable Darwinism sterile individuals remain excluded
from reproductive tallies. Only reproduced fertile forms can be validly
used as an objective measure of fitness simply because only they
possibly pass on their and thus some of their parents, genes.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.
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