AAH that moment where I understood the connection he was making to the zygote was a great moment. I love what you're doing with this channel Inés. I've been saying for years that there needs to be a channel exploring the actual conceptual frameworks of biology, as opposed to the much more common "look at this crazy organism" approach. I think I found it!
You've no idea how happy this comment makes me - because to an extent, my favourite videos to make on this channels are those on topics which also gave me my own small eureka moments as I understood a new concept, and it is exactly what I'm hoping to transmit to those who watch - so I'm very happy to read this feeling has reached one other person! :) And as someone who couldn't decide whether to study maths or biology, to be a conceptual & theoretical biology channel makes me very happy. :) You may also enjoy a channel called This Place (and Stated Clearly) - as they cover some more biology theory too!
What an interesting question! As far as I'm aware - I don't think so, in that the caste differentiation is irreversible (I'm unaware of any cases where the Major Evolutionary Transition has happened and there has been a way to override it - but doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist, simply we haven't observed it yet). However, your question makes me think of a situation involving kin recognition and genetic conflict: Worker policing - in colonies that haven't undergone the Major Evolutionary Transition, in which worker fertility could be suppressed but is reversible, some workers do lay eggs, and other workers kill them to favour raising more eggs by the queen - so there is a conflict of interest in this respect.
@@DrawCuriosity well, individuals within a superorg would not intentionally become "cancerous"; but parasites certainly could introduce a sort of cancerous effect, i.e. those zombie algae that infest ants. there are lots of parasites that infect these superorg insects in a way analogous to cancer.
This is rare, but within bee hives sometimes female worker bees will try and have children in an attempt to create a new queen. Usually these "false queens" are killed by other members of the hive to prevent the destruction of the hive.
I have a few questions, if you have the time to answer. Firstly, how does facultative eusociality arise in the first place? You've explained how facultative eusocial animals can evolve into obligately eusocial superorganisms, but not where the facultative eusociality comes from in the first place. That in itself seems like a pretty big step. Second, I'm wondering if anything akin to eusociality exists or would even make sense in plants or higher fungi, or if it's unique to animals? Finally, I want to pick up a little on the analogy between the evolution of superorganisms and the evolution of multicelularity. Professor Boosma notes that obligate eusocial animals necessarily go through a monogamous stage, but they can later re-evolve polyandry since that could provide greater genetic diversity, disease resistance, etc. By the same logic wouldn't we also have expected for chimerism to become more widespread among multicellular organisms? Possibly even chimerism involving more than two parents? Do you suppose there's any specific evolutionary reason why that sort of thing doesn't happen? Autoimmune issues, maybe?
This one is quite a fascinating example as well (quoted from a discussion with GPT4 that I did not crosschecked,s so reader discretion is advised). I like particularly this one as the colony is a "structural" organism, it assembles in a very distinctive and functional shape. Pyrosomes are marine creatures that live in the open ocean. They are colonial animals, meaning they're made up of many individual organisms known as zooids. ... The open end of a pyrosome colony is essentially a shared exhalant siphon, and each zooid pumps water out of this common opening to achieve locomotion for the entire colony. ... the zooids in pyrosomes are indeed multicellular eukaryotes. Each zooid is a fully formed organism complete with organs, including a heart and a digestive system. ... A pyrosome colony begins from a single, sexually produced larva. This larva, called an oozooid, is the first unit of the colony. It then reproduces asexually, producing identical zooids that remain attached to it and to each other, forming the colony. In terms of genetics, because the zooids in a colony are produced asexually, they are clones of the original oozooid and hence are genetically identical to each other.
Thank you for a truly fascinating video! As someone with more of a mathematics and computer programming background, this video covered a lot of material I'm not familiar with but it's definitely piqued my interest to read more!
You're very welcome, and thanks for a lovely comment! :) I'll admit as someone who loves maths and coding, this topic in theoretical biology tickles my love of both, as it combines a good explanation for biological observations and in my opinion, some very elegant mathematical modelling - so I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Clem "The Stamina" Carter Marine animals have such fascinating and unknown biologies I wouldn't be surprised if they discovered something like that. You do observe colonies of unicellular algae in which each cell specialises in a role, thus looking a lot like the transition from uni- to multicellularity, which in itself shares parallelisms with superorganisms :)
Siphonophorae are multiple conjoined species performing organ duties, like an inside-out creature. A super organism is one species. So a Siphonophorae would logically be close to the exact opposite of a super organism. Good try though, keep reaching!
How do the ideas of kin selection and monogamy relate to the ability for some eusocial species (such as Argentine ants) to combine and form supercolonies rather than competing with each other?
The theory does extend to supercolonies! :) Interestingly, nearly all invasive ant species are some form of supercolony and they are known to fare better over all. I think there are hypotheses which suggest that supercolonies could indicate either a lower genetic diversity within an ant population, such that fused colonies don't behave aggressively towards each other in spite of deriving from a different colony, or that in some manner, their ability for kin recognition is decreased or altered in some manner. However, in both cases it looks like relatedness or perception of relatedness is involved, and therefore the driver of that cooperation.
Same here. Was like: "How monogamy made Superorgasms... Wait, what?! Oh, Superorga_ni_sms. Silly me." But nonetheless, I still like the video because it's as good and informative as I expected. :-)
Wow! Consistently amazing videos from this channel. Would love to see more of this interview. Question: The connection he made to human development is interesting! Especially thinking as our differentiated cell types (skin, brain, stomach cells) all as having a role in the organism. In cancer, however, some of our cells loose "loyalty" to the whole and instead de-differentiate, multiply, grow and invade cooperating tissues (analogous to maximizing its own fitness at the expense of the organism) 1. Is there anything like "cancer" for bees? As in a single bee in a differentiated caste "de-differentiates" and attempts a more selfish approach at the expense of the hive? (also curious if you know, do bees get cancer?) Thanks!
Thank you so much - what a lovely comment! I will probably post the part of the interview where he answered user-submitted questions, and I'm tempted to make a follow-up on the video on more aspects of eusociality. In response to the question - as far as I'm aware, I don't think so. Technically, the major evolutionary transition is by definition irreversible, so they can't de-differentiate, but that doesn't mean it isn't something that could happen. If it has, we haven't observed it yet, but a lot about how these insects live is still unknown (Koos came up with this theory before it was proven so it's still an emerging field!). However, there is what is known as worker policing which occurs in colonies where workers still have the ability to reproduce, and their suppression may be reversible or not occur at all (but they lay fewer eggs). These colonies haven't undergone the transition, but depending on the relatedness within the colony, if it is high (queen mates once or with very few drones, so siblings are generally full siblings), workers will generally murder the eggs laid by other workers, as their relatedness to them is lower than to eggs laid by the queen and therefore they would rather raise those eggs. However, this would be an example of some level of disruption and genetic conflict, but is also swiftly dealt with (if, in a slightly cold-blooded manner).
Have you ever looked into genetic algorithms/programming? Coming from a CS/software engineering background, I find GAs and GP very interesting. I think it would be super neat to hear the thoughts of somebody with expertise in bio and evolutionary science on evolutionary algorithms.
I haven't used any myself - but what I've heard about them I really love. I personally enjoy coding, machine learning and algorithms, so it is something I'd love to learn a bit more about. I am currently in contact with someone with more expertise in that area, so I'm hoping a video on the topic will materialise on the channel in 2017! :)
I have some experience with them. They are drastically different. Computational GAs are all about finding a solution to a specific problem, while natural systems are all about system stability. Nature doesn't "progress" in fitness. There are plenty of cases found of species reverting to former structures because they were simply more stable that the "superior" ones. There is no such thing as a superior creature in nature too, because all biospheres have borders and creatures form themselves for stability in that specific biosphere. That's how you end up with super predators like the Burmese Python infestation from pets in Florida. Two different biospheres. Two different regulation predators. Now the Python are destroying the biosphere that they thrive upon, and eventually if they are not hunted out of the area, biosphere collapse will occur and the system is thrown into chaos. This is why there is no such thing as a superior creature. In contrast with computation, you WANT as many as possible of those 'super predators' to wipe out the 'inferior' slow-computing programs. Fundamentally they use nearly identical mechanics but the end game couldn't be any different.
Honeybees do live around 3-5 years, but ants can live for decades! I was accidentally misleading in my animations, because I drew a drone bee, but not a drone ant, so I used the honeybee castes I already had to illustrate how monogamy was maintained in Hymenoptera, but gave the impression that they were all extremely long-lived.
It just kinda blows my mind that there are insects out there older than me. I didn't think their little bodies could last that long, unless they are only active every 17 years.
I asked Koos about that as it blows my mind too. :) They have excellent tissue repair and regeneration which lets them keep going, and they're also kept in an incredibly protected location in the royal cell or the depths of the colony, so unlike workers they're not exposed to outdoor dangers. Both of these means their lifespan is greatly increased.
Boomsma's theory is all well in good RE: keeping up with the old school behaviorist interpretation of eusocial evolution, but it takes for granted that kin selection is always a strong enough factor. I strongly recommend checking out more naturalistic approaches to the question (Toth, Kocher, Rehan, Gadagkar, and many others), which have more and more shown that if anything, kin selection is more likely a consequence of eusociality than a cause. One particularly cool example is the Australian small carpenter bee, Ceratina australensis. The species is facultatively social, but relatedness does not outweigh the direct fitness lost from cooperation, and there is no apparent impetus for them to ever be social in the first place - but they do anyway. Madness!
Thank you for your comment! I will look into these researchers, and ask around too. I know I'm very much a subscriber to inclusive fitness theory (and to me, it makes perfect sense as a model like that is what would favour the spread of a gene/whatever is considered to be the lowest level of transmissible genetic information). That being said - the transition is referring moreso to the evolution of obligate castes, and not necessarily to the occurrence of sociality per se (there are plenty of examples of social animals whose relatedness is
There is some very cool behavioral genetic work addressing the idea of transmissible information responsible for caste differentiation (goo.gl/4mZvsw), and I completely agree with the baseline logic of inclusive fitness. It's when testing the idea in the field that folks have begun scratching their heads. It SHOULD work, but it often doesn't! Also, here's that C. australensis paper (goo.gl/FDauzf). I have no idea how CZcams handles links to PDFs, so hopefully those work.
Wow Withee Labs, that's some important observing. Nature is so dirty and brutal. Seems like if everything was logically clean then it would just get hacked like a computer and it's back to dirty and brutal again.
Woah super long video, very interesting as well. Would definitely enjoy a follow up if you decide to do it :D! One question tho! In the case of Facultative Eusociality does one of the bees ever try to mate with the queen even after the drone has already done so and died? While watching this video i couldnt help but think "What if one of these bees that can reproduce try and give it a shot" lol
Thank you so much - and what a fab question!! :) The colony is generally all made up of females, so none of them will attempt to mate with the queen, and I imagine reared drones would be get separate. Not sure what happens on their nuptial flight - many may actually mate on multiple occasions, but it varies a lot from species to species. There's actually a lot to be said about sexual selection, and particularly, post-mating competition, in which even when a female has mated multiply, the male's sperm can battle with each other and even block other sperm from being used. I'm not sure to what extent this operates in bees - but it would be a fascinating area to look at given its implications - the sperm lasts for an incredibly long time and also determines ultimately, the relatedness within the colony. :)
Hey everyone! Sorry for being gone for so long - hopefully an extra long one makes up for time disappeared. :) A few quick things: 1 - This is a collaboration with Stated Clearly - check out his video over here! Go say hi to him from me czcams.com/video/VUfNEHl44hc/video.html&ab_channel=StatedClearly 2 - This is one of my favourite topics - feel free to ask all and any questions about this video if there was something that didn't get covered 3 - This is a super short survey for a video on New Year Resolutions - whether you partake in them or not, feel free to fill in this anonymous survey so I can tailor the video to my viewers a little bit better. goo.gl/forms/ObZOFxmvDe4JL7rW2 4 - Merry Christmas if you celebrate it. :) I will be seeing you before the New Year though
UMMM...... Queen bees mate with multiple males do they not.. I can see how if you were predisposed to believe that monogamy was a morally superior mode of animal behaviour you could convince yourself of this but the argument is not coherent. The argument goes: polyamory makes it more difficult for social harmony to develop therefore we should all be good christians and do what the Bible says. All of this completely ignores the fact humans are demonstrably capable of empathising (and thus cooperating) with individuals who are not particularly related with them. Why are we assuming bees would be different (especially given that they aren't monogamous).. Like seriously how is this video anything besides conservative propaganda????? All you have shown is that monogamy can result in a harmonious society not that it did or should.
+Sam Auciello Please actually watch the full video, as multiple mating and polygyny is covered and discussed, and this video has nothing to do with morality nor religious propaganda. This video is about how a particular major evolutionary transition happened to lead to a jump in biological complexity, and the conditions required for that to happen. Nothing more. Nothing less. I am honestly, quite surprised as to how you have jumped to such a conclusion as that could not be further from the content presented. Monogamy in this instance is a technical term in biology referring to the fact that an individual has one sexual partner. There are no connotations as to whether that is 'good' or 'bad', whether humans should do that or not, and whether being a superorganism is superior or not.
I did watch the entire video. What evidence is there that the ancestors of the non-monogamous species mentioned were monogamous? Like all you did was present a mathematical model of one way it could have happened. It was sort of implied from the tone of the video that any other way wouldn't have worked mathematically. Thus the implication that if a species would like to work together towards a singular unified purpose (as these insects do) then it must start with monogamy. Sometimes science is just science. For example, geologists believe that the world's continents used to be stuck together in the supercontinent of Pangia. This is interesting but doesn't have any direct applications. The idea that monogamy can produce stable super-organisms like this is interesting but I find the claim that it is the only way unsubstantiated and highly suspect. There is always a temptation when studying a specific thing (like insects) to assume that your theories and ideas exist in a vacuum and never effect or relate to other fields. I think if you resist that temptation your videos will be better and your science will be better too.
In that case I am even more baffled by your judgement and tone. The monogamy hypothesis originated as a theory, and indeed, there are other hypotheses that aim to explain this major evolutionary transition. However, unlike the alternative explanations for this major evolutionary transition, the monogamy hypothesis is both elegant from a mathematical standpoint and is the only one which has been fully supported with empirical evidence. In both Hymenopterans and the termites, where the four instances of this transition occurring have been recorded, all have ancestral conditions which were monogamous. This paper provides evidence that all currently non-monogamous and obligately eusocial Hymenopteran lineages had a monogamous ancestral condition: science.sciencemag.org/content/320/5880/1213 This paper by Boomsma also shows that monogamy was the ancestral condition for termites. www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(07)01570-9.pdf + this one Nalepa, C.A., and Jones, S.C. (1991). Evolution of monogamy in termites. Biol. Rev. 66, 83-97. These papers reference further papers also supporting evidence for these statements (there are additional papers looking at this in other facultatively eusocial animals too). So whilst I don't think there's any problem with presenting a model anyway, as this is a field in theoretical biology, what makes it special is that it has withstood the test of empirical data suggesting that this is *very* likely to be the mechanism at hand. Mathematically, what's at the core is that for the individuals to group together they need to have maximal relatedness so that they maximise their inclusive fitness, and in doing so, they can help other individuals to spread their own genes. In the colony structures that exist, that would be achieved precisely through monogamy as it would mean that all siblings are full siblings. It is also what is observed in nature, obligately eusocial animals all have an ancestral monogamous period, regardless of whether later they have evolved secondary developments or not.
Ok. I don't study insects so I can't really comment on the validity of any of that. It wouldn't have hurt though (especially given some of the things Boomsma said at the end) to clarify that this is not intended to say anything about vertebrate behaviour. Given the socio-political implications I think a disclaimer would be helpful there.
Yan FE The colony does produce queens and drones (for instance, in bees, there will be royal cells where the larvae are fed royal jelly, making them develop into reproductive queens), but they enter a dispersal/nuptial flight and found a new colony elsewhere. So yes, the current superorganism does die off after the queen perishes and workers die off such that there are insufficient workers to maintain a nest. And in that respect they're just like an organism, in that they live and die together, but they do spread their genes onto future generations of superorganisms :)
Draw Curiosity ah, I was also pondering the same question. That seemed to be the most likely explanation. How many of those queen bees are produced during her 30 year life? Too many would probably cause problems with competition for food, right?
Really great video! I learned a lot and I really appreciate you attention to detail, especially in your animations. I can really appreciate the amount of time that goes into these videos! Also what is the program that you use for your animations?
Thank you very much Chase, what a lovely comment! :D And congrats on hitting 10K ;) I use free software called Blackmagic Design Da Vinci Fusion for my animations (and I edit in Resolve, by the same company, also free). I had to spend a couple of days watching tutorials to get started, but once you get the hang of it (it is a node-based programme, but also has the option to look like After Effects), it is a very satisfying programme to use. :)
But, for real, this is reminding me of a whole field of sciences and topics that I would love to learn more about, and I was just looking for a nice topic to spend a year on. Evolution just has this sort of strange forward-backwards logic, in that each individual driving evolution has a purpose going forwards, but the evolution that propagated their genes and drive does not. It binds maths and biology together so closely that I'd be tempted to write a biotech-math major assignment on this
I think that is one of the hypotheses - so it could be, I wish there was more research into this topic! :) On a level, this reminds me to the existence of menopause - females have eggs which could last far beyond when menopause hits and it is believed to be for caring for potentially caring for newer generations as the generations overlap.
I think menopause also reduces the duration that older genes get introduced in the pool, which might be advantageous when resources are limited. In the sense that these genes have had their chance for 2-3 decades and after that they're leaving the pool to the newer generations.
I think that we'd have to look at pre-modern civilization to see what the natural purpose of menopause contributes, but it is likely that the lifespan is the limiting factor and was too short to make any difference. Medicine artificially alters the natural lifespan to a degree so it would be challenging to draw conclusions. Another complication to this theory is that males can still introduce the older genes into the population even though it would be at a reduced %. Perhaps menopause is only to give women a break from having children and possibility allow her to enjoy retirement since they usually carry most of the burden of child rearing. But I 'm no anthropologist, just a woodworker.
Ines, this video is amazing! I have a quick question, why does this transition to obligate eusociality happen more frequently in Hymenoptera? I know it's not haplodiploidy but wasn't sure if anyone had any other hypotheses?
How do 'jumps' in evolution happen? By these I mean things that don't seem like they'd work unless they had fully evolved. For example caterpillars - > cocoon - > butterfly.
What a great question :) This video was in collaboration with Stated Clearly, who just released a video on how major evolutionary transitions evolve (although metamorphosis isn't considered to be one of those transitions). Generally, as long as it confers more benefit to the individual/spread of genes than without that character, it can be selected for. So for instance, metamorphosis in insects enables the separation of the niches exploited by larvae and adults, which reduces competition between them and thus more of them could be born and exploit one habitat, and then the next one. As for how it evolves - I admit I don't know much about the evolution of metamorphosis (though that's one fascinating topic I'll be looking into), so this is pure speculation, but I imagine the ancestral condition could be for a nymph (insect that does not undergo metamorphosis, but simply molts every instar until in the last one, the wings appear) to pupate to overcome a difficult period (such as the winter, or a time with less favourable climate). Over time this could select for the nymph to have fewer adult-like characteristics (squishier bodies, shorter legs etc.) as they could require less energy and may only be necessary in the adult/dispersal stage. I don't know if that is how it happened, or if it is known how metamorphosis originated, but that is my speculation. :)
"How do 'jumps' in evolution happen? By these I mean things that don't seem like they'd work unless they had fully evolved. For example caterpillars - > cocoon - > butterfly." Absolutely absurd question. "[How do juveniles turn into adults? ...Checkmate Darwin!]" .......... Bullets are cheaper than ballots....
Tedted141 You're question contains an incorrect assumption, upon which the disproven Irreducible Complexity argument is built. In short, the answer is that evolutionary jumps don't happen at all. It might seem intuitive that unless a caterpillar suddenly evolved all the genes needed to form a cocoon simultaneously, no part of that cocoon would be useful. But in reality, it has been shown time and time again that seemingly codependent components of complex structures (e.g. genes for a cocoon) actually provided minor benefits to an organism's ancestors before the whole structure evolved. For a better explanation and talked-through examples, look up 'irreducible complexity' with key phrases like 'eye' or 'flagellum' or 'feather/wing.' :)
is this form of monogomy also translatable to the begining of multicellular organisms and how would it work? I like your clips they are very specific. Its good to get to know the details of the subject. I was used to propaganda wich basicly wanted you to give up searching for the details and explanations and accept the simplest answer. It is so fun to know the nuanced and in depth way live came about. :) Its sometimes frustrating though to understand it because its such a broad topic without easy answers for everything ;)
An interesting question: why do superorganisms all have queens, but regular cellular organisms don't have "queen cells"? Could you have a multi-cellular organism with a "queen cell"? A true eusocial superorganism *without* a queen? My intuition tells me that it's an issue of scale; a "queen cell" could not possibly reproduce fast enough to sustain the *trillions* of cells in an organism; a superorganism has far fewer members to create, and dividing the labor so that the workers don't waste energy reproducing when the queen is "good enough" is advantageous compared to having every member capable of "intra-colony" reproduction. If my intuition is correct, I make these predictions: 1. Smaller (in terms of number of members) multi-cellular organisms should specialize and trend towards fewer number of members capable of "intra-colony" reproduction. 2. Larger (in terms of number of members) eusocial superorganisms should specialize *less* and trend towards a greater number of members capable of "intra-colony" reproduction. I think superorganisms could probably never grow large enough to warrant/require a "queen-free" strategy, but there may be very small cellular organisms that have one or a small number of cells resembling a "queen".
One important aspect is that strong relatedness is usually an evolutionary disadvantage (consanguinity, population abilities to resist infection, variability as a factor of adaptability). Spotted Hyenas are in this respect an interesting case. Matriarchal society, strong importance of lineage in the selection of alpha individuals, noteworthy endocrinal peculiarities. Strong relatedness between individuals of a given pack. However, the strong relatedness is compounded by loose pack boundaries and the contribution of alien genetic material from males coming from other packs. Would the spotted hyena societies be an early stage of evolution towards more altruistic societies? And would this evolution be opposed by the need to avoid the dangers of consanguinity (no lifetime monogamy)?
+Alain PANNETIER that's part of the reason many secondary developments post transition involve polygyny or polyandry which essentially introduce more genetic diversity :) However, it's convenient to remember that the selfish gene eventually determines what genes are passed along and which aren't, so provided highly related and inbred individuals can have viable offspring, those genes that favour a higher degree of relatedness are more likely to be passed along :)
Draw Curiosity The post transition trends toward polyandry and polygyny are well addressed in the video indeed. My point was that if it kicks in pre-transition it would slow down the process towards relatedness and altruism. Regarding the selfish gene it's a race between environment change and genotype adaptability. If the rate is too high compared to individual's lifespan, then high relatedness could prevent species from retaining/expanding their niches. Polyandry/polygyny will kick in earlier. Contra this is the fact that insect colonies (queens) lifespan and hyena lifespans are comparable. But I guess what really matters would be sexual maturity ages comparison. You can't ignore that first instances of eusociality seem to have appeared during the Jurassic; yet the ones dominating the planet, watching youtube videos and treading the moon are the new kids on the block. More flexible specialisation Adam Smith way prevailed over more rigid specialisation Richard Dawkins way (for good or worse - future will tell :-). I guess sapiens _inclusive fitness_ is the highest of all (relatedness is _way below_ 0.5 but altruism is also very high). Empathy as a socially geared feeling allows to break Boomsma's law. This allows considerable (the highest) maturation duration, which sapiens individuals need to adapt to their own superorganism, to still warrant unprecedented biotope domination success.
+Dustin King conditions where lifetime monogamy is enforced. In termites, the male and female found a nest together and dig deep, making it impossible for the queen to encounter another mate. Same with the hymenopterans, particularly if they are claustrals, which means that after the nuptial flight the queen cannot mate anymore. So long as their ecology is maintained, relatedness will stay invariable in the colony
Are there any ideas floating around about the effect technology will have on the evolution of humans, in particular instant access to each othe, to news and opinions, or mind-to-mind interfaces? This makes me wonder what kind of superorganism humanity could become over thousands of years or longer. We could become alien to ourselves, at least across time.
...add CrispR Cas9, and you ain't kiddin'. I think sooner rather than later. As soon as you have mind to mind signal, you are on your way. I posit that superorganisms don't requisite mutual codependence so much as reciprocal sensory feed back loops that generate a shared sense of "self"... in other words, if I feel what you feel, there is the possibility of a sense of "self-ness" which is neither you, nor me, but youme. Such a holistic experience would probably be several steps down the road, but may have more to do with the advancements of technology than the birth of newly adapted generations. "Fidelity" of shared experience, and the number of cohered minds could increase exponentially within one lifetime. I know this will immediately bring up privacy concerns for many, but I think that information can be "gated" at the individual level leaving basically an "input/output" under individual control. I also hasten to point out that a super organism in no way has to be homogenous in nature. Examine the great diversity in the tissue and structures within the colony that comprises your own body. Is not the genetic expression diverse? We are not merely piles of undifferentiated cells! I suggest that the less differentiation one sees within a superoganism (at whatever scale), the less "evolved" it is on that scale. The path always leads to diverse expression, complexity and sophistication before graduating to the next "plateau". I think "superorganisms" are pretty fresh on the scene, and there are probably formations and solutions we haven't seen yet. Check out "siphonophores" for a completely different "superorganism" modality. Look at slime molds... how they spend their lives as free roaming amoeba, and then form superorganisms when conditions dictate. I think the "codependence" aspect arises only as the "free-roaming" modality loses benefit and relevance as a survival mechanism... it's a *result* of superorganismal transition, rather than a requisite... in my opinion.
great video ! u literally drew a layman's curiosity n made it simple for him to understand this seemingly complex theory ...earned my subscription for sure ! 👍 btw could u figure out the origin/evolution of homosexuality n make a video on it... would like to know how n why that is caused
It is fascinating! A lot is not known about how they live so long, but Boomsma said they appear to have a higher rate of tissue regeneration and repair. Interestingly, other eusocial animals have also been show to age very slowly, and naked mole rats don't develop cancer. It won't be coming out in the short term because I've got a few other vids lined up first, but I've got plans for some videos on aging, development, cancer and tissue regenerattion, so hopefully they will be of interest! :)
Some folks suggest that religious belief systems facilitate the development of non-reproductive castes in human communities (e.g. clerical celibacy): www.degruyter.com/dg/viewarticle/j$002fsh.2016.5.issue-4$002fsh-2016-0021$002fsh-2016-0021.xml
Perhaps some of the monogamous mammals and birds of this eon will evolve into eusocial mammals and birds by the next eon. If arthropods can do it, I don't see why vertebrates can't, but I'm not so sure about mollusks.
LeiosOS there's a couple of others by Stu West on this topic (2014 and a more recent one I believe), and a lot of Boomsma's research builds up to and extends this theory. I'll go find these papers and link them to you + description :) the paper linked in the description though is what I based my interview and the video script off :)
Do you ever think more variation(In terms of DNA) can be better for a organism for instance do you think that sperm cells are developed so they have more variation in order to produce a offspring that may contain new unique traits?
Please bare with this question if you can it has a point. Really interesting, I had no idea how monogamy made superorganisms evolve. So in the case of hymenopterans to create the superorganism (colony) the queen mates with a male and stores his sperm and in the case of the termites the queen and the male mate many times. In both cases the offspring will share genetics of the mating partners thus in either case the entire colony will share the genetics of the mating pairs, right? So this makes all individuals of a particular superorganism have the same genetic deficiencies which can be exploited by disease thus killing off that superorganism, right? I agree that all my cells share the genes of my parents and see the parallel between superorganisms but I can reproduce with other organisms of my species. Can superorganisms do this in some form? I saw a Cody'slab recently where he introduced a foreign queen into to a dying hive the queen was accepted and the hive began to recover. My question (if you have got this far) is, if the hive/nest/superorganism dies either due to disease or when the queen reaches the end of her life and there is no genetic altruism between foreign insects from other superorganisms/hives/nests such that they cannot share genetics with another healthy hive. Why then have they not all died out?
Hey there! You always have such great questions - please never stop asking them! :) I will try and watch Cody's video, but I'm guessing he was working with _Apis mellifera_ (honeybee), or was it a different species? In essence, much like ourselves, superorganisms do give rise to new ones - the colony does produce drones and queens, but these often engage in a nuptial or 'dispersal' flight after maturing, so they don't necessarily rejoin the hive, but rather found their own elsewhere. Much like ourselves - we can produce children, but the children don't fuse with ourselves and keep our bodies alive - but rather, carry on their own lives, and have more children that supercede them. So yes, in the case of monogamous hives, the superorganism will die, but they will have given rise to the founders of plenty of new ones - hence the genes don't die out and superorganisms is a viable way of spreading genetic material to the next generation. :) That said, after going through the 'monogamy window', or the period where individuals are so highly related that the workers lose the ability to reproduce, such that they help the queen, the superorganisms can undergo secondary developments. For some this means that the queen does mate with multiple males such as the honeybees, so genetic diversity is introduced into the hive ((but the workers are still irreversibly sterile)), or sometimes multiple queens (quite often sisters though) found a hive, so maybe in one of those instances it is easier to introduce a new queen to take over one who has died. Some species haven't necessarily undergone the transition though (only the corbiculate bees, within the Apidae family, have superorganisms), others live in dominance hierarchies which do generally consist of multiple 'queen' or dominant bees raising a hive, but the workers don't necessarily lose the ability to reproduce themselves, so they behave as facultative eusocial animals or cooperative breeders. The latter is what I believe to be the case with Cody's video (though I have to watch it still so I could be wrong!), as I know that multiple queens in a superorganism founding a nest is more of a thing in ants - which incidentally, there's a channel called AntsCanada who makes wonderful, longform content about raising his ants, and occasionally he has fused two nests together successfully. :)
Hi there :) And you always give such great answers :) I am still however not sure how genetic diversity occurs within monogamous insects as it would seem the species continues to exist via brother/sister mating, even if the queen mates with multiple males, those males presumably will be brothers/sons of that queen and share genetics with her. It seems the genetic diversity across such species reaches a point where it is highly limited, right? However I am also aware that insects can become quickly resistant to insecticides which I imagine is due to existing genetic diversity among insects of the same species, allowing the resistant insects from a particular genotype to survive and those from the vulnerable genotype are removed from the gene pool. Darwin 101 right? Have the surviving insects become so genetically secure due to selection over millions of years of breeding such that genetic variation within insects is less important for survival of the species, and as such are they more genetically advanced for survival than "higher spices" who rely on genetic variation for survival?
Multiply mated queens generally happen in the bees. The queens don't mate with the drones they produce from unfertilised eggs, but rather, before founding the colony they go on a nuptial flight and mate with many males. They store their sperm for the rest of their lives, so the sperm of different males fertilises different eggs basically. :) Depending on the colony, the workers may be unable to mate anyway. It is true that there are many insect societies that are highly inbred due to their lifetime (brother/sister mating is certainly not unheard of!), but generally, in the case of the superorganisms, new queens and drones all engage in flight at the same time thus increasing the likelihood of promoting genetic diversity when founding the following colony. *Have the surviving insects become so genetically secure due to selection over millions of years of breeding such that genetic variation within insects is less important for survival of the species, and as such are they more genetically advanced for survival than "higher spices" who rely on genetic variation for survival?* This is a super interesting question. To an extent - it's hard to say, in that, I don't know how much we know. It would be interesting to look at genetic studies from different species to assess how diverse they actually are. I imagine that species that are highly inbred (fig wasps) may also have a very constant and predictable environment for which protection from disease may not be so necessary as it may be less likely to occur, or they may have certain mutualisms with bacteria that protect them even when they don't have the genetic machinery themselves to protect themselves. That said, many factors contribute to genetic diversity - mating with genetic diverse insects is one, but the diversity is generated through mutation rates, recombination etc. And the degree to which that happens in different segments of the genome and across different insects is unknown to me, but I know that some organisms are able to control that to a degree (certain genomic areas are more variable than others, and bacteria under stress may up their mutation rate, making it more likely for a new trait to evolve that may equip them better to survive from the stressful situations). :)
So my question or point of view is kinda off topic!(and pseudoscience) About us humans first can we call our self a super organism?(well not in sense of pure biological point.) or would we go that way if we're not(we are not) Do we have or did we had monogamy window in some point during our evolution? Can we call our tendency toward monogamy a point in our biological evolution or cultural evolution? We have sense of relativeness but in choosing a mate we tend to find people with more different HLA than ours so in choosing a mate we forget the sense of relativeness. I think I'm totally wrong here can someone explain my dilemma thanks.
I think the statement is correct but the actual mechanism of why monogamy is vital in the formative stage to be poorly explained, or not explained at all. If i am not mistaken, it has to come about through extremely reliable KIN SELECTION, where "altruistic" genes can only be maintained and prevail where there are no unrelated non-altruistic individuals, such as in a purely monogamous family unit where the offspring all carry genes to altruism. Otherwise it opens the door to parasitism where there can exist non altruistic individuals in the colony that takes advantage of altruistic ones bringing the entire inclusive fitness of the colony down to a level where altruism cannot prevail.
In a vid from ants canada i heard that black crazy ant colonies can live forever because the queens can make alates that are perfect clones of themselves and the males they've mated with or something like that. Is this true?
I'm doing a PhD titled The Genomics of Social Organisation (working with Leptothorax acervorum) so any other random stuff you wanted to mention would be greatly appreciated ;)
+Max John Thanks! :) and yep! In all cases of polygyny/polyandry with obligately sterile workers, they have been proven to be secondary developments - lifetime monogamy has always been the ancestral condition to undergo the transition :)
Draw Curiosity Ah nice one! Thanks for the reply :) I don't suppose you happen to know if anyone has gone looking for an analogue of this transition in ... not sure what taxonomic rank to suggest here! In multicellular organsisms as a whole? I'm curious because I can't think of an analogue of this situation in animals or plants, is there one in fungi perhaps? If not, why not? It seems, on the one hand, an obvious way of increasing heterozygosity, but on the other hand it decreases average relatedness within the higher level of "individual" in question, which could lead to conflict. Sorry to plague you with uninformed questions like this but I'm striving about for some direction in which to take my PhD and my future work and I'm fascinated by the possibility of using eusocial hymenoptera as some sort of model for the evolution of multicellularity.
Admittedly, I've always read more papers than books on these topics. The papers may be a bit drier, but they are very informative if youd like me to recommend some. Book-wise, I have heard of a few on the topic but I admit I haven't read them so can't necessarily vouch for them. That said, one on the ecology and life of bees, and naked mole rats, would probably be very interesting and informative! :)
I get that having a relatedness to your siblings as high or higher than your offspring could prompt you to assist your siblings. But surely the relevant comparison is your relatedness to your siblings's offspring and your own children. otherwise the comparison is effectively between helping you (1) and your siblings (
In this case, it's more about helping the parents reproduce rather than their own siblings - but they do so primarily by taking care of the brood (which if relatedness is maximised, will be their full siblings) and maintaining the nest together. So their aim is to make their parents have more offspring rather than themselves in the case of obligate eusociality.
I think this has evolved five times, for this also occurs in the plant kingdom and is clearly evidenced in the underground (root) communication networks of forests!
Gamergates (workers who are able to mate and be fertilised sexually) occur in bee colonies *before* the major transition to superorganism has happened. Generally they are dominance hierarchies, where the queen lays most of the eggs but other individuals can do too. 1 - If the relatedness is high, such that workers are more related to other workers than the offspring of other workers (and occasionally, their own offspring too, depending on whether the queen has mated with very few males), they may engage in policing, where they kill the offspring from other workers 2 - If it's low, different individuals may contribute to the hive. However, when they go through the monogamy window (queen only mates with one drone, so all of the offspring are full siblings and invariably, highly related), the castes can eventually become permanent, so workers will be sterile. This transition has happened in Corbiculate bees (honeybees, bumblebees), but there are plenty of other species who haven't undergone it whilst still being eusocial. :)
Very interesting. Is it know how the reproductive function of one organism, when it absorbs another - like our cells and mitochondria, merge in such way that it can reproduce all the colony at the same time. It seems each colony organism is individually identifiable, but when it comes to reproduction, all the colony is put into a single "capsule" that encompasses all the information of each organism. I'm interested in details about this transition. For example, in the human case apparently the mother provides a copy of the mitochondria. So, that's not part of the eggs genetic material, as much as it's just coming along for the ride. As for the rest of the cells, even thought each seems considerably different from many others, e.g. brain cells from muscle cells, these seem to be encoded in the DNA. Would that mean that these cells are all came from the same initial cells by specialization, and only mitochondria came from the outside, and therefore didn't have its genetic material merged into the whole? Are there any other examples of this apart from mitochondria?
How do the queens store the sperm for so many years? How do they pick mates? It's the first time I heard about naked mole rats living as a superorganism!
Why did this evolve independently in 4 very similar types of animal? What is it about them that makes them primed for this to evolve, while so many other species haven't? Is it to do with burrowing/living in hives? Since naked mole rats are the only non-insects to evolve similar behavior, and burrowing seems like the only thing they have in common with ants. But if that's the case, what is it about burrowing, and why haven't any of the other burrowing or nest dwelling creatures evolved in this way?
+Alex Kennedy I'd say it's because they're more likely to develop high relatedness amongst different individuals. If you burrow and found a nest with a partner to spend the rest of your life with, it is unlikely that you'd necessarily easy find other mates or partners due to the isolation and the shortness of the period devoted to finding mates, meaning obligate monogamy is likely to occur followed by an obligate caste system. :)
+Mr. B for sure! I know termites have symbiotic gut bacteria who help them process the qood they chew. The channel Deep Look made a spectacular (amazing macro shots) video in the past couple of months on termites if you want to find out a bit more. I also have a video on microbial interactions coming out in the new year :)
Actually, let me phrase that as a question so you'll be more likely to address it: How does the evolution of haplodiploidy figure into the evolution of superorganisms?
Zeet Haplodiploidy isn't mentioned because it isn't necessary for superorganisms to evolve - bees, ants and wasps are, but termites are diploid. Haplodiploidy makes the relatedness between workers in a monogamous colony 0.75, but the relatedness between workers and drones is 0.25. If there is an even distribution of sexes, this averages to 0.5, but it may appear to be easier to hit relatedness of 0.5 more easily. The termites however are diploid, and by being 100% monogamous the relatedness between all colony members is 0.5 and the average is 0.5, which much like in the haplodiploid species, generates the opportunity for obligate sterility to evolve. :)
That was fascinating! Is there a chance humans going to end up with a similar caste system? Or are we too prone to cheat on our partners for that to happen? :o
>>> Is there a chance humans going to end up with a similar caste system? If life duration extends manyfold (i.e. the kids of today could be near immortal as the progress of medecines in 50 years could be so important as to warrant another 100 years etc...), then it is not impossible that the right to reproduce could be limited in order to control overpopulation (large scale space colonisation being still far off).
All i could think about during the video was the human race and when will we produce sterile "workers". I mean most societies promote and demand monogamy and most families had more than 2 childs (presumably from the same father) during the history... Or we already are supercolonized and we call those superorganisations "countries"? Can a worker ant or bee leave it's hive and "migrate" to another?
Curious that multi-level selection is not cited. It seems to me that this whole line of reasoning is glorified kin selection, which has been historically far over-reaching in its explanatory power. And this guy reaches even further. Meanwhile multi-level selection continues to be able to easily account for the evolution of complexity at various scales. Perhaps I'm missing something and this guy's theory fits into multi-level selection, but it doesn't sound like it. It doesn't sound like he is even aware that multi-level-selection is a phenomena that exists. It sounds like he is building off of Richard Dawkins immature understanding of "the selfish gene" and reaching for kin selection to explain cooperation and eusociality. Kin selection doesn't explain how the colony of cells that is our bodies consists of far more types of bacteria than what we call human cells... Of course they are all human cells. What we call "human" is the superorganism colony that we are- a rich, diverse ecosystem of many types of cells with rich, diverse evolutionary histories... For me, multi level selection far surpasses kin selection. Kin selection doesn't explain how super-colonies of hymenoptera form. That is, many different family lines cooperating as a single colossal colony.... 21st century biology has already surpassed this simple-minded thinking. Relatedness is simply NOT necessary for the evolution of the superorganism. His foundational assumption for his argument is false.... Or, am I missing something?!? Please teach me if I am!
The prefix eu- is derived from the Greek eu which means well, and eus which means good. However, as a prefix it takes on the meaning good, well, pleasant or true. In this instance it means 'true', because it distinguishes from other forms of social behaviour that may occur in other species.
AAH that moment where I understood the connection he was making to the zygote was a great moment.
I love what you're doing with this channel Inés. I've been saying for years that there needs to be a channel exploring the actual conceptual frameworks of biology, as opposed to the much more common "look at this crazy organism" approach. I think I found it!
You've no idea how happy this comment makes me - because to an extent, my favourite videos to make on this channels are those on topics which also gave me my own small eureka moments as I understood a new concept, and it is exactly what I'm hoping to transmit to those who watch - so I'm very happy to read this feeling has reached one other person! :)
And as someone who couldn't decide whether to study maths or biology, to be a conceptual & theoretical biology channel makes me very happy. :) You may also enjoy a channel called This Place (and Stated Clearly) - as they cover some more biology theory too!
I came from Stated Clearly, I come here in peace.
Welcome to Draw Curiosity! :)
Hahahha! Me too. ^^
Hi
And me 😀
Me too..this is too fun
Can super organisms get the equivalent of cancer, where say some worker starts reproducing and disrupting the colony as a whole?
What an interesting question!
As far as I'm aware - I don't think so, in that the caste differentiation is irreversible (I'm unaware of any cases where the Major Evolutionary Transition has happened and there has been a way to override it - but doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist, simply we haven't observed it yet).
However, your question makes me think of a situation involving kin recognition and genetic conflict: Worker policing - in colonies that haven't undergone the Major Evolutionary Transition, in which worker fertility could be suppressed but is reversible, some workers do lay eggs, and other workers kill them to favour raising more eggs by the queen - so there is a conflict of interest in this respect.
@@DrawCuriosity well, individuals within a superorg would not intentionally become "cancerous"; but parasites certainly could introduce a sort of cancerous effect, i.e. those zombie algae that infest ants. there are lots of parasites that infect these superorg insects in a way analogous to cancer.
This is rare, but within bee hives sometimes female worker bees will try and have children in an attempt to create a new queen. Usually these "false queens" are killed by other members of the hive to prevent the destruction of the hive.
You go girl! Thank you for your efforts and spreading knowledge. Future generations will benefit from your work.
Well worth the wait. Terrific production!
I have a few questions, if you have the time to answer.
Firstly, how does facultative eusociality arise in the first place? You've explained how facultative eusocial animals can evolve into obligately eusocial superorganisms, but not where the facultative eusociality comes from in the first place. That in itself seems like a pretty big step.
Second, I'm wondering if anything akin to eusociality exists or would even make sense in plants or higher fungi, or if it's unique to animals?
Finally, I want to pick up a little on the analogy between the evolution of superorganisms and the evolution of multicelularity. Professor Boosma notes that obligate eusocial animals necessarily go through a monogamous stage, but they can later re-evolve polyandry since that could provide greater genetic diversity, disease resistance, etc. By the same logic wouldn't we also have expected for chimerism to become more widespread among multicellular organisms? Possibly even chimerism involving more than two parents? Do you suppose there's any specific evolutionary reason why that sort of thing doesn't happen? Autoimmune issues, maybe?
This one is quite a fascinating example as well (quoted from a discussion with GPT4 that I did not crosschecked,s so reader discretion is advised). I like particularly this one as the colony is a "structural" organism, it assembles in a very distinctive and functional shape.
Pyrosomes are marine creatures that live in the open ocean. They are colonial animals, meaning they're made up of many individual organisms known as zooids.
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The open end of a pyrosome colony is essentially a shared exhalant siphon, and each zooid pumps water out of this common opening to achieve locomotion for the entire colony.
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the zooids in pyrosomes are indeed multicellular eukaryotes. Each zooid is a fully formed organism complete with organs, including a heart and a digestive system.
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A pyrosome colony begins from a single, sexually produced larva. This larva, called an oozooid, is the first unit of the colony. It then reproduces asexually, producing identical zooids that remain attached to it and to each other, forming the colony. In terms of genetics, because the zooids in a colony are produced asexually, they are clones of the original oozooid and hence are genetically identical to each other.
Came here from Stated Clearly, and was not disappointed. Thank you for the informative videos!
Stated Clearly hasn't led me a scintilla astray -- This was terrifically engaging.
Super interesting! Great story, amazing animations. Well done again!
+Robin Mills Thank you so much - glad you enjoyed! :)
Aah! I was already thinking how remarkable it was that Stated Clearly also talked about major evolutionary transitions at the same time! :-)
Heehee! We had been planning this synchronised release for quite a few months :)
Thank you for a truly fascinating video! As someone with more of a mathematics and computer programming background, this video covered a lot of material I'm not familiar with but it's definitely piqued my interest to read more!
You're very welcome, and thanks for a lovely comment! :)
I'll admit as someone who loves maths and coding, this topic in theoretical biology tickles my love of both, as it combines a good explanation for biological observations and in my opinion, some very elegant mathematical modelling - so I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Thank you! Stated Clearly is so cool too!
Wow, that was really interesting. Thanks for the great work!
Fascinating. Have marine superorganisms (or similar) ever been observed/theorised? Look forward to more content on this topic, THANKS!
Clem "The Stamina" Carter Marine animals have such fascinating and unknown biologies I wouldn't be surprised if they discovered something like that.
You do observe colonies of unicellular algae in which each cell specialises in a role, thus looking a lot like the transition from uni- to multicellularity, which in itself shares parallelisms with superorganisms :)
Might siphonophores be considered being in beetween multicellularity and superorganism? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophorae
Siphonophorae are multiple conjoined species performing organ duties, like an inside-out creature. A super organism is one species. So a Siphonophorae would logically be close to the exact opposite of a super organism. Good try though, keep reaching!
How do the ideas of kin selection and monogamy relate to the ability for some eusocial species (such as Argentine ants) to combine and form supercolonies rather than competing with each other?
The theory does extend to supercolonies! :)
Interestingly, nearly all invasive ant species are some form of supercolony and they are known to fare better over all.
I think there are hypotheses which suggest that supercolonies could indicate either a lower genetic diversity within an ant population, such that fused colonies don't behave aggressively towards each other in spite of deriving from a different colony, or that in some manner, their ability for kin recognition is decreased or altered in some manner. However, in both cases it looks like relatedness or perception of relatedness is involved, and therefore the driver of that cooperation.
Just stumbled upon your channel!!! Awesome choice of videos and great explanations! Subbed! CHEERS! Keep up the great work!!
I read the thumbnail as "Superorgasmic Evolution"
I'm ashamed to admit I first read it as "Superorgasms" as well.
But as always a very interesting, well-presented and informative video :) .
Same here.
Was like: "How monogamy made Superorgasms... Wait, what?! Oh, Superorga_ni_sms. Silly me."
But nonetheless, I still like the video because it's as good and informative as I expected. :-)
Congratulations and thanks ! This a so good place to be, and quietly learn with you.
Wow! Consistently amazing videos from this channel. Would love to see more of this interview.
Question:
The connection he made to human development is interesting! Especially thinking as our differentiated cell types (skin, brain, stomach cells) all as having a role in the organism. In cancer, however, some of our cells loose "loyalty" to the whole and instead de-differentiate, multiply, grow and invade cooperating tissues (analogous to maximizing its own fitness at the expense of the organism)
1. Is there anything like "cancer" for bees? As in a single bee in a differentiated caste "de-differentiates" and attempts a more selfish approach at the expense of the hive? (also curious if you know, do bees get cancer?)
Thanks!
Thank you so much - what a lovely comment!
I will probably post the part of the interview where he answered user-submitted questions, and I'm tempted to make a follow-up on the video on more aspects of eusociality.
In response to the question - as far as I'm aware, I don't think so. Technically, the major evolutionary transition is by definition irreversible, so they can't de-differentiate, but that doesn't mean it isn't something that could happen. If it has, we haven't observed it yet, but a lot about how these insects live is still unknown (Koos came up with this theory before it was proven so it's still an emerging field!).
However, there is what is known as worker policing which occurs in colonies where workers still have the ability to reproduce, and their suppression may be reversible or not occur at all (but they lay fewer eggs). These colonies haven't undergone the transition, but depending on the relatedness within the colony, if it is high (queen mates once or with very few drones, so siblings are generally full siblings), workers will generally murder the eggs laid by other workers, as their relatedness to them is lower than to eggs laid by the queen and therefore they would rather raise those eggs. However, this would be an example of some level of disruption and genetic conflict, but is also swiftly dealt with (if, in a slightly cold-blooded manner).
Have you ever looked into genetic algorithms/programming? Coming from a CS/software engineering background, I find GAs and GP very interesting. I think it would be super neat to hear the thoughts of somebody with expertise in bio and evolutionary science on evolutionary algorithms.
I haven't used any myself - but what I've heard about them I really love. I personally enjoy coding, machine learning and algorithms, so it is something I'd love to learn a bit more about.
I am currently in contact with someone with more expertise in that area, so I'm hoping a video on the topic will materialise on the channel in 2017! :)
I have some experience with them. They are drastically different. Computational GAs are all about finding a solution to a specific problem, while natural systems are all about system stability. Nature doesn't "progress" in fitness. There are plenty of cases found of species reverting to former structures because they were simply more stable that the "superior" ones. There is no such thing as a superior creature in nature too, because all biospheres have borders and creatures form themselves for stability in that specific biosphere. That's how you end up with super predators like the Burmese Python infestation from pets in Florida. Two different biospheres. Two different regulation predators. Now the Python are destroying the biosphere that they thrive upon, and eventually if they are not hunted out of the area, biosphere collapse will occur and the system is thrown into chaos. This is why there is no such thing as a superior creature. In contrast with computation, you WANT as many as possible of those 'super predators' to wipe out the 'inferior' slow-computing programs. Fundamentally they use nearly identical mechanics but the end game couldn't be any different.
30? The queen can live to be 30? I always thought it was like 3, that's impressive.
Honeybees do live around 3-5 years, but ants can live for decades!
I was accidentally misleading in my animations, because I drew a drone bee, but not a drone ant, so I used the honeybee castes I already had to illustrate how monogamy was maintained in Hymenoptera, but gave the impression that they were all extremely long-lived.
It just kinda blows my mind that there are insects out there older than me. I didn't think their little bodies could last that long, unless they are only active every 17 years.
I asked Koos about that as it blows my mind too. :) They have excellent tissue repair and regeneration which lets them keep going, and they're also kept in an incredibly protected location in the royal cell or the depths of the colony, so unlike workers they're not exposed to outdoor dangers. Both of these means their lifespan is greatly increased.
@@DrawCuriosity- Absolutely fascinating! Thank you for this wonderful channel.
Some species of termites queens can live to 20-100 years old
Boomsma's theory is all well in good RE: keeping up with the old school behaviorist interpretation of eusocial evolution, but it takes for granted that kin selection is always a strong enough factor. I strongly recommend checking out more naturalistic approaches to the question (Toth, Kocher, Rehan, Gadagkar, and many others), which have more and more shown that if anything, kin selection is more likely a consequence of eusociality than a cause.
One particularly cool example is the Australian small carpenter bee, Ceratina australensis. The species is facultatively social, but relatedness does not outweigh the direct fitness lost from cooperation, and there is no apparent impetus for them to ever be social in the first place - but they do anyway. Madness!
Thank you for your comment! I will look into these researchers, and ask around too.
I know I'm very much a subscriber to inclusive fitness theory (and to me, it makes perfect sense as a model like that is what would favour the spread of a gene/whatever is considered to be the lowest level of transmissible genetic information).
That being said - the transition is referring moreso to the evolution of obligate castes, and not necessarily to the occurrence of sociality per se (there are plenty of examples of social animals whose relatedness is
There is some very cool behavioral genetic work addressing the idea of transmissible information responsible for caste differentiation (goo.gl/4mZvsw), and I completely agree with the baseline logic of inclusive fitness. It's when testing the idea in the field that folks have begun scratching their heads. It SHOULD work, but it often doesn't! Also, here's that C. australensis paper (goo.gl/FDauzf). I have no idea how CZcams handles links to PDFs, so hopefully those work.
Wow Withee Labs, that's some important observing. Nature is so dirty and brutal. Seems like if everything was logically clean then it would just get hacked like a computer and it's back to dirty and brutal again.
Woah super long video, very interesting as well. Would definitely enjoy a follow up if you decide to do it :D! One question tho! In the case of Facultative Eusociality does one of the bees ever try to mate with the queen even after the drone has already done so and died? While watching this video i couldnt help but think "What if one of these bees that can reproduce try and give it a shot" lol
Thank you so much - and what a fab question!! :)
The colony is generally all made up of females, so none of them will attempt to mate with the queen, and I imagine reared drones would be get separate.
Not sure what happens on their nuptial flight - many may actually mate on multiple occasions, but it varies a lot from species to species.
There's actually a lot to be said about sexual selection, and particularly, post-mating competition, in which even when a female has mated multiply, the male's sperm can battle with each other and even block other sperm from being used. I'm not sure to what extent this operates in bees - but it would be a fascinating area to look at given its implications - the sperm lasts for an incredibly long time and also determines ultimately, the relatedness within the colony. :)
Hey everyone!
Sorry for being gone for so long - hopefully an extra long one makes up for time disappeared. :) A few quick things:
1 - This is a collaboration with Stated Clearly - check out his video over here! Go say hi to him from me czcams.com/video/VUfNEHl44hc/video.html&ab_channel=StatedClearly
2 - This is one of my favourite topics - feel free to ask all and any questions about this video if there was something that didn't get covered
3 - This is a super short survey for a video on New Year Resolutions - whether you partake in them or not, feel free to fill in this anonymous survey so I can tailor the video to my viewers a little bit better. goo.gl/forms/ObZOFxmvDe4JL7rW2
4 - Merry Christmas if you celebrate it. :) I will be seeing you before the New Year though
UMMM...... Queen bees mate with multiple males do they not.. I can see how if you were predisposed to believe that monogamy was a morally superior mode of animal behaviour you could convince yourself of this but the argument is not coherent. The argument goes: polyamory makes it more difficult for social harmony to develop therefore we should all be good christians and do what the Bible says. All of this completely ignores the fact humans are demonstrably capable of empathising (and thus cooperating) with individuals who are not particularly related with them. Why are we assuming bees would be different (especially given that they aren't monogamous).. Like seriously how is this video anything besides conservative propaganda????? All you have shown is that monogamy can result in a harmonious society not that it did or should.
+Sam Auciello Please actually watch the full video, as multiple mating and polygyny is covered and discussed, and this video has nothing to do with morality nor religious propaganda.
This video is about how a particular major evolutionary transition happened to lead to a jump in biological complexity, and the conditions required for that to happen. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I am honestly, quite surprised as to how you have jumped to such a conclusion as that could not be further from the content presented. Monogamy in this instance is a technical term in biology referring to the fact that an individual has one sexual partner. There are no connotations as to whether that is 'good' or 'bad', whether humans should do that or not, and whether being a superorganism is superior or not.
I did watch the entire video. What evidence is there that the ancestors of the non-monogamous species mentioned were monogamous? Like all you did was present a mathematical model of one way it could have happened. It was sort of implied from the tone of the video that any other way wouldn't have worked mathematically. Thus the implication that if a species would like to work together towards a singular unified purpose (as these insects do) then it must start with monogamy. Sometimes science is just science. For example, geologists believe that the world's continents used to be stuck together in the supercontinent of Pangia. This is interesting but doesn't have any direct applications. The idea that monogamy can produce stable super-organisms like this is interesting but I find the claim that it is the only way unsubstantiated and highly suspect. There is always a temptation when studying a specific thing (like insects) to assume that your theories and ideas exist in a vacuum and never effect or relate to other fields. I think if you resist that temptation your videos will be better and your science will be better too.
In that case I am even more baffled by your judgement and tone.
The monogamy hypothesis originated as a theory, and indeed, there are other hypotheses that aim to explain this major evolutionary transition. However, unlike the alternative explanations for this major evolutionary transition, the monogamy hypothesis is both elegant from a mathematical standpoint and is the only one which has been fully supported with empirical evidence.
In both Hymenopterans and the termites, where the four instances of this transition occurring have been recorded, all have ancestral conditions which were monogamous.
This paper provides evidence that all currently non-monogamous and obligately eusocial Hymenopteran lineages had a monogamous ancestral condition:
science.sciencemag.org/content/320/5880/1213
This paper by Boomsma also shows that monogamy was the ancestral condition for termites.
www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(07)01570-9.pdf
+ this one
Nalepa, C.A., and Jones, S.C. (1991). Evolution of monogamy in termites.
Biol. Rev. 66, 83-97.
These papers reference further papers also supporting evidence for these statements (there are additional papers looking at this in other facultatively eusocial animals too).
So whilst I don't think there's any problem with presenting a model anyway, as this is a field in theoretical biology, what makes it special is that it has withstood the test of empirical data suggesting that this is *very* likely to be the mechanism at hand.
Mathematically, what's at the core is that for the individuals to group together they need to have maximal relatedness so that they maximise their inclusive fitness, and in doing so, they can help other individuals to spread their own genes. In the colony structures that exist, that would be achieved precisely through monogamy as it would mean that all siblings are full siblings. It is also what is observed in nature, obligately eusocial animals all have an ancestral monogamous period, regardless of whether later they have evolved secondary developments or not.
Ok. I don't study insects so I can't really comment on the validity of any of that. It wouldn't have hurt though (especially given some of the things Boomsma said at the end) to clarify that this is not intended to say anything about vertebrate behaviour. Given the socio-political implications I think a disclaimer would be helpful there.
How do these Superorganisms survive, if the whole colonie has to die, when the queen dies (which she will do eventually)?
Yan FE The colony does produce queens and drones (for instance, in bees, there will be royal cells where the larvae are fed royal jelly, making them develop into reproductive queens), but they enter a dispersal/nuptial flight and found a new colony elsewhere.
So yes, the current superorganism does die off after the queen perishes and workers die off such that there are insufficient workers to maintain a nest. And in that respect they're just like an organism, in that they live and die together, but they do spread their genes onto future generations of superorganisms :)
Draw Curiosity ah, I was also pondering the same question. That seemed to be the most likely explanation. How many of those queen bees are produced during her 30 year life? Too many would probably cause problems with competition for food, right?
Really great video! I learned a lot and I really appreciate you attention to detail, especially in your animations. I can really appreciate the amount of time that goes into these videos! Also what is the program that you use for your animations?
Thank you very much Chase, what a lovely comment! :D
And congrats on hitting 10K ;)
I use free software called Blackmagic Design Da Vinci Fusion for my animations (and I edit in Resolve, by the same company, also free). I had to spend a couple of days watching tutorials to get started, but once you get the hang of it (it is a node-based programme, but also has the option to look like After Effects), it is a very satisfying programme to use. :)
Draw Curiosity Thanks!
But, for real, this is reminding me of a whole field of sciences and topics that I would love to learn more about, and I was just looking for a nice topic to spend a year on. Evolution just has this sort of strange forward-backwards logic, in that each individual driving evolution has a purpose going forwards, but the evolution that propagated their genes and drive does not. It binds maths and biology together so closely that I'd be tempted to write a biotech-math major assignment on this
I wonder if homosexuality in humans falls somewhere in the relatability and look after family members.
I think that is one of the hypotheses - so it could be, I wish there was more research into this topic! :)
On a level, this reminds me to the existence of menopause - females have eggs which could last far beyond when menopause hits and it is believed to be for caring for potentially caring for newer generations as the generations overlap.
I think menopause also reduces the duration that older genes get introduced in the pool, which might be advantageous when resources are limited. In the sense that these genes have had their chance for 2-3 decades and after that they're leaving the pool to the newer generations.
Econael I hadn't heard that theory before but it makes perfect sense and I love it! :)
I think that we'd have to look at pre-modern civilization to see what the natural purpose of menopause contributes, but it is likely that the lifespan is the limiting factor and was too short to make any difference. Medicine artificially alters the natural lifespan to a degree so it would be challenging to draw conclusions. Another complication to this theory is that males can still introduce the older genes into the population even though it would be at a reduced %. Perhaps menopause is only to give women a break from having children and possibility allow her to enjoy retirement since they usually carry most of the burden of child rearing. But I 'm no anthropologist, just a woodworker.
Evolution does not care whether individuals enjoy their life.
Nice Levon Biss photos in the background.
+Beach&BoardFan Thanks, very happy someone's recognised them! :)
Draw Curiosity
I think he still works with the museum of natural history, if you still live in England, would be cool to get his autograph on one.
Loved it!!! Thank you : )
Excellent presentation! Mahalo!
Ines, this video is amazing! I have a quick question, why does this transition to obligate eusociality happen more frequently in Hymenoptera? I know it's not haplodiploidy but wasn't sure if anyone had any other hypotheses?
+Dani Ellenby Hey, off the top of my head I don't know but I remember asking Boomsma about this so I'll check the interview. :)
Thanks, that would be awesome! :) hope everything else is going well for you and #tinbergone hasn't been too much of a problem...
How do 'jumps' in evolution happen? By these I mean things that don't seem like they'd work unless they had fully evolved. For example caterpillars - > cocoon - > butterfly.
What a great question :)
This video was in collaboration with Stated Clearly, who just released a video on how major evolutionary transitions evolve (although metamorphosis isn't considered to be one of those transitions).
Generally, as long as it confers more benefit to the individual/spread of genes than without that character, it can be selected for. So for instance, metamorphosis in insects enables the separation of the niches exploited by larvae and adults, which reduces competition between them and thus more of them could be born and exploit one habitat, and then the next one.
As for how it evolves - I admit I don't know much about the evolution of metamorphosis (though that's one fascinating topic I'll be looking into), so this is pure speculation, but I imagine the ancestral condition could be for a nymph (insect that does not undergo metamorphosis, but simply molts every instar until in the last one, the wings appear) to pupate to overcome a difficult period (such as the winter, or a time with less favourable climate). Over time this could select for the nymph to have fewer adult-like characteristics (squishier bodies, shorter legs etc.) as they could require less energy and may only be necessary in the adult/dispersal stage. I don't know if that is how it happened, or if it is known how metamorphosis originated, but that is my speculation. :)
Draw Curiosity incredibly interesting, thanks for the reply!
"How do 'jumps' in evolution happen? By these I mean things that don't seem like they'd work unless they had fully evolved. For example caterpillars - > cocoon - > butterfly."
Absolutely absurd question.
"[How do juveniles turn into adults? ...Checkmate Darwin!]"
..........
Bullets are cheaper than ballots....
Tedted141 You're question contains an incorrect assumption, upon which the disproven Irreducible Complexity argument is built. In short, the answer is that evolutionary jumps don't happen at all.
It might seem intuitive that unless a caterpillar suddenly evolved all the genes needed to form a cocoon simultaneously, no part of that cocoon would be useful. But in reality, it has been shown time and time again that seemingly codependent components of complex structures (e.g. genes for a cocoon) actually provided minor benefits to an organism's ancestors before the whole structure evolved. For a better explanation and talked-through examples, look up 'irreducible complexity' with key phrases like 'eye' or 'flagellum' or 'feather/wing.' :)
this is soo good I almost regret not completely going into insects
Do we have any idea when these evolutionary trends first occured I wonder?
That's interesting how our cells parallel with a superorganism.
Shampoo Is a neoliberal conspiracy I still use shampoo because I don't know how to get rid of dandruff otherwise.
search for major evolutionary steps. i came from such a video here.
How do these colonies reproduce and what is the relationship between the new colony and the old one. Does the male come from a different colony?
he is right, your voice is lovely
Great video!
is this form of monogomy also translatable to the begining of multicellular organisms and how would it work? I like your clips they are very specific. Its good to get to know the details of the subject. I was used to propaganda wich basicly wanted you to give up searching for the details and explanations and accept the simplest answer.
It is so fun to know the nuanced and in depth way live came about. :) Its sometimes frustrating though to understand it because its such a broad topic without easy answers for everything ;)
Re: Loyalty... it's not just devotion.. your cells are dependent on "you". They don't have other options.
Excellent video! Keep up!
An interesting question: why do superorganisms all have queens, but regular cellular organisms don't have "queen cells"? Could you have a multi-cellular organism with a "queen cell"? A true eusocial superorganism *without* a queen?
My intuition tells me that it's an issue of scale; a "queen cell" could not possibly reproduce fast enough to sustain the *trillions* of cells in an organism; a superorganism has far fewer members to create, and dividing the labor so that the workers don't waste energy reproducing when the queen is "good enough" is advantageous compared to having every member capable of "intra-colony" reproduction.
If my intuition is correct, I make these predictions:
1. Smaller (in terms of number of members) multi-cellular organisms should specialize and trend towards fewer number of members capable of "intra-colony" reproduction.
2. Larger (in terms of number of members) eusocial superorganisms should specialize *less* and trend towards a greater number of members capable of "intra-colony" reproduction.
I think superorganisms could probably never grow large enough to warrant/require a "queen-free" strategy, but there may be very small cellular organisms that have one or a small number of cells resembling a "queen".
Very interesting stuff!
Thanks! :D
Such high quality video, do you do all the camera work yourself?
+Firstname Lastname Thanks! And yes, I did :) the gear I used should be listed in the description
Ooh, thanks. Also your lipstick matches your hair, which looks great. Oh, and the content is awesome as always!
Aw, thank you so much!! :D
Absolutely interesting and spellbindingly captivating presentation, Thank you very much.
Please do make a video about self-organizing systems
+Naimul Haq Thank you! :) Ill add it to the topic list (I know stated clearly made one on the RNA world hypothesis which follows a similar theme)
Draw Curiosity Thank you.
One important aspect is that strong relatedness is usually an evolutionary disadvantage (consanguinity, population abilities to resist infection, variability as a factor of adaptability).
Spotted Hyenas are in this respect an interesting case. Matriarchal society, strong importance of lineage in the selection of alpha
individuals, noteworthy endocrinal peculiarities. Strong relatedness between individuals of a given pack. However, the strong relatedness is compounded by loose pack boundaries and the contribution of alien genetic material from males coming from other packs. Would the spotted hyena societies be an early stage of evolution towards more altruistic societies? And would this evolution be opposed by the need to avoid the dangers of consanguinity (no lifetime monogamy)?
+Alain PANNETIER that's part of the reason many secondary developments post transition involve polygyny or polyandry which essentially introduce more genetic diversity :)
However, it's convenient to remember that the selfish gene eventually determines what genes are passed along and which aren't, so provided highly related and inbred individuals can have viable offspring, those genes that favour a higher degree of relatedness are more likely to be passed along :)
Draw Curiosity
The post transition trends toward polyandry and polygyny are well addressed in the video indeed. My point was that if it kicks in pre-transition it would slow down the process towards relatedness and altruism.
Regarding the selfish gene it's a race between environment change and genotype adaptability. If the rate is too high compared to individual's lifespan, then high relatedness could prevent species from retaining/expanding their niches. Polyandry/polygyny will kick in earlier. Contra this is the fact that insect colonies (queens) lifespan and hyena lifespans are comparable. But I guess what really matters would be sexual maturity ages comparison. You can't ignore that first instances of eusociality seem to have appeared during the Jurassic; yet the ones dominating the planet, watching youtube videos and treading the moon are the new kids on the block. More flexible specialisation Adam Smith way prevailed over more rigid specialisation Richard Dawkins way (for good or worse - future will tell :-). I guess sapiens _inclusive fitness_ is the highest of all (relatedness is _way below_ 0.5 but altruism is also very high). Empathy as a socially geared feeling allows to break Boomsma's law. This allows considerable (the highest) maturation duration, which sapiens individuals need to adapt to their own superorganism, to still warrant unprecedented biotope domination success.
What kind of environmental conditions would hold relatedness at 0.5 for long enough that eusociality evolves?
+Dustin King conditions where lifetime monogamy is enforced.
In termites, the male and female found a nest together and dig deep, making it impossible for the queen to encounter another mate.
Same with the hymenopterans, particularly if they are claustrals, which means that after the nuptial flight the queen cannot mate anymore. So long as their ecology is maintained, relatedness will stay invariable in the colony
Are there any ideas floating around about the effect technology will have on the evolution of humans, in particular instant access to each othe, to news and opinions, or mind-to-mind interfaces? This makes me wonder what kind of superorganism humanity could become over thousands of years or longer. We could become alien to ourselves, at least across time.
...add CrispR Cas9, and you ain't kiddin'. I think sooner rather than later. As soon as you have mind to mind signal, you are on your way. I posit that superorganisms don't requisite mutual codependence so much as reciprocal sensory feed back loops that generate a shared sense of "self"... in other words, if I feel what you feel, there is the possibility of a sense of "self-ness" which is neither you, nor me, but youme. Such a holistic experience would probably be several steps down the road, but may have more to do with the advancements of technology than the birth of newly adapted generations. "Fidelity" of shared experience, and the number of cohered minds could increase exponentially within one lifetime. I know this will immediately bring up privacy concerns for many, but I think that information can be "gated" at the individual level leaving basically an "input/output" under individual control. I also hasten to point out that a super organism in no way has to be homogenous in nature. Examine the great diversity in the tissue and structures within the colony that comprises your own body. Is not the genetic expression diverse? We are not merely piles of undifferentiated cells! I suggest that the less differentiation one sees within a superoganism (at whatever scale), the less "evolved" it is on that scale. The path always leads to diverse expression, complexity and sophistication before graduating to the next "plateau". I think "superorganisms" are pretty fresh on the scene, and there are probably formations and solutions we haven't seen yet. Check out "siphonophores" for a completely different "superorganism" modality. Look at slime molds... how they spend their lives as free roaming amoeba, and then form superorganisms when conditions dictate. I think the "codependence" aspect arises only as the "free-roaming" modality loses benefit and relevance as a survival mechanism... it's a *result* of superorganismal transition, rather than a requisite... in my opinion.
great video ! u literally drew a layman's curiosity n made it simple for him to understand this seemingly complex theory ...earned my subscription for sure ! 👍
btw could u figure out the origin/evolution of homosexuality n make a video on it... would like to know how n why that is caused
I had no idea that some insects could live for so long, surly material for another video :)
It is fascinating! A lot is not known about how they live so long, but Boomsma said they appear to have a higher rate of tissue regeneration and repair.
Interestingly, other eusocial animals have also been show to age very slowly, and naked mole rats don't develop cancer.
It won't be coming out in the short term because I've got a few other vids lined up first, but I've got plans for some videos on aging, development, cancer and tissue regenerattion, so hopefully they will be of interest! :)
Most certainly! Your insect videos are so interesting my daughter now wants to setup a solitary bee hotel. Thank you for your inspiration. :)
humankind will be the first to become a memetic super organism
Well technically we already are, we are bound into nations through culture (memes).
Now we only need sterile workers and we're ready!
Some folks suggest that religious belief systems facilitate the development of non-reproductive castes in human communities (e.g. clerical celibacy):
www.degruyter.com/dg/viewarticle/j$002fsh.2016.5.issue-4$002fsh-2016-0021$002fsh-2016-0021.xml
1503nemanja trying to use the word meme in an intellectual way is...comical. Dawkins might as well coin another term
Drinking game: drink a sip every time she blinks
TheVelvetTV I'd advise against that, you may end up in an ethylic coma.
yea I drank Coke and I'm already at the hospital
What about xiphonophores? Are they superorganisms too?
Perhaps some of the monogamous mammals and birds of this eon will evolve into eusocial mammals and birds by the next eon.
If arthropods can do it, I don't see why vertebrates can't, but I'm not so sure about mollusks.
Hmm. I'm quite interested in learning more. Is the best paper for this the one in the video ("Lifetime monogamy and the evolution of eusociality")?
LeiosOS there's a couple of others by Stu West on this topic (2014 and a more recent one I believe), and a lot of Boomsma's research builds up to and extends this theory. I'll go find these papers and link them to you + description :)
the paper linked in the description though is what I based my interview and the video script off :)
Oh, good! I'll have a look. Great work with the animations and everything, by the way! =)
Yewwww, hustling! Good job!
Wow quality video and channel very informative +1 sub
Mark Mureithi Thank you very much and welcome to Draw Curiosity! :)
I was high yesterday and I understood everything. Now i see it again and I understand only maybe 70% of it. Why?
Could it be that the colony dies out as a method to prevent the problems of interbreeding?
Do you ever think more variation(In terms of DNA) can be better for a organism for instance do you think that sperm cells are developed so they have more variation in order to produce a offspring that may contain new unique traits?
Please bare with this question if you can it has a point. Really interesting, I had no idea how monogamy made superorganisms evolve. So in the case of hymenopterans to create the superorganism (colony) the queen mates with a male and stores his sperm and in the case of the termites the queen and the male mate many times. In both cases the offspring will share genetics of the mating partners thus in either case the entire colony will share the genetics of the mating pairs, right? So this makes all individuals of a particular superorganism have the same genetic deficiencies which can be exploited by disease thus killing off that superorganism, right? I agree that all my cells share the genes of my parents and see the parallel between superorganisms but I can reproduce with other organisms of my species. Can superorganisms do this in some form? I saw a Cody'slab recently where he introduced a foreign queen into to a dying hive the queen was accepted and the hive began to recover. My question (if you have got this far) is, if the hive/nest/superorganism dies either due to disease or when the queen reaches the end of her life and there is no genetic altruism between foreign insects from other superorganisms/hives/nests such that they cannot share genetics with another healthy hive. Why then have they not all died out?
Hey there!
You always have such great questions - please never stop asking them! :)
I will try and watch Cody's video, but I'm guessing he was working with _Apis mellifera_ (honeybee), or was it a different species?
In essence, much like ourselves, superorganisms do give rise to new ones - the colony does produce drones and queens, but these often engage in a nuptial or 'dispersal' flight after maturing, so they don't necessarily rejoin the hive, but rather found their own elsewhere. Much like ourselves - we can produce children, but the children don't fuse with ourselves and keep our bodies alive - but rather, carry on their own lives, and have more children that supercede them. So yes, in the case of monogamous hives, the superorganism will die, but they will have given rise to the founders of plenty of new ones - hence the genes don't die out and superorganisms is a viable way of spreading genetic material to the next generation. :)
That said, after going through the 'monogamy window', or the period where individuals are so highly related that the workers lose the ability to reproduce, such that they help the queen, the superorganisms can undergo secondary developments. For some this means that the queen does mate with multiple males such as the honeybees, so genetic diversity is introduced into the hive ((but the workers are still irreversibly sterile)), or sometimes multiple queens (quite often sisters though) found a hive, so maybe in one of those instances it is easier to introduce a new queen to take over one who has died. Some species haven't necessarily undergone the transition though (only the corbiculate bees, within the Apidae family, have superorganisms), others live in dominance hierarchies which do generally consist of multiple 'queen' or dominant bees raising a hive, but the workers don't necessarily lose the ability to reproduce themselves, so they behave as facultative eusocial animals or cooperative breeders.
The latter is what I believe to be the case with Cody's video (though I have to watch it still so I could be wrong!), as I know that multiple queens in a superorganism founding a nest is more of a thing in ants - which incidentally, there's a channel called AntsCanada who makes wonderful, longform content about raising his ants, and occasionally he has fused two nests together successfully. :)
Hi there :)
And you always give such great answers :)
I am still however not sure how genetic diversity occurs within monogamous insects as it would seem the species continues to exist via brother/sister mating, even if the queen mates with multiple males, those males presumably will be brothers/sons of that queen and share genetics with her. It seems the genetic diversity across such species reaches a point where it is highly limited, right? However I am also aware that insects can become quickly resistant to insecticides which I imagine is due to existing genetic diversity among insects of the same species, allowing the resistant insects from a particular genotype to survive and those from the vulnerable genotype are removed from the gene pool. Darwin 101 right? Have the surviving insects become so genetically secure due to selection over millions of years of breeding such that genetic variation within insects is less important for survival of the species, and as such are they more genetically advanced for survival than "higher spices" who rely on genetic variation for survival?
Multiply mated queens generally happen in the bees. The queens don't mate with the drones they produce from unfertilised eggs, but rather, before founding the colony they go on a nuptial flight and mate with many males. They store their sperm for the rest of their lives, so the sperm of different males fertilises different eggs basically. :)
Depending on the colony, the workers may be unable to mate anyway.
It is true that there are many insect societies that are highly inbred due to their lifetime (brother/sister mating is certainly not unheard of!), but generally, in the case of the superorganisms, new queens and drones all engage in flight at the same time thus increasing the likelihood of promoting genetic diversity when founding the following colony.
*Have the surviving insects become so genetically secure due to selection over millions of years of breeding such that genetic variation within insects is less important for survival of the species, and as such are they more genetically advanced for survival than "higher spices" who rely on genetic variation for survival?*
This is a super interesting question.
To an extent - it's hard to say, in that, I don't know how much we know. It would be interesting to look at genetic studies from different species to assess how diverse they actually are.
I imagine that species that are highly inbred (fig wasps) may also have a very constant and predictable environment for which protection from disease may not be so necessary as it may be less likely to occur, or they may have certain mutualisms with bacteria that protect them even when they don't have the genetic machinery themselves to protect themselves.
That said, many factors contribute to genetic diversity - mating with genetic diverse insects is one, but the diversity is generated through mutation rates, recombination etc. And the degree to which that happens in different segments of the genome and across different insects is unknown to me, but I know that some organisms are able to control that to a degree (certain genomic areas are more variable than others, and bacteria under stress may up their mutation rate, making it more likely for a new trait to evolve that may equip them better to survive from the stressful situations). :)
Thank you you always give such excellent answers, Have a great Christmas :)
In the Netherlands a double 'o' is pronounced as 'oa', like in 'oak' or 'toad' -> upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Nl-boom.ogg
Oops, thanks for the clarification!
Hopefully 'Koos' was correctly pronounced as that was how he introduced himself to me.
:) I think so -> upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Nl-koos.ogg
In some ants the dominant workers can act as queens, these are called gammagates and is really only a thing in some ponerine ants.
So my question or point of view is kinda off topic!(and pseudoscience)
About us humans first can we call our self a super organism?(well not in sense of pure biological point.) or would we go that way if we're not(we are not)
Do we have or did we had monogamy window in some point during our evolution?
Can we call our tendency toward monogamy a point in our biological evolution or cultural evolution?
We have sense of relativeness but in choosing a mate we tend to find people with more different HLA than ours so in choosing a mate we forget the sense of relativeness.
I think I'm totally wrong here can someone explain my dilemma thanks.
I think the statement is correct but the actual mechanism of why monogamy is vital in the formative stage to be poorly explained, or not explained at all. If i am not mistaken, it has to come about through extremely reliable KIN SELECTION, where "altruistic" genes can only be maintained and prevail where there are no unrelated non-altruistic individuals, such as in a purely monogamous family unit where the offspring all carry genes to altruism. Otherwise it opens the door to parasitism where there can exist non altruistic individuals in the colony that takes advantage of altruistic ones bringing the entire inclusive fitness of the colony down to a level where altruism cannot prevail.
Does this mean you are an Anthophiliac? Very informative video. Life sure is complicated.
subscribed
In a vid from ants canada i heard that black crazy ant colonies can live forever because the queens can make alates that are perfect clones of themselves and the males they've mated with or something like that. Is this true?
Great video! Do you know if anyone has tested whether polyandry and polygyny are derived social phenotypes?
*in obligately eusocial organisms
I'm doing a PhD titled The Genomics of Social Organisation (working with Leptothorax acervorum) so any other random stuff you wanted to mention would be greatly appreciated ;)
+Max John Thanks! :) and yep! In all cases of polygyny/polyandry with obligately sterile workers, they have been proven to be secondary developments - lifetime monogamy has always been the ancestral condition to undergo the transition :)
Draw Curiosity
Ah nice one! Thanks for the reply :) I don't suppose you happen to know if anyone has gone looking for an analogue of this transition in ... not sure what taxonomic rank to suggest here! In multicellular organsisms as a whole? I'm curious because I can't think of an analogue of this situation in animals or plants, is there one in fungi perhaps? If not, why not? It seems, on the one hand, an obvious way of increasing heterozygosity, but on the other hand it decreases average relatedness within the higher level of "individual" in question, which could lead to conflict. Sorry to plague you with uninformed questions like this but I'm striving about for some direction in which to take my PhD and my future work and I'm fascinated by the possibility of using eusocial hymenoptera as some sort of model for the evolution of multicellularity.
I read it as Monogatari
Araragi-san!
Are there good books on this subject you would recommend?
Admittedly, I've always read more papers than books on these topics. The papers may be a bit drier, but they are very informative if youd like me to recommend some.
Book-wise, I have heard of a few on the topic but I admit I haven't read them so can't necessarily vouch for them. That said, one on the ecology and life of bees, and naked mole rats, would probably be very interesting and informative! :)
I get that having a relatedness to your siblings as high or higher than your offspring could prompt you to assist your siblings. But surely the relevant comparison is your relatedness to your siblings's offspring and your own children. otherwise the comparison is effectively between helping you (1) and your siblings (
In this case, it's more about helping the parents reproduce rather than their own siblings - but they do so primarily by taking care of the brood (which if relatedness is maximised, will be their full siblings) and maintaining the nest together. So their aim is to make their parents have more offspring rather than themselves in the case of obligate eusociality.
Excellent. That makes sense. thank you.
Love your drawing of a naked mole rat, and the fat naked mole rat queen.
Thanks! ^_^
Could humans willing to die 'In Her Majesty's Service' be a lowkey version of eusociality then?
I think this has evolved five times, for this also occurs in the plant kingdom and is clearly evidenced in the underground (root) communication networks of forests!
Where do Gamergates fit in?
Gamergates (workers who are able to mate and be fertilised sexually) occur in bee colonies *before* the major transition to superorganism has happened.
Generally they are dominance hierarchies, where the queen lays most of the eggs but other individuals can do too.
1 - If the relatedness is high, such that workers are more related to other workers than the offspring of other workers (and occasionally, their own offspring too, depending on whether the queen has mated with very few males), they may engage in policing, where they kill the offspring from other workers
2 - If it's low, different individuals may contribute to the hive.
However, when they go through the monogamy window (queen only mates with one drone, so all of the offspring are full siblings and invariably, highly related), the castes can eventually become permanent, so workers will be sterile.
This transition has happened in Corbiculate bees (honeybees, bumblebees), but there are plenty of other species who haven't undergone it whilst still being eusocial. :)
GO GIRL !
Very interesting. Is it know how the reproductive function of one organism, when it absorbs another - like our cells and mitochondria, merge in such way that it can reproduce all the colony at the same time.
It seems each colony organism is individually identifiable, but when it comes to reproduction, all the colony is put into a single "capsule" that encompasses all the information of each organism.
I'm interested in details about this transition. For example, in the human case apparently the mother provides a copy of the mitochondria. So, that's not part of the eggs genetic material, as much as it's just coming along for the ride.
As for the rest of the cells, even thought each seems considerably different from many others, e.g. brain cells from muscle cells, these seem to be encoded in the DNA. Would that mean that these cells are all came from the same initial cells by specialization, and only mitochondria came from the outside, and therefore didn't have its genetic material merged into the whole?
Are there any other examples of this apart from mitochondria?
Could societys evolve into superorganisms if there would be enough time for evolution to take place?
only Termites, Bees, Wasps, Ants.
eusocial Shrimps (Synalpheus Regalis) : "am I a joke to you?"
How do the queens store the sperm for so many years?
How do they pick mates?
It's the first time I heard about naked mole rats living as a superorganism!
I got really high one night and thought about humans becoming a super organism
Could humans become faculatively eusocial?
Why did this evolve independently in 4 very similar types of animal? What is it about them that makes them primed for this to evolve, while so many other species haven't? Is it to do with burrowing/living in hives? Since naked mole rats are the only non-insects to evolve similar behavior, and burrowing seems like the only thing they have in common with ants. But if that's the case, what is it about burrowing, and why haven't any of the other burrowing or nest dwelling creatures evolved in this way?
+Alex Kennedy I'd say it's because they're more likely to develop high relatedness amongst different individuals. If you burrow and found a nest with a partner to spend the rest of your life with, it is unlikely that you'd necessarily easy find other mates or partners due to the isolation and the shortness of the period devoted to finding mates, meaning obligate monogamy is likely to occur followed by an obligate caste system. :)
Good explanation, I wouldn't have thought of that!
I think it's not about burrowing but more like building a "city". We humans use skyscrapers, they just use mud towers/ tunnels.
Is there any type of bacteria that lives in this monogamy made superorganism?
+Mr. B for sure! I know termites have symbiotic gut bacteria who help them process the qood they chew. The channel Deep Look made a spectacular (amazing macro shots) video in the past couple of months on termites if you want to find out a bit more.
I also have a video on microbial interactions coming out in the new year :)
More important than monogamy... haplodiploidy.
Bizarre that it isn't mentioned here, as it's the actual key to superorgamisms/ swarms.
Actually, let me phrase that as a question so you'll be more likely to address it:
How does the evolution of haplodiploidy figure into the evolution of superorganisms?
Zeet Haplodiploidy isn't mentioned because it isn't necessary for superorganisms to evolve - bees, ants and wasps are, but termites are diploid. Haplodiploidy makes the relatedness between workers in a monogamous colony 0.75, but the relatedness between workers and drones is 0.25. If there is an even distribution of sexes, this averages to 0.5, but it may appear to be easier to hit relatedness of 0.5 more easily.
The termites however are diploid, and by being 100% monogamous the relatedness between all colony members is 0.5 and the average is 0.5, which much like in the haplodiploid species, generates the opportunity for obligate sterility to evolve. :)
Then a civilization of multicellular intelligent organisms would be the top of superorganisms
Can you make parallels between mole rats and recent human evolution ? OuO
إيناس
The internet is turning humans into a super organism.
subscribes anyway
Of course, nature will be against degeneracy, very good
no subs in spanish :(((((
That was fascinating!
Is there a chance humans going to end up with a similar caste system?
Or are we too prone to cheat on our partners for that to happen? :o
>>> Is there a chance humans going to end up with a similar caste system?
If life duration extends manyfold (i.e. the kids of today could be near immortal as the progress of medecines in 50 years could be so important as to warrant another 100 years etc...), then it is not impossible that the right to reproduce could be limited in order to control overpopulation (large scale space colonisation being still far off).
wug
Evolutionary cheating is advantageous.
It's not just about cheating. People have kids with one spouse, then divorce, remarry, and have more kids. Serial monogamy.
"Serial monogamy."
Is antagonistic and therefore not "obligate monogamy."
All i could think about during the video was the human race and when will we produce sterile "workers".
I mean most societies promote and demand monogamy and most families had more than 2 childs (presumably from the same father) during the history...
Or we already are supercolonized and we call those superorganisations "countries"?
Can a worker ant or bee leave it's hive and "migrate" to another?
Half-siblings and having kids with more than one person is pretty prevalent in humans, though
Ah, Koos, or some would say, Koosm.. Do you hear our prayers?
Curious that multi-level selection is not cited. It seems to me that this whole line of reasoning is glorified kin selection, which has been historically far over-reaching in its explanatory power. And this guy reaches even further. Meanwhile multi-level selection continues to be able to easily account for the evolution of complexity at various scales. Perhaps I'm missing something and this guy's theory fits into multi-level selection, but it doesn't sound like it. It doesn't sound like he is even aware that multi-level-selection is a phenomena that exists. It sounds like he is building off of Richard Dawkins immature understanding of "the selfish gene" and reaching for kin selection to explain cooperation and eusociality. Kin selection doesn't explain how the colony of cells that is our bodies consists of far more types of bacteria than what we call human cells... Of course they are all human cells. What we call "human" is the superorganism colony that we are- a rich, diverse ecosystem of many types of cells with rich, diverse evolutionary histories... For me, multi level selection far surpasses kin selection. Kin selection doesn't explain how super-colonies of hymenoptera form. That is, many different family lines cooperating as a single colossal colony.... 21st century biology has already surpassed this simple-minded thinking. Relatedness is simply NOT necessary for the evolution of the superorganism. His foundational assumption for his argument is false.... Or, am I missing something?!? Please teach me if I am!
Eu- means "good," not "true."
The prefix eu- is derived from the Greek eu which means well, and eus which means good. However, as a prefix it takes on the meaning good, well, pleasant or true. In this instance it means 'true', because it distinguishes from other forms of social behaviour that may occur in other species.
Beautiful, and the british accent... "plus go figure... lots of Brains" perfect combination...