Genetic Modification of crops has always been a thorny issue. Shock headlines and contrived ‘public debates’ have left scientists and communicators alike quaking at the prospect of navigating the muddy waters, with an at best ill informed, and at worst downright hostile, public in tow. One could be forgiven for considering this a disaster for public dialogue with science. That is of course, if consensus and consumer acceptance are the aim…..

Going back to the root of the matter, the 2011 British Science Association’s Science Communication Conference planted the science firmly in context of its application and the policy making system. A panel, chaired by Fiona Fox from the Science Media Centre, and consisting of Jack Stilgoe from the Royal Society, Professor David Baulcombe from Cambridge University, and Andrew Wadge from the Food Standards Agency, debated with an audience of science communicators. They identified real issues, tangled and deeply buried, which extend to moral values and personal taste.

The moral imperative to feed the planet’s population sustainably is the key to a much needed policy discussion which considers all options and which recognises multiple views, messy and chaotic as this may be. This means that the challenge is to cultivate confidence in the scientific process and enable scientists to have a view on how their research is employed.

According to Jack Stilgoe, the GM crop debate has defined a shift in the science and society relationship. The majority of issues sprouted from the very first dialogue experiment in 1994, with understanding deepened by Social Science. As he noted, “GM is not one issue”.

Moving away from mainstream media presentation of polarised debate about isolated technologies, towards looking at issues in order to advise government on what to do next. He asked: “How did we get to a stage where nobody listened and the conversation broke down?”

He floated the need to debate new possibilities presented by science, upstream of regulation. “GM embodies the idea of seed as a product”. This poses a threat of disruption in developing countries where farmers save and regrow seed.

There is a tendency for scientists to retreat into the novelty trap, to determine need for revised labelling and regulation. But he asked “Do we have the right sort of system to govern these technologies if we buy the fact they are new?”

In these situations, regulation and academic independence become complex and highly politicised. When it comes to safety, there is concern over assessment systems and the degree people are put at risk. There are also issues of patenting and control over the markets and food chain by monopolistic companies, begging the question “Is government genuinely interested in opening up debate, or in ‘selling’ to an oppositional public?”

Feeding the Planet
Professor David Baulcombe discussed dealing with the challenge of providing global sustainable food in light of climate change, population growth, shortage of land and other resources. Biological Science offers two approaches: firstly, science-based enhanced crop management, and secondly, the genetic improvement of crops, which was his focus for this discussion. He noted that “Plants evolved to produce babies that survive harsh natural environments, not big fat juicy fruits… What we are trying to do is redirect the legacy of millions of years of evolution towards sustainable food production.”

Drought, heat, stress, and mineral uptake are complex traits governed by several genes. They are key challenges for sustainable intensification of food production to provide sufficient food for the planet. He explained that conventional breeding shuffles characteristics and introduces complexities, whereas with GM original characteristics can be retained while changing a few traits at once. Using closely related species for GM gives a similar end result to conventional breeding, noting that “Both GM and conventional breeding are long term solutions. They need to be assessed side by side in terms of risk.” GM can also be used for grand challenges like enhancing the efficiency of photosynthesis, remodelling crops to regenerate yearly, stabilise and fertilise soil, and turning different plant varieties into useful crops.

Crossed Wires
Andrew Wadge from the Food Standards Agency explained how the FSA had been established after a series of scares culminating in the BSE crisis. He went on to describe GM as part of a series of technological developments impacting on the food we eat, with the public asking questions like “is it safe for me and the environment?, What’s in it for me? Who benefits and what’s in it for them? Is it natural or human made?”

The debate gets skewed around whether GM is more harmful to health than its counterparts because it is based on scientific assessments which exclude moral and ethical considerations.However, our judgements as individuals are based on values, especially where we don’t necessarily understand the wealth of complex science. He suggested that “Our minds run through a process of weighing risks and benefits, balancing how to respond and deciding who to trust. “

Cracking Up

Jack Stilgoe explained that the Food Standards Agency was asked to deliver a further dialogue exercise in 2010 as a trusted agency. Their responsibility is regulatory with no mandate for agriculture, developing world markets or industrial policy in biotech.

A political timescale meant that the process was too rushed to frame a productive dialogue. The resignation of two steering group members and the pretence it was about science alone led to its abandonment.

Citing a lack of clarity from ministers and the coalition government wanting to save money, Andrew Wadge explained: “The public is interested in the issue as a whole but government departments are organised in silos with food standards separate from environment.” David Baulcombe added: that the “advantages of products like purple tomatoes and golden rice are difficult to prove. Scientists may not have made the case about the environmental benefits strongly enough.” While there is a moral imperative to feed the world sustainably, it is irresponsible to get angry, and likewise not address the issue and force a technology on a reluctant public. For fellow scientists he suggests it is important to recognise that they may not seem trustworthy if they present themselves merely as “a humble seeker of the truth” for society to make of as they will. He also felt that intellectual property is a significant issue. Scientists should take a view over the context where their science is deployed. “I want technology for my lab to support small business and diversity in agriculture with commitment to open source”.

Cracking on

On the way forward, Jack Stilgoe said: “There is a need to appreciate the political nature of the topic, and be honest about debating values not science.” He argued that a purely scientific debate presents the risk of a diversity of opinions being put into a monolithic view of science. “A huge amount of effort is needed upfront to design a representative conversation based on shared understanding”.

This will also require consideration of who to include. Stilgoe suggested that publically funded scientists have found themselves bound up in issues driven by large companies with which they have little in common. On the other hand an employee of Astra Zeneca indicated similar conflicts in the industrial scientific community. Andrew Wadge pointed out that Scientific Advisory Committee members don’t get paid yet have to publish all their interests: “Openness about conflicts is important but everyone needs to be there.”

The panel were agreed that despite frustrations, consultation is worth pursuing. David Baulcombe said:
“I know others with a different view have also been frustrated but I think the end result is move towards a better agriculture”.

Andrew Wadge cited need for framing the debate and instilling confidence in the scientific process where they may be different views. Jack Stilgoe suggested: “You can take general principles from topics like Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology and Climate Change and apply them to develop principles for governing technology in uncertain and highly politicised environments.” He recommended training scientists to participate, removing barriers and supporting not forcing them to get involved. “Science speaking with many voices is a more productive conversation.”

How should we in determine what nature of genetic manipulations are acceptable interventions?

From my perspective the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change, reduce agricultural pollution and preserve biodiversity would be deciding factors. Interventions which tackle the social systems of distribution and consumption are not to be ignored.

“Deforestation contributes about one fifth (20%) of global carbon dioxide emissions ….

We need to reduce deforestation, introduce new forests, manage them sustainably and adapt to meet the challenge of climate change which is now inevitable.” UK Forestry Commission

2011 has been declared the international year of the forest, placing recognition and responsibility on the boughs of the world’s forests, in terms of their potential to help secure the future of the planet. Forests provide habitats for an enormous variety of creatures, a source of sustainable energy and building materials. Most of all, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, converting it into life giving oxygen during the day, the reason they are sometimes called ‘the world’s lungs’. While currently under the spotlight, their role in sustaining the planet stretches back thousands of years. Today, the woods can no longer be left to nature and must be nurtured by humans. There are international management standards to attain with the European Union leading the way.

Community care for trees has a long tradition across the world. As well as featuring in the Lion King, the Baobab tree has been worshiped for centuries across Africa, Sudan, indigenous Australia and the Caribbean. It forms a central pillar of communities. The whole tree is used for food and materials, including sap for medicinal purposes. In 2008 its fruit was approved for distribution in EU.

Trees are completely intertwined with my family history, originating from my Grandfathers walking stick factory, taking my parents across the sea to New Zealand on a boat. My first ladybird book told the story of the Oak, one of the few truly indigenous British trees, beautifully illustrating the balance of animals, birds and insects it sustained. Marvelling at David Attenborough gazing up into the Amazon canopy through the TV screen was a regular winter time activity.

As an adult, I camped at the foot of two ancient Oak Trees believed to be over one thousand years old. Their names Gog and Magog, feature in folklore and legends from many cultures, the Bible, and Qur’an. In London’s Guildhall, two carved wooden statues represent them as giants according to the ancient British version. The oaks bearing their names stand at the entrance to the mythical Isle of Avalon where they were worshipped by pagans. At sunrise one morning, I woke and saw a white rabbit scamper along the grassy precession towards them. The two were knotted together, gnarled and twisted one bald, its split branches stretching slowly toward the sky, the other, withered and sprouting sheltering beneath it. A few hours later I got a call on my mobile about my Granddad, Arthur…..

When I was at University trees became political. Swampy and the Newbury bypass protestors were notorious alternative media icons. Even the most conservative members of the British public were forced to admire their spirit, finding it hard to disagree that trees were nicer than roads, especially on their doorstep. Today, once again trees grace the headlines, only this time Swampy and co can stay at home and protest by internet if they choose. It is difficult to say how much internet outrage led the government to abandon its recent plan to sell off the national forests.

Buying a newspaper is a very effective way to stay informed politically and help preserve forests, flying in the face of the idea that saving paper equals saving trees. Of course everyone should use recycled paper, then all forests could stay exactly as they are. Not quite, recycling, needs energy to transport and pulp the paper, and chemicals to bleach and colour it. Paper on average can be recycled 6 to 7 times. As long as there is demand for forest products then land must be managed to produce trees, surely more environmentally friendly than PC manufacturing and disposal plants?

Trees are big business. They provide renewable, non toxic raw materials for building, packaging and publishing. Forests can generate and store real quantifiable energy. Unlike coal and oil, wood is a renewable fuel. Across Europe the area of land covered by forest is increasing. In the UK, forests cover 12% of the land area compared to 5% at the start of the twentieth century, which it should be remembered represents an all time low.

Perhaps best known in the form of graphite, forming the black shiny soft slidey lead in our wooden pencils, it is carbon that is key to the forests role in energy storage, production and climate regulation. When fuel burns and creatures breathe, carbon combines with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide (CO2). Too much of this in the atmosphere is the primary climate culprit.

During the daytime, trees and plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis. In the dark, the process is reversed. Carbon is stored in trunks, leaves and roots, returning to the soil through death and decay, for life to start again. Mature forests reach a steady state where carbon storage and production are balanced. Growing forests act as ‘sinks’, absorbing more than they produce. Alarms should ring when a forest is felled, destroying a store, allowing carbon to escape.

The critical factor is to manage the forests, selecting types of tree to plant and balancing the rate of cutting and replanting to sustain the level of tree growth. Clearing some trees is often good for modern forests, making room for others to spread out and a variety plant species to flourish.

Visible, in book and furniture shops world wide, the Forest Stewardship Council FSC, logo on timber products is more than an attractive design. It provides assurance that that the source of wood or paper is certified, having achieved management standards meeting vigorous legal and environmental criteria.

Only products from certified forests can carry this logo through supply chain to the consumer. It guarantees there must have been a permit to log the timber. Different countries are free to interpret the guidelines for themselves. Independent international auditors inspect the forests and issue certification where requirements are achieved. The UK (especially Wales), with Germany and Holland and a push from the NGOs have led the world in helping the EU position these standards at the forefront of the move to stop illegal logging.
If, importers and consumers insist on certification, demand for illegally logged timber can be reduced, completely removing the second largest incentive for clearing irreplaceable rainforests after agriculture. The international year of forestry encourages combination of forestry and agriculture, emphasising both preservation and reforestation, with the single goal of increasing forest cover.

While developing countries in the tropics don’t have the resources to manage and police forests there is little to stop illegal loggers. If compensation could be paid to for loss of illegal logging profits and sustainable agriculture prioritised, then deforestation could be rapidly reduced, as if by magic.

Far from the mythical Avalon, on a real island, also a favourite for Druids and Witches, it is hard to believe that an idyllic pine scented forest on the edge of a sandy beach, at one time provoked a hotbed of controversy. Newborough on Anglesey is one of the few places that native red squirrels have been successfully reintroduced and are capable of surviving the competitive greys. Corridors are being created to enable them to navigate around the island. However, this idyllic pine needle scented scene is artificial. The trees were planted by humans, the species are not indigenous and their positioning could damage the natural sandunes, contravening an EU directive on habitat preservation. While there was talk of replacing them with willow to preserve the dunes, plans were scrapped in favour of the squirrels following talks between Forestry Commission Wales branch, community groups and stake holders. They all worked together to agree a forest partnership action plan.

This scheme provides a snapshot of the complex global reality of moves to increase land mass covered by trees. This kind of dilemma is likely to become more frequent as the need to position trees to prevent floods, cool cities and offset choking carbon emission rises. Adaptable resilient varieties capable of fast growth, surviving adverse whether events and habiting environments they might not usually will be needed.
Clearly reducing emissions is the ideal solution for tackling climate change. Unfortunately it may well be too late to rely on alone. Compromises will have to be made, especially regarding mixing indigenous species and introducing new ones.

The priority is to act fast and bring CO2 and temperature levels, not trees, down. Internationally recognised standards can help forests be part of the solution not the cause.

“We need to act fast. Forests are disappearing at an alarming rate. International measures to STOP deforestation as part of international negotiations on climate change are needed. Timber certification is one way to STOP illegal logging”.
Roger Cooper, MBE Services to Forestry

More Information:
http://www.fsc.org/
www.forestry.gov.uk/publications

On February the 14th we will be inclined to show our loved ones what they mean to us with tacky sentiments and novelty merchandise, but I’ve noticed we seem to be lacking something that most other corporate holidays cash in on – a mascot. Christmas has the reindeer and the robin, Easter has the bunny and the chick, and Valentine’s? Well yes it has the cupid, but flying chubby children just don’t say “I love you” the way a little fluffy creature from nature can. So here, I present to the corporate world the money makers – the top five creatures that will do anything for love.

The Bowerbird Bachelors

When I think of the term “bachelor pad” it conjures up images of unwashed undies, old beer cans, and questionable décor – but not if you were a Bowerbird. The Bowerbird gets its name from the males’ elaborate attempts at attracting a mate. They build structurally complicated and eccentric nests out of sticks and saplings – some even construct thatched roofs. Once their feat of engineering is complete, these multi-skilled birds decorate their “love nest” with the finest riches a lady Bowerbird could ask for. Precisely what the Bowerbird decorates his bower with differs between species and usually follows some sort of colour scheme. For example, the female Satin Bowerbird seems to go gaga for blue, and so the male busies himself for days hoarding any blue knick-knacks he can find. People have found shells, leaves, flowers, feathers, stones, and berries littering the nest sites, but Bowerbirds don’t discriminate against the man-made merchandise, they have also been found to collect discarded plastic items, coins, nails, rifle shells, and pieces of glass. The bird will spend days, arranging each piece just so. Ladies will visit many nest sites within her area and spend time carefully inspecting each of the efforts, sometimes returning to a prospective nest multiple times. Once confident she has identified the bower that satisfies her tastes, she will copulate and leave. Perhaps not the most romantic ending, but the male certainly deserves points for effort.

Scorpion Seduction

Dinner and dancing is a pretty standard date in the life of a female scorpion – the only thing is, the dance is actually a life-threatening battle between potential mating partners, and if it goes badly for the male, he could end up being served up as dinner. The ritual is usually held on a moonless night, in open expanses where males and females can be seen to judder and gyrate before contact. This process allows scorpions to recognise and assess each other’s compatibility through vibration and pheromone cues. After twenty minutes or so the male will approach the female, and grab her by the pincers. Holding her, face to face, they commence a sensual dance known as the “promenade à deux”, males have even been seen to “kiss” the female, nibbling her large pincer-like jaws. The real purpose of this, it is thought, is to inject a small amount of venom into her body, making her a more docile, and the encounter a little less risky for the male! During this elaborate dance, a space is cleared to enable him to safely deposit a package of sperm – known as a spermatophore. He then carefully directs her over the package, and when in position, she will take the deposit up into her reproductive tract. After fertilization the male doesn’t hang around for a cuddle, he must make a quick escape or run the risk of being eaten by the female – charming!

Snail Sex

You would think, perhaps, that snail sex would be a rather slow and sticky affair – and well, you’d be right – but couples pre-copulatory behaviour has shown snails to be very attentive and gentle lovers, spending between fifteen minutes and twelve hours “kissing” and “caressing” their partners before sex occurs. This rather graphic display of public affection does have a purpose; the male must locate the right location for which to fire his love dart – and that’s not just what the cool kids are calling it, it is in fact the scientific name for the male reproductive organ. Like cupid’s arrow, covered in mucus, the male lines himself up for the shot, and fires. The mucus causes the female’s reproductive tract to contract and greatly increases the amount of sperm she stores. It seems this process is not particularly enjoyable for the female, who suffers significant damage from the ordeal. Although, researchers have seen males with chronically poor aim fire a mis-shot through a female’s brain, and the females still live to tell the tale. Who knew snail sex was such a messy and hazardous business!

Squid Adoration: More hearts = More love

If, when it comes to love it’s not the size of the heart that matters but the number, the squid definitely wins hands down. Yes, oddly enough the squid has three hearts – two which take blood to and from each of the gills, and a larger one which pumps blood around the rest of the body. In terms of reproduction, there’s not a whole lot of romance and the job is undertaken fairly matter-of-factly, although, deep sea squid are known for their exceptionally long penises. When erect, the penis can grow as long as the head, mantle and tentacles combined. “So in the words of Lionel Richie, when it comes to hearts, ‘she’s once, twice, three times a lady’, and when it comes to penises, ‘he’s once, twice…’”.

Anglerfish: “’til death do we part”

And our final candidate is one of the few truly monogamous creatures in nature, the Anglerfish. Interestingly, when scientists first started collecting samples of this alien-like deep sea fish, they couldn’t understand why they were only able to find females. Then they began to notice and unusual trend, that most of the specimens had small “parasites” attached to them, which later they found out to be the males – “insert inappropriate joke here”.

These deep sea fish live a life down in the depths of the oceans, too deep for even light to reach – although I think if they could see what each other looked like the survival of their species might be under threat. In order to find and keep a mate under these conditions, you need to have a trick or two up your sleeve. From birth, the males have a highly developed sense of smell which allows them to detect the proximity of any nearby females by identifying the pheromones she releases into the water. When he finds a mate, he bites down into her skin and latches on. As he bites, he simultaneously releases an enzyme which digests the tissues of his mouth and her body, causing the remaining flesh to fuse together. The male then slowly becomes completely dependent on the female for survival, first losing his digestive tract, then his brain, heart, and eyes, until he is nothing more than a pair of gonads – “there are just so many jokes to be made here it almost seems too easy”. The male will then continue to periodically release sperm into the female, initiating egg release and fertilisation. The pair will remain together until the death of the female, which unavoidably, also results in the death of her partner.

So when it comes to presents this Valentine’s, try showing your partner you really care with a personalised gift inspired by nature. Perhaps deliver them a garden snail in a box with the message, “you’re love dart, went straight to my heart”, or a cuddly stuffed Anglerfish that when you squeeze its belly says “I’ll stick to you like a parasitic male Anglerfish”.
“Ah, doesn’t it just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?”

Sources
Wikipedia entries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish
National Geographic:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/anglerfish.html
Lovebirds and Love Darts: The Wild World of Mating; Reported in National Geographic News, by Hillary Mayell, 13 February 2004

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It’s Halloween: time to turn down the lights, and gather round for a horrific tale of what waits for you in the shadows… luring you into its lair… creatures capable of turning ordinary souls into monsters… and beasts that can control your mind to carry out their evil bidding. This is a true story of some unpleasant parasites that might just be coming, for you.

Parasites survive by exploiting their hosts. A parasitic way of life is arguably one of the most successful on the planet. For every organism, there are parasites which can infect it. There are even parasites of parasites, and like a Russian doll, these get smaller still, until you begin to consider genetic parasites, which are no more than rogue pieces of DNA, manipulating the host genome to do its dirty work. What’s more, parasites have evolved some very sneaky ways to manipulate, control and deceive their hosts to ensure their survival and transmission. Here are a few particularly gruesome examples of parasitic tricks of the trade.

MASTERS OF MIND CONTROL

“Brainwashing” hosts to increase transmission rates is a common ploy for parasites. One of the better understood mechanisms is that of the parasitic protozoa; Toxoplasma gondii. T. gondii has two life stages, a sexual stage which takes part inside the gut of a cat, and an asexual phase where the parasite forms cysts within the brain and muscles of an intermediate host which can be any small mammal or bird. The parasite relies on the intermediate host falling prey to a feline in order to complete its lifecycle, and it has evolved a rather ingenious way of ensuring its transmission. Ajai Vyas and his team from Stanford University found that rodents infected with T. gondii seemed to be attracted by the smell of cat urine, an aroma uninfected individuals would actively avoid. Vyas found parasitic cysts tended to concentrate in the amygdala in the rodent’s brain. This part of the brain is associated with fear and anxiety, and they believe the parasite is able to target specific neural pathways in order to manipulate normal behavior of cat aversion, and as such, significantly increase the chances of the rodent becoming feline food.

Mosquitoes are a human ectoparasite (a parasite which lives outside the host), but these are not the pests I want to talk about. At times they can be a nuisance, but they can also make a deadly delivery. Malaria is one of the most important causes of human mortality in the modern world. The mosquito acts as a vector for the protist, Plasmodium falciparum (the organism which causes malaria), which uses the mosquito as an intermediate host in order to reach its target – humans. Research by Lacroix and his team found the malaria parasite was able to manipulate the behaviour of the mosquito, to find humans infected with the transmissible stage of malaria to be more attractive than other potential hosts. Others studies also showed differences in biting behaviour, with a decreased biting frequency during early infection (thus increasing the chances of host survival until the protist has time to develop), and increased biting frequency once the protist was infective to humans (thus increasing transmission rate). The mechanisms which the protist uses to alter its host’s behaviours are not understood, but research such a Vyas’s team into Toxoplasma gives hope that one day we might understand such mechanisms which could help develop better prevention strategies and ultimately save lives.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Some parasites are small and subtle, stealthily changing the characteristics of their host to increase transmission. Other parasites have more of a “bull in a china shop” approach with their host, as is the story of the hairworm and the grasshopper. Hairworms excrete a cocktail of chemicals into the grasshopper which mimic the natural neural signals, and so, highjack the grasshopper’s nervous system. This triggers suicidal “death leaps” into water, where the parasite needs to reach in order to complete its lifecycle. A grasshopper becomes infected after drinking larvae infested water. Once ingested, the worm will grow inside the grasshopper until it takes up almost its entire body cavity (only the legs and head will be unoccupied). At this point the grasshopper can been observed to take a suicidal spring into water, where (and here’s the gruesome bit) a worm, which is up to four times larger than the grasshopper, emerges from its rear end and swims off to find a mate. Hugh Loxdale, president of the London-based Royal Entomological Society, said “It’s one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen… It makes the science fiction film Alien look pretty tame in comparison.”

Figure 1: The sequence of events as the hairworm emerges from its grasshopper host. The grasshopper irrationally jumps into the water (due to neural cues induced by the hairworm), and once in contact with the water, the worm emerges and swims away to find a mate. The grasshopper, inevitably, dies.
Credit: VB Films/CNRS Images Media

Figure 2: The tongue-eating louse eats and replaces its host’s tongue and feeds.
Credit: Dr. Nico Smit

Talking of Alien, does figure 2 remind you of anything? This terrifying invader is Cymothoa exigua, more commonly known as the tongue-eating louse. This little louse enters its host fish through the gills, and attaches itself to the base of the tongue. Frontal claws are used to drain blood from the tongue until it wastes away. The parasite then attaches itself to the muscles of the tongue’s stub, and replaces the organ. Gruesome as it seems, the parasite does not appear to cause any additional damage to its host, feeding only on small amounts of blood and mucus from the fish’s mouth, and the fish can use its new squatter almost as it would its old tongue. It is unknown how long this association can last, but neither the host nor the parasite benefit from the fish’s death, and so it seems, the partnership could potentially last a lifetime.

THE PARADOXICAL PARASITE

As a final note, I thought I’d end on a horrid high note. The concept of a harmonious hookworm might seem contradictory, but sometimes the dark forces can be used for good. The hookworm is very prevalent within the third world. Infection is usually caused by walking barefoot in soil contaminated with faecal matter. The worm will burrow into the foot and migrate through the vascular system to the lungs. From there they crawl up the trachea, and are swallowed in order to reach the digestive system. Their final resting place is in the intestine where they latch onto the intestine wall and feed off the host’s blood. In large numbers these critters can cause anaemia and protein deficiency, including emaciation, cardiac failure and abdominal distension. So why, you might ask, would people in the developed world be purposefully infecting themselves with such vile creatures?

Autoimmune diseases; such as Crohn’s disease, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome (IBD), multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes and allergies, are common in the developed world. In these diseases an over-reactive immune system begins to attack the body, which can result in some serious complications. The “hygiene hypothesis” proposes that the increased rate of autoimmune diseases has been caused by over-sterility of the environment during early childhood. Reducing exposure to infectious agents such as microorganisms and parasites (which in evolutionary terms our body is evolved to encounter) during the maturation of the immune responses might have negative effects. Under-stimulation of the immune system during early years can lead to an overactive long term response to foreign agents in the body; the result is an autoimmune disease.

This has led to the development of “helminthic therapy”, which is the use of parasitic helminths (worms) to “dampen down” the response of the immune system. It is not entirely clear how the immune responds to the worms, but patients suffering from autoimmune disorders have too many over-sensitive T-helper cells (which identify potentially dangerous agents and mark them for irradiation by the body’s “solider cells” such as macrophages and antibodies). T-cells are self-regulating, and so activation of certain types (in this case, by the presence of the worms) will result in the deactivation of others. Under these conditions a negative feedback is established, and eventually, a healthy balance can be established.

So would you be tempted to take a drink of probiotic parasitic worms to treat your hay fever, or IBD? There are now many subscribers to the new treatments, and so far the reports back are very positive. But more research is required to understand the specific relationship between the parasite and host, and how numbers and transmission rates are to be controlled.

And so, perhaps you were disgusted, intrigued, or even converted by my horrific tales of parasite behaviour. Writing this article, I for one was amazed at how parasites have evolved so many ways to manipulate and deceive their hosts, but I’m not sure I want one of my own yet!

SOURCES

• Parasite “Brainwashes” Rats Into Craving Cat Urine, Study Finds By Ben Harder for National Geographic News, 2007
• Vyas A, Kim SK, Giacomini N, Boothroyd JC, Sapolsky RM (2007). Behavioral changes induced by Toxoplasma infection of rodents are highly specific to aversion of cat odors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104: 6442-6447.
• Lacroix R, Mukabana WR, Gouagna LC, Koella JC (2005). Malaria Infection Increases Attractiveness of Humans to Mosquitoes. PLoS Biol 3: e298.
• Suicide Grasshoppers Brainwashed by Parasite Worms, By James Owen for National Geographoc News, 2005
• Biron DG, Marche L, Ponton F, Loxdale HD, Galeotti N, Renault L et al (2005). Behavioural manipulation in a grasshopper harbouring hairworm: a proteomics approach. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 272: 2117-2126.
• Brusca RC, Gilligan MR (1983). Tongue Replacement in a Marine Fish (Lutjanus guttatus) by a Parasitic Isopod (Crustacea: Isopoda). Copeia 1983: 813-816.
• Eat worms – feel better, Reported on BBC news, 2003
  Reddy A, Fried B (2009). An update on the use of helminths to treat Crohn’s and other autoimmunune diseases. Parasitology Research 104: 217-221.
• McKay DM (2006). The beneficial helminth parasite? Parasitology 132: 1-12.

Article by Tiffany Taylor

The reign of Big Brother may have come to an end, but relatively recent craze of reality TV shows have allowed us to become bystanders to the lives of strangers, and the increasing usage of surveillance technology means there are few places we are completely “off the radar”. But can the knowledge of being watched change our perception of decency? And perhaps, could it be used to create a more honest and generous society?

In the University of Newcastle an ethologist, Melissa Bateson, wanted to see whether she could manipulate her colleagues’ generosity through subtle visual cues. An honesty box had been in use for many years in the University staff room to cover the cost of tea and coffee. Above the honesty box at eye level an image was placed which alternated weekly between eyes and flowers (Figure 1). The results showed that just the photocopied image of a pair of eyes was enough to significantly increase the weekly contribution compared to an image of flowers. This suggested that people were more likely to contribute if they felt like their actions were being watched. The researchers believed this behaviour was driven by a desire to maintain a positive reputation within a social group.

This result is perhaps not surprising, but it conjured up a number of questions for me: why do we feel the need to maintain this reputation, is it through fear of punishment, or hope of reward? Can such behaviour be observed in other animals? And, can it be used to influence and manipulate social groups?

The Evolution of Being Nice

It’s not only humans that have this concern for social perception, Bshary and Gutter found the cleaner wrasse fish (which forms a mutualism with larger fish helping clear them of parasites) must be seen to be honest before it will be allowed a meal. Occasionally cleaner fish will “cheat” and take small nips out of a bigger fish’s flesh, however, if caught in the act by another potential customer they are less likely to get a feed and may also be subject to punishment by the violated client. As such, it’s been shown that the presence of bystanders will reduce the frequency of cheating behaviour. Punishment for bad behaviour is also used by meerkats. In this hierarchical society it is only the dominant female who is allowed to breed, as she requires the help of the whole group to maximise the survival of all her offspring. If however, a subordinate female is showing signs of pregnancy, the dominant female will harass the subordinate resulting in the abortion her foetus. These examples are based on punishment, but there are also social groups which reward “good” behaviour. The vampire bat requires a nightly blood meal in order to survive, but sometimes they inevitably come home after a night foraging with empty bellies. The bat will beg to a neighbour in the hope that they may take pity and share a small amount of their blood meal, the neighbour can either choose to regurgitate a small amount or keep his dinner to himself. However, those which are not charitable are more likely to be refused a meal in the future when it is their time of need. As such, it pays to be seen being sympathetic, as the donator knows they are likely to be returned the favour in the future. Explaining the maintenance of cooperation in a group has been a tricky biological problem, what is to stop free-loading and uneven contribution? But “enforced cooperation”, i.e. a mechanism which rewards those that cooperate and punishes those who exploit, could help explain how cooperative behaviour is maintained. In terms of human evolution it is thought this theory of reciprocity, that is be nice to those who have been nice to you in the past, has been an important mechanism in the evolution of our own cooperative behaviour, therefore it makes sense that being “seen to be kind” might be engrained in our psychology and provide a direct benefit in a highly social group, such as humans.

“Did you see that?”

Psychologists are well aware of people’s desire to appear to be contributing to society or “prosocial” behaviour to use the jargon. This made me contemplate ways that we could be influenced, and even manipulated, by clever use of an implied witness to our actions creating a sense of accountability. Two very interesting studies showed how people might be manipulated subconsciously to become more generous by invoking the thought of an invisible presence. The first study was by Azim Shariff and Ara Norenzayan who invited participants to play a game whereby they were given $10 each, and could choose whether to share any of it with an anonymous player. Before the game commenced, participants were asked to unscramble sentences which were designed to prime either the notion of a God, thoughts of a civic institution, or some other neutral prime. Results showed that participants who had been primed to invoke the image of a God or a non-religious altruistic community gave more than $4 on average (this was independent of whether the participant claimed to be religious or not), compared to $2.56 which was the average amount given away by those primed with neutral content.

In the second experiment, Kevin Haley and Daniel Fessel played an identical game to that described above, however this time the experimenters had one of two images displayed on a computer desktop when the participant entered the room. Half the participants saw a stylised depiction of the human eye, whereas the others saw a warehouse background (Figure 2). Here, the results show participants exposed to the eyes gave on average 55% more, compared to those which were not exposed ($3.79 compared with $2.45).

“With great power, comes great responsibility”

I find this potential for subtle manipulation a bit disconcerting and wondered what role it might play in policing and consumerism today. Here is an example of research which could theoretically be applied for “the greater good”. Using psychology to influence the perception of being watched giving accountability for our actions might, in fact, encourage cooperative and prosocial behaviour, but can we justify using manipulation and subconscious stimuli to control social groups based on this fact? Or am I being naive to think it isn’t already used as a tool in today’s society? In my opinion, it’s all seems a bit nineteen eighty-four to me.

SOURCES
Bateson M., Nettle D., and Roberts G. (2006). Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting. Biology Letters 2: 412-414.
Bshary R., and Grutter A.S. (2006). Image scoring and cooperation in a cleaner fish mutualism. Nature 441: 975-978.
West S.A., Griffin A.S., and Gardner A. (2007). Evolutionary Explanations for Cooperation. Current Biology 17: R661-R672.
Jaeggi A.V., Burkart J.M., and Van Schaik C.P. (2010) On the psychology of cooperation in humans and other primates: combining the natural history and experimental evidence of prosociality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365: 2723-2735.
Shariff A.F., Norenzayan A. (2007). God Is Watching You. Psychological Science 18: 803-809.
Haley K.J., Fessler D.M.T. (2005). Nobody’s watching?: Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution and Human Behavior 26: 245-256.

Article image credit: Big Brother 2011: The eye has been revealed Photo: ©Channel 4

Shark attacks are most likely to occur on Sunday, in less than 6 feet of water, during a new moon and involve surfers wearing black and white bathing suits, a first of its kind study from the University of Florida suggests.

Researchers analyzed statistics from shark attacks that occurred in Florida’s Volusia County, dubbed the “Shark Attack Capital of the World,” between 1956 and 2008. They also spent a year observing people between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at UF.

“It’s basically an analysis of why, where and when in an area that traditionally has had more shark-human interactions than any other stretch of coastline in the world,” he said. “One of our students, Brittany Garner, essentially camped out there, counted the number of heads on the beach and took photographs.”

While this 47-mile-long section of Central Florida’s Atlantic coast leads in human-shark skirmishes, making up 21 percent of all global attacks between 1999 and 2008, most are “hit and run” incidents that seldom cause serious injury and no fatalities occurred, he said.

“Calling them attacks is probably a misnomer because the consequences are usually no more severe than a dog bite,” he said. “They’re not the same kind of bites made by 10- to 20-foot-long white sharks that you have off the coast of California. Here we see a different style of attack, primarily perpetrated by smaller fish-eating sharks such as spinners and blacktips that are less than 6 to 7 feet long, which because of their size normally seek smaller prey.”

There have been 231 shark attacks between the first one reported in 1956 in Volusia County and 2008, said Burgess, who works at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History. The study, part of which was published recently in the edited volume “Sharks and Their Relatives II,” uses statistics from 220 of those cases for which detailed information is available.

Human, shark and environmental factors combine to create a perfect storm of favorable conditions in Volusia County for attacks, particularly near Ponce Inlet between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, he said.

The more people in the water the greater the chances they will encounter a shark, and New Smyrna Beach south of the inlet is a “hot spot” for surfers with its well developed sand bars and good waves, Burgess said. Hand splashing and feet kicking provoke sharks, which bite and release what they mistake for normal prey items in the turbid waters, he said.

Also, the strong tidal flow in the inlet makes it “an aquatic smorgasbord of food items for sharks, barracudas, mackerel and other large predators,” boosting shark numbers, he said.

Young white males were attacked most because they spend the most time in the water, Burgess said. Ninety percent of victims were male, 77 percent of 196 victims were between 11 and 30 years old and in the 171 cases where race was known, 98 percent were white, he said.

Well over half of the 220 victims were bit on the leg — 158 — more than five times the number bit on the arms — 34 — the second highest body part to be injured, he said.

Surfers were the most frequent victims, making up 61 percent of the total, Burgess said. They tended to be bitten more in the early morning and late afternoon when waves were highest and they spend more time surfing, he said.

“At the time of the attack, most of the surfers were sitting or holding onto the board waiting for a wave, which explains why most surf victims were bitten on the legs,” he said.

Sharks are not weekend warriors. Rather it is human leisure that leads to the fewest number of human encounters on Wednesdays and the highest on Sundays, followed by Saturdays, Burgess said. “There are a fair number of attacks on Fridays as well, reflective of people skipping work and taking three-day weekends,” he said.

The greatest number of attacks occurred during new moons, followed by full moons, the edges of the lunar extreme when the moon has its biggest pull on the tidal phase, Burgess said. Probably the moon’s phases influence the movements and reproductive patterns of fish, the shark’s food source, just as they affect human behavior, he said.

Not surprisingly, attacks were highest during the swimming season, from May through October, peaking in August, Burgess said. They spiked in April as sharks began their seasonal northern migration up the eastern coast of the United States, he said.

Most incidents involved one bite, occurred in turbid, murky or muddy waters and were at the water’s surface, Burgess said. Only one attack was on a diver, he said.

More victims wore swimsuits that were black and white than any other color combination, followed by black and yellow, attesting to sharks’ abilities to see contrast, he said.

Between 1999 and 2008, shark attacks worldwide numbered 639, of which there were 428 reports in the United States, 275 in Florida and 135 in Volusia County. Burgess said.

Scientists have discovered a link between low solar activity and cold winters that could explain why despite global warming trends, the UK and other regions North East of the Atlantic Ocean are experiencing and heading for more frequent cold winters.

Mike Lockwood from STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the University of Reading who led the work said of this year’s winter; “It’s been the 14th coldest in the last 160 years, yet global average temperature for the same period has been the 5th highest. We have discovered this kind of anomaly is significantly more common when solar activity is low”.

The results published in Environmental Research Letters describe how we are now moving into a period of low solar activity which is likely to result in UK winter temperatures more like those seen at the end of the seventeenth century.

The findings are different to previous efforts to explain the UK’s recent cold winters as they compare the most comprehensive, but regionally specific temperature data to the long-term behaviour of the Sun’s magnetic field to study the differences to the average trends for the entire Northern Hemisphere. More details can be found in the Institute of Physics press release on this.

Image Credit: NASA
You can see a high-res image of the covered UK here and more information on the NASA website.

For the first time elephants have been found to produce an alarm call associated with the threat of bees, and have been shown to retreat when a recording of the call is played even when there are no bees around.

A team of scientists from Oxford University, Save the Elephants, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, made the discovery as part of an ongoing study of elephants in Kenya. They report their results in the journal PLoS One.

‘In our experiments we played the sound of angry bees to elephant families and studied their reaction,’ said Lucy King of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology and charity Save the Elephants, who led the research. ‘Importantly we discovered elephants not only flee from the buzzing sound but make a unique ‘rumbling’ call as well as shaking their heads.’

The team then looked to isolate the specific acoustic qualities associated with this rumbling call and played the sounds back to the elephants to confirm that the recorded call triggered the elephants’ decision to flee even when there was no buzzing and no sign of any bees.

‘We tested this hypothesis using both an original recording of the call, a recording identical to this but with the frequency shifted so it resembled a typical response to white noise, and another elephant rumble as a control,’ said King. ‘The results were dramatic: six out of ten elephant families fled from the loud speaker when we played the ‘bee rumble’ compared to just two when we played a control rumble and one with the frequency-shifted call. Moreover, we also found that the elephants moved away much further when they heard the ‘bee’ alarm call than the other rumbles.’

The researchers believe such calls may be an emotional response to a threat, a way to coordinate group movements and warn nearby elephants – or even a way of teaching inexperienced and vulnerable young elephants to beware. Further work is needed to confirm whether the rumble call is used for other kinds of threats, not just bees.

‘The calls also give tantalising clues that elephants may produce different sounds in the same way that humans produce different vowels, by altering the position of their tongues and lips,’ said Dr Joseph Soltis of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. ‘It’s even possible that, rather like with human language, this enables them to give superficially similar-sounding calls very different meanings.’

Earlier Oxford University research found that elephants avoid bee hives in the wild and will also flee from the recorded sound of angry bees. In 2009 a pilot study led by King showed that a fence made out of beehives wired together significantly reduced crop raids by elephants. The team hopes that the new findings could help develop new ways to defuse potential conflicts between humans and elephants.

Despite their thick hides adult elephants can be stung around their eyes or up their trunks, whilst calves could potentially be killed by a swarm of stinging bees as they have yet to develop this thick protective skin.

Further Information

Dr Susan Cheyne and Klara Wanelik are involved with the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Research Project.

The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Research Project works to protect one of the most important areas of tropical rainforest in Borneo – the Sabangau Forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. We monitor the distribution, population status, behaviour and ecology of the forest’s flagship ape species – the orangutan and agile gibbon – carry out biodiversity and forestry research, provide scientific feedback to conservation managers, and work with our local partners to implement successful conservation programmes. Our research and volunteer program has been running since 2001 and is a focus for local conservation efforts, providing much-needed employment and financial benefits for the local community and replacing illegal logging as the main activity and source of income in the northern Sabangau Forest.
www.orangutantrop.com

Lake Tanganyika, the second oldest and the second-deepest lake in the world, could be in for some rough waters.

Geologists led by Brown University have determined the east African rift lake has experienced unprecedented warming during the last century, and its surface waters are the warmest on record. That finding is important, the scientists write in the journal Nature Geoscience, because the warm surface waters likely will affect fish stocks upon which millions of people in the region depend.

The team took core samples from the lakebed that laid out a 1,500-year history of the lake’s surface temperature. The data showed the lake’s surface temperature, 26 degrees Celsius (78.8°F), last measured in 2003, is the warmest the lake has been for a millennium and a half. The team also documented that Lake Tanganyika experienced its biggest temperature change in the 20th century, which has affected its unique ecosystem that relies upon the natural conveyance of nutrients from the depths to jumpstart the food chain upon which the fish survive.

“Our data show a consistent relationship between lake surface temperature and productivity (such as fish stocks),” said Jessica Tierney, a Brown graduate student who this spring earned her Ph.D. and is the paper’s lead author. “As the lake gets warmer, we expect productivity to decline, and we expect that it will affect the [fishing] industry.”

The research grew out of two coring expeditions sponsored by the Nyanza Project in 2001 and 2004. Cores were taken by Andrew Cohen, professor of geological sciences at the University of Arizona and director of the Nyanza project, and James Russell, professor of geological sciences at Brown, who is also Tierney’s adviser.

Lake Tanganyika is bordered by Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia — four of the poorest countries in the world, according to the United Nations Human Development Index. An estimated 10 million people live near the lake, and they depend upon it for drinking water and for food. Fishing is a crucial component for the region’s diet and livelihood: Up to 200,000 tons of sardines and four other fish species are harvested annually from Lake Tanganyika, a haul that makes up a significant portion of local residents’ diets, according to a 2001 report by the Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Project.

Lake Tanganyika, one of the richest freshwater ecosystems in the world, is divided into two general levels. Most of the animal species live in the upper 100 meters, including the valuable sardines. Below that, the lake holds less and less oxygen, and at certain depths, it is anoxic, meaning it has no oxygen at all. What this all means is the lake is highly stratified and depends on wind to churn the waters and send nutrients from the depths toward the surface as food for algae, which supports the entire food web of the lake. But as Lake Tanganyika warms, the mixing of waters is lessened, the scientists find, meaning less nutrients are funneled from the depths toward the surface. Worse, more warming at the surface magnifies the difference in density between the two levels; even more wind is needed to churn the waters enough to ferry the nutrients toward the fish-dwelling upper layer.

The researchers’ data show that during the last 1,500 years, intervals of prolonged warming and cooling are linked with low and high algal productivity, respectively, indicating a clear link between past temperature changes and biological productivity in the lake.

“The people throughout southcentral Africa depend on the fish from Lake Tanganyika as a crucial source of protein,” noted Cohen, an author on the paper. “This resource is likely threatened by the lake’s unprecedented warming since the late 19th century and the associated loss of lake productivity.”

Climate change models show a general warming in the region, which, if accurate, would cause even greater warming of the Lake Tanganyika’s surface waters and more stratification in the lake as a whole. “So, as you move forward, you can imagine that density gradient increasing,” said Russell, an author on the paper.

Some researchers have posited that the declining fish stocks in Lake Tanganyika can be attributed mainly to overfishing, and Tierney and Russell say that may be a reason. But they note that the warming in the lake, and the lessened mixing of critical nutrients is exacerbating the stocks’ decline, if not causing it in the first place. “It’s almost impossible for it not to,” Russell said.

Other authors on the paper are Brown graduates Marc Mayes and Natacha Meyer; Christopher Johnson at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Peter Swarzenski, with the United States Geological Survey. The National Science Foundation and the Nyanza Project funded the research.

Two new stud­ies of­fer rare glimpses in­to how chim­panzees deal with the deaths of those clos­est to them, sci­en­tists say.

Chimps’ “aware­ness of death is prob­ably more highly de­vel­oped than is of­ten sug­gested. It may be re­lat­ed to their sense of self-awareness, shown through phe­nom­e­na such as self-recognition and em­pa­thy,” said said James An­der­son of the Uni­vers­ity of Stir­ling in the U.K., who col­la­bo­rat­ed in one of the stud­ies.

In that re­search, An­der­son and col­leagues de­scribed the fi­nal hours and death of an old­er fe­male chimp liv­ing in a small group at a U.K. sa­fa­ri park as cap­tured on vid­e­o. In the oth­er stu­dy, sci­en­tists watched as two chimp moth­ers in the wild car­ried their in­fants’ mum­mi­fied re­mains for weeks af­ter they were lost to an ill­ness.

Re­search­ers have posted vid­e­os from both stud­ies on­line. Both stud­ies are pub­lished in the April 27 is­sue of the jour­nal Cur­rent Bi­ol­o­gy.

Few have wit­nessed chimps’ re­sponse at the mo­ment a mem­ber of their group dies, An­der­son said. Moth­er chimps have been known to car­ry their dead in­fants, he noted, and some ob­servers have seen the com­mo­tion that fol­lows when an adult chimp is lost to some sort of sud­den trau­ma.

“In con­trast to the fren­zied, noisy re­sponses to trau­matic adult deaths, the chim­panzees wit­ness­ing the fe­male’s death in our case were mostly calm,” An­der­son said.

In the days lead­ing up to the old­er chim­p’s death, the group was very qui­et and paid close at­ten­tion to her, the re­search­ers re­port. Right be­fore she died, she re­ceived much groom­ing and ca­ress­ing from the oth­ers, who seemed to test her for signs of life as she died. They left her soon af­ter, but her adult daugh­ter re­turned and re­mained by her moth­er all night, sci­en­tists said. When keep­ers re­moved the moth­er’s body the next day, the chim­panzees re­mained sub­dued and stayed that way for some time. For sev­er­al days they avoided sleep­ing on the plat­form where the fe­male had died, though it was nor­mally a fa­vored sleep­ing spot.

“In gen­er­al, we found sev­er­al si­m­i­lar­i­ties be­tween the chim­panzees’ be­hav­ior to­ward the dy­ing fe­male, and their be­hav­ior af­ter her death, and some re­ac­tions of hu­mans when faced with the de­mise of an eld­erly group mem­ber or rel­a­tive,” An­der­son said.

In the sec­ond stu­dy, Do­ra Bi­ro of the Uni­vers­ity of Ox­ford and her col­leagues wit­nessed the deaths of five mem­bers, in­clud­ing two in­fants, of a sem­i-i­so­lat­ed chimp com­mun­ity that re­search­ers have been stu­dying for over three dec­ades in forests around Bossou, Guin­ea.

“We ob­served the deaths of two young in­fants—both from a flu-like res­pi­ra­to­ry ail­ment,” Bi­ro said. “In each case, our ob­serva­t­ions showed a re­mark­a­ble re­sponse by chim­pan­zee moth­ers to the death of their in­fants: they con­tin­ued to car­ry the corpses for weeks, even months, fol­low­ing death.”

In that time, the corpses mum­mi­fied com­plete­ly, and the moth­ers showed care of the bod­ies rem­i­nis­cent of their treat­ment of live in­fants: they car­ried them ever­ywhere dur­ing their daily ac­ti­vi­ties, groomed them, and took them in­to their day and night nests dur­ing rest times, Bi­ro said. Over this ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od, they al­so be­gan to “let go” of the in­fants grad­u­al­ly, Bi­ro added. They al­lowed oth­er group mem­bers to han­dle them more and more often and tolerat­ed long­er pe­ri­ods of separa­t­ion from them, in­clud­ing in­stances where oth­er in­fants and ju­ve­niles were al­lowed to car­ry off and play with the corpses.

Oth­er group mem­bers showed some in­ter­est in the bod­ies, and al­most none showed any aver­sion to­ward the corpses, ac­cord­ing to Bi­ro and col­leagues. She not­ed that a mem­ber of her team made very si­m­i­lar ob­serva­t­ions fol­low­ing the death of one chim­pan­zee in­fant in Bossou back in 1992.

“Chim­panzees are hu­mans’ clos­est ev­o­lu­tion­ary rel­a­tives, and they have al­ready been shown to re­sem­ble us in many of their cog­ni­tive func­tions: they em­pa­thize with oth­ers, have a sense of fair­ness, and can co­op­er­ate to achieve goals,” Bi­ro said. “How they per­ceive death is a fas­ci­nat­ing ques­tion, and lit­tle da­ta ex­ist so far” con­cern­ing it.

“Our ob­serva­t­ions con­firm the ex­istence of an ex­tremely pow­er­ful bond be­tween moth­ers and their off­spring which can per­sist, re­mark­ably, even af­ter the death of the in­fant, and they fur­ther call for ef­forts to elu­ci­date the ex­tent to which chim­panzees un­der­stand and are af­fect­ed by the death of a close rel­a­tive or group-mate. This would both have im­plica­t­ions for our un­der­standing of the ev­o­lu­tion­ary ori­gins of hu­man per­cep­tions of death and pro­vide in­sights in­to the way chim­panzees in­ter­pret the world around them.”

A 95-million-year-old am­ber de­pos­it is adding new­found fun­gus, in­sects, spi­ders, nem­a­tode worms, and bac­te­ria to the por­trait of an an­cient ec­o­sys­tem al­so shared by di­no­saurs, sci­en­tists say.

Am­ber is hard­ened, fos­sil­ized tree sap whose glassy, jewel-like and yel­low­ish form of­ten con­tains small crea­tures trapped from the time of its or­i­gin and pre­served nearly per­fect­ly.

The new­found de­pos­it, dat­ed to the Cre­ta­ceous era that was the last ma­jor pe­ri­od of the di­no­saurs, is re­ported to be the first ma­jor dis­cov­ery of its kind from Af­ri­ca.

The find­ing may al­so pro­vide in­sights in­to the rise and di­ver­sifica­t­ion of flow­er­ing plants dur­ing the Cre­ta­ceous, re­search­ers say. A re­port by 20 sci­en­tists on the dis­cov­ery, in the cur­rent is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Pro­ceed­ings of the Na­tional Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, re­con­structs an an­cient trop­i­cal for­est un­cov­ered in pre­s­ent-day Ethi­o­pia.

“Un­til now, we had discov­ered vir­tu­ally no Cre­ta­ceous am­ber sites from the south­ern hemi­sphere’s Gond­wanan su­per­con­ti­nent, a land mass that in­clud­ed mod­ern Af­ri­ca, said re­search group mem­ber Paul Nascim­bene of the Amer­i­can Mu­se­um of Nat­u­ral His­to­ry in New York. “Sig­nif­i­cant Cre­ta­ceous am­ber de­pos­its had been found pri­marily in North Amer­i­ca and Eura­sia.”

“The first an­giosperms, or flow­er­ing plants, ap­peared and di­ver­si­fied in the Cre­ta­ceous,” added Al­ex­an­der Schmidt of the Uni­vers­ity of Göt­tin­gen in Ger­ma­ny, an­oth­er of the in­ves­ti­ga­tors. “Their rise to dom­i­nance dras­tic­ally changed ter­res­tri­al ec­o­sys­tems, and the Ethi­o­pi­an am­ber de­pos­it sheds light on this time of change.”

While some of the au­thors worked on the ge­o­log­i­cal set­ting and the fos­sils en­tombed with­in the am­ber, Nascim­bene, with Ken­neth An­der­son of South­ern Il­li­nois Uni­vers­ity, stud­ied the am­ber it­self. They found that the res­in that seeped from these Cre­ta­ceous Gond­wanan trees is si­m­i­lar chem­ic­ally to more re­cent am­bers from flow­er­ing plants in Mi­o­cene de­pos­its found in Mex­i­co and the Do­min­i­can Re­pub­lic. The am­ber’s chem­ical de­signa­t­ion is Class Ic, and it is the only Ic fos­sil res­in discov­ered thus far from the Cre­ta­ceous. All oth­er doc­u­mented Cre­ta­ceous am­bers are from non-flow­er­ing plants, or gym­nosperms.

“The tree that pro­duced the sap is still un­known, but the am­ber’s chem­is­try is sur­pris­ingly very much like that of a group of more re­cent New World an­giosperms [flow­er­ing plants] called Hy­menaea,” says Nascim­bene. “This am­ber could be from an early an­gi­o­sperm or a previously-unknown co­ni­fer that is quite dis­tinct from the oth­er known Cre­ta­ceous am­ber-producing gym­nosperms.”

Oth­er team mem­bers discov­ered 30 in­sects and spi­ders trapped in the am­ber from thir­teen fam­i­lies of or­gan­isms. These fos­sils rep­re­sent some of the ear­li­est Af­ri­can fos­sil records for a va­ri­e­ty of types, in­clud­ing wasps, bark­lice, moths, bee­tles, a prim­i­tive ant, a rare in­sect called a zorapte­ran, and a sheet-web weav­ing spi­der. Par­a­sit­ic fun­gi that lived on the trees were al­so found, as well as fil­a­ments of bac­te­ria and the re­mains of flow­er­ing plants and ferns.

Queen ants who have to compete for dominance of a colony may act selfishly to promote their survival, but scientists have discovered that they are rigorously honest when declaring their status to potentially murderous workers. The research, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, may have interesting wider implications in terms of the evolution of cooperative behaviour.

In some ant species, several queen ants work together to begin a new colony, each raising broods of workers until there are enough ants to form a viable colony. However, the worker ants cannot tolerate joint sovereignty and ultimately kill the queens until only one remains. Luke Holman and his team based at the University of Copenhagen aimed to discover whether queen ants prepare for this attack in any way and if so, what the best strategy might be.

Workers tend to prefer to spare the lives of queens who produce larger broods, identifying the more productive queens via chemical signals. However, productivity comes at a cost: producing a larger brood makes a queen weaker and less able to survive the onslaught of murderous workers when the time comes. The researchers discovered that when placed in direct competition against each other, queens would always produce smaller broods and save their strength for the final battle against the observers.

This is a “selfish” strategy on the part of the queens because producing smaller broods will ultimately mean that the colony as a whole is weaker, although their individual chance for survival might be increased. However, it also seems to be an inherently paradoxical behaviour: given that worker ants can readily identify unproductive individuals, it would seem that the additional strength gained by producing a smaller brood is likely to lose any selective advantage.

One way of getting round this would be for queen ants to produce smaller broods and then cheat the worker ants by producing a false chemical signal to fool them into thinking that they had been more productive than they appear. However, the scientists found no sign of cheaters, suggesting that even in a potentially life-threatening situation, honesty is the best policy. The research may even have significance beyond ant colonies – the question of how cooperation evolved is a hot topic and the authors suggest that “punishment and honest signalling may be universally important”.

Will 2010 be the warmest year on record? How do the recent U.S. “Snowmageddon” winter storms and record low temperatures in Europe fit into the bigger picture of long-term global warming?

NASA has launched a new web page to help people better understand the causes and effects of Earth’s changing climate.

The new “A Warming World” page hosts a series of new articles, videos, data visualizations, space-based imagery and interactive visuals that provide unique NASA perspectives on this topic of global importance.

The page includes feature articles that explore the recent Arctic winter weather that has gripped the United States, Europe and Asia, and how El Nino and other longer-term ocean-atmosphere phenomena may affect global temperatures this year and in the future. A new video, “Piecing Together the Temperature Puzzle,” illustrates how NASA satellites monitor climate change and help scientists better understand how our complex planet works.

The new web page is available on NASA’s Global Climate Change Web site
at:
http://climate.nasa.gov/warmingworld

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov

Giant plankton-eating fishes roamed the prehistoric seas for over 100 million years before they were wiped out in the same event that killed off the dinosaurs, new fossil evidence has shown.

An international team describe how new fossils from Asia, Europe and the US reveal a previously unknown dynasty of giant plankton-eating bony fishes that filled the seas of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, between 66-172 million years ago.

The team report their findings in this week’s Science.

‘Today’s giant plankton-feeders – such as baleen whales, basking sharks and manta rays – include the largest living vertebrate animals, so the fact that creatures of this kind were missing from the fossil record for hundreds of millions of years was always a mystery,’ said Dr Matt Friedman of Oxford University’s Department of Earth Sciences, an author of the report. ‘We used to think that the seas were free of big filter feeders during the age of dinosaurs, but our discoveries reveal that a dynasty of giant fishes filled this ecological role in the ancient oceans for more than 100 million years.’

Several of the most important new fossils came from deposits in Kansas in the USA, with other remains from as far afield as Dorset and Kent in the UK, and Japan. Some members of this filter-feeding fish group are estimated to have been up to 9 metres long, a similar size to modern plankton-eating giants such as the basking shark.

‘One of the reasons these big fishes were overlooked or misidentified lies in their anatomy,’ said Dr Friedman. ‘Over their evolutionary history, these fishes reduced the amount of bone in their skeletons, probably to save weight, with the consequence that most of their hard parts were easily scattered after death. As it turns out, the only parts you routinely find in the fossil record are their well-developed forefins.’

With few clues to go on, palaeontologists had argued that the owner of these isolated fins looked something like the modern-day swordfish. This changed when some of Dr Friedman’s colleagues began cleaning a fossil that preserved skull bones along with the fins.

Dr Friedman said: ‘Instead of finding a head with a long sword-like snout and jaws lined with predatory fangs, they found something completely different: long, toothless jaws supporting a gaping mouth, and long, rod-like bones that contributed to the huge gill arches needed to filter out enormous quantities of tiny plankton.’ The team named this fish Bonnerichthys, honouring the Kansas family who discovered the fossil.

Remains of similar giant plankton-eating fishes had been known from much older rocks, but they were thought to be a short-lived and unsuccessful evolutionary experiment. ‘As soon as we recognised that these animals had a longer history than anyone thought, I started examining museum collections and found more examples that had been overlooked or misidentified,’ explained Dr Friedman. Revisiting previously collected fossils netted the team evidence that these fishes thrived for millions of years and colonised many parts of the globe.

Intriguingly the ancestors of large modern filter-feeders such as baleen whales and whale sharks only appeared after the extinction of Bonnerichthys and its relatives, suggesting that today’s filter-feeders evolved to fill the ecological niche left behind by these plankton-eating contemporaries of the dinosaurs.

The research team consisted of scientists from Oxford University (UK), DePaul University, Chicago (US), Fort Hays State University, Kansas (US), University of Kansas (US), University of Glasgow (UK), and Triebold Paleontology Inc & Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Centre, Colorado (US).

For more information contact Dr Matt Friedman on +44 (0)1865 272035 or email matt.friedman@earth.ox.ac.uk

Re­li­gion evolved as a byprod­uct of pre-existing men­tal ca­pa­ci­ties, and not be­cause it ful­filled a spe­cif­ic func­tion of its own—though it can fa­cil­i­tate coop­era­t­ion in so­ci­e­ty, a study con­cludes.

Why re­li­gion emerged among early hu­mans re­mains a source of con­ten­tion among schol­ars. Many sci­en­tists be­lieve re­li­gion is ul­ti­mately based in the brain, but that still leaves un­clear how and why these be­hav­iors orig­i­nat­ed and how they may have been shaped dur­ing ev­o­lu­tion. Some arch­aeo­logists think re­li­gion came about partly as a stra­tegy by some peo­ple to grab pow­er, sim­ply by claim­ing some sort of se­cret know­ledge.

The new stu­dy, pub­lished Feb. 8 in the re­search jour­nal Trends in Cog­ni­tive Sci­ences, takes a some­what diff­er­ent track, ex­plor­ing the link be­tween mor­al­ity and re­li­gion.

“Some schol­ars claim that re­li­gion evolved as an adapta­t­ion to solve the prob­lem of coop­era­t­ion among ge­net­ic­ally un­re­lat­ed in­di­vid­u­als, while oth­ers pro­pose that re­li­gion emerged as a by-prod­uct of pre-existing cog­ni­tive ca­pa­ci­ties,” said study co-author Ilkka Pyysi­ainen of the Hel­sin­ki Col­le­gi­um for Ad­vanced Stud­ies in Fin­land.

Pyysi­ainen and a co-author, ev­o­lu­tion­ary psy­chol­o­gist Marc Hauser Har­vard Uni­vers­ity, re­viewed the two com­pet­ing the­o­ries us­ing the prin­ci­ples of what they call ex­pe­ri­men­tal mor­al psy­chol­o­gy.

“Re­li­gion is linked to mor­al­ity in dif­fer­ent ways,” said Hauser. “For some, there is no mor­al­ity with­out re­li­gion, while oth­ers see re­li­gion as merely one way of ex­press­ing one’s mor­al in­tu­itions.” But past stud­ies, the au­thors said, show that peo­ple of dif­fer­ing re­li­gion or no re­li­gion show si­m­i­lar mor­al judg­ments when asked to com­ment on un­fa­mil­iar mor­al dilem­mas. That sug­gests in­tu­i­tive judg­ments of right and wrong work in­de­pend­ently of ex­plic­it re­li­gious com­mit­ments, the re­search­ers ar­gued.

“This sup­ports the the­o­ry that re­li­gion did not orig­i­nally emerge as a bi­o­log­i­cal adapta­t­ion for coop­era­t­ion, but evolved as a sep­a­rate by-prod­uct of pre-existing cog­ni­tive func­tions that evolved from non-re­li­gious func­tions,” said Pyysi­ainen. “How­ever, al­though it ap­pears as if coop­era­t­ion is made pos­si­ble by men­tal mech­a­nisms that are not spe­cif­ic to re­li­gion, re­li­gion can play a role in fa­cil­i­tating and sta­bi­liz­ing coop­era­t­ion be­tween groups.”

This might help to ex­plain the com­plex as­socia­t­ion be­tween mor­al­ity and re­li­gion, the sci­en­tists added. “It seems that in many cul­tures re­li­gious con­cepts and be­liefs have be­come the stand­ard way of con­cep­tu­al­ mor­al in­tu­itions. Al­though, as we dis­cuss in our pa­per, this link is not a nec­es­sary one, many peo­ple have be­come so ac­cus­tomed to us­ing it, that crit­i­cism tar­geted at re­li­gion is ex­perienced as a fun­da­men­tal threat to our mor­al ex­is­tence,” said Hauser.

Governments from across Asia’s tiger range countries (TRCs) sent a powerful message that new efforts to save wild tigers from extinction would begin immediately and called for total protection of critical tiger habitats as the 1st Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation concluded today at the resort of Hua Hin, Thailand.

The Royal Government of Thailand hosted the meeting. Thailand’s Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Suwit Khunkitti pointed to commitments in the Hua Hin Declaration, and urged other TRCs to follow through with consolidated technical recommendations that resulted from an earlier meeting in Kathmandu on tiger conservation: “We shall reach up to the highest levels of our governments for support at the Year of the Tiger Heads of State Summit in Russia. Let us join together boldly to save the wild tiger.”

Thailand made a number of new commitments at the conference:

• Expansion of its SMART wildlife area patrolling program in its Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM) at Huai Kha Khaeng-Thung Yai
• Assistance to its neighbor countries to repatriate tigers when the population of tigers in WEFCOM and Kaeng Krachan/Kuiburi becomes large enough to act as a donor source
• Announcement that it would make funding for the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network a permanent item in its budget

Seven ministers, along with senior delegations from 13 tiger range countries, gathered with top wildlife conservation experts and representatives from international organizations and donor institutions such as the World Bank, Global Tiger Initiative, WWF, Save the Tiger Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society, USAID, FREELAND, and TRAFFIC, to energize the wildlife conservation agenda, update national action plans, and announce specific proposals to reverse the continuing decline of tiger populations.

President of the World Bank Group Robert B. Zoellick, who launched the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI) in June 2008 together with the Smithsonian Institution, Global Environment Facility, and other partners, delivered a video message to the ministers and delegations, promising support for the range countries’ efforts and to spearhead sustainable development in Asia: “The World Bank stands ready to support regional projects in the tiger range countries and to mobilize the donor community and develop innovative financial instruments to support tiger conservation funds.”

Populations of wild tigers have declined to only 3,200 worldwide, according to latest estimates, from 100,000 a century ago. The GTI is one of the drivers of the World Bank’s commitment to new strategies that balance economic development with nature conservation, biodiversity and environmental protection.

Another significant development in Thailand came from Prime Minister Vladmir Putin and the Government of the Russian Federation, who officially announced plans to host the Heads of State Summit in September.

The Hua Hin Declaration reflected agreement among the TRCs to redouble efforts on the ground to halt the decline of tigers and assist in recovery of habitats. An international donor conference is also planned later this year to support the countries to bring increased resources for integrated game-changing policy to save the species from extinction.

Michael Baltzer, Leader of WWF’s Tiger Initiative, said: “We are delighted to see a ray of hope for the tiger as represented by the tiger range countries’ commitment to work together to double wild tiger numbers by 2022. We look forward to seeing their pledges turn into firm actions in Vladivostok.”

All 13 tiger range countries were represented in Hua Hin. They include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

New research suggests that animals living at high latitudes grow better than their counterparts closer to the equator because higher-latitude vegetation is more nutritious. The study, published in the February issue of The American Naturalist, presents a novel explanation for Bergmann’s Rule, the observation that animals tend to be bigger at higher latitudes.

Ever since Christian Bergmann made his observation about latitude and size in 1847, scientists have been trying to explain it. The traditional explanation is that body temperature is the driving force. Because larger animals have less surface area compared to overall body mass, they don’t lose heat as readily as smaller animals. That would give big animals an advantage at high latitudes where temperatures are generally colder.

But biologist Chuan-Kai Ho from Texas A&M University wondered if there might be another explanation. Might plants at higher latitudes be more nutritious, enabling the animals that eat those plants to grow bigger?

To answer that question, Ho along with colleagues Steven Pennings from the University of Houston and Thomas Carefoot from the University of British Columbia, devised a series of lab experiments. They raised several groups of juvenile planthoppers on a diet of cordgrass, which was collected from high to low latitudes. Ho and his team then measured the body sizes of the planthopppers when they reached maturity. They found that the planthoppers that fed the high-latitude grass grew larger than those fed low latitude grass.

The researchers performed similar experiments using two other plant-eating species—grasshoppers and sea snails. “All three species grew better when fed plants from high versus low latitudes,” Ho said. “These results showed part of the explanation for Bergmann’s rule could be that plants from high latitudes are better food than plants from low latitudes.” Although this explanation applies only to herbivores, Ho explained that predators might also grow larger as a consequence of eating larger herbivores.

“We don’t think that this is the only explanation for Bergmann’s rule,” Ho added. “But we do think that studies of Bergmann’s rule should consider ecological interactions in addition to mechanisms based on physiological responses to temperature.”

It’s not known why the higher-latitude plants might be more nutritious. But research in Pennings’s lab at the University of Houston offers a clue. Pennings has shown that plants at low latitudes suffer more damage from herbivores than those at higher latitudes. Ho and Pennings suggest that perhaps lower nutrition and increased chemical defenses are a response to higher pressure from herbivores.

Going about their day-to-day business, bees have no need to be able to recognise human faces. Yet in 2005, when Adrian Dyer from Monash University trained the fascinating insects to associate pictures of human faces with tasty sugar snacks, they seemed to be able to do just that. But Martin Giurfa from the Universite de Toulouse, France, suspected that that the bees weren’t learning to recognise people. ‘Because the insects were rewarded with a drop of sugar when they chose human photographs, what they really saw were strange flowers. The important question was what strategy do they use to discriminate between faces,’ explains Giurfa. Wondering whether the insects might be learning the relative arrangement (configuration) of features on a face, Giurfa contacted Dyer and suggested that they go about systematically testing which features a bee learned to recognise to keep them returning to Dyer’s face photos. The team publish their discovery that bees can learn to recognise the arrangement of human facial features on 29 January 2010 in the Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.

Teaming up with Aurore Avargues-Weber, the team first tested whether the bees could learn to distinguish between simple face-like images. Using faces that were made up of two dots for eyes, a short vertical dash for a nose and a longer horizontal line for a mouth, Avargues-Weber trained individual bees to distinguish between a face where the features were cramped together and another where the features were set apart. Having trained the bee to visit one of the two faces by rewarding it with a weak sugar solution, she tested whether it recognised the pattern by taking away the sugar reward and waiting to see if the bee returned to the correct face. It did.

So the bees could learn to distinguish patterns that were organised like faces, but could they learn to ‘categorise’ faces? Could the insects be trained to classify patterns as face-like versus non-face like, and could they decide that an image that they had not seen before belonged to one class or the other? To answer these questions, Avargues-Weber trained the bees by showing them five pairs of different images, where one image was always a face and the other a pattern of dots and dashes. Bees were always rewarded with sugar when they visited the face while nothing was offered by the non-face pattern. Having trained the bees that ‘face-like’ images gave them a reward, she showed the bees a completely fresh pair of images that they had not seen before to see if the bees could pick out the face-like picture. Remarkably they did. The bees were able to learn the face images, not because they know what a face is but because they had learned the relative arrangement and order of the features.

But how robust was the bees’ ability to process the ‘face’s’ visual information? How would the bees cope with more complex faces? This time the team embedded the stick and dot faces in face-shaped photographs. Would the bees be able to learn the arrangements of the features against the backgrounds yet recognise the same stick and dot face when the face photo was removed? Amazingly the insects did, and when the team tried scrambling real faces by moving the relative positions of the eyes, nose and mouth, the bees no longer recognised the images as faces and treated them like unknown patterns.

So bees do seem to be able to recognise face-like patterns, but this does not mean that they can learn to recognise individual humans. They learn the relative arrangements of features that happen to make up a face-like pattern and they may use this strategy to learn about and recognise different objects in their environment.

What is really amazing is that an insect with a microdot-sized brain can handle this type of image analysis when we have entire regions of brain dedicated to the problem. Giurfa explains that if we want to design automatic facial recognition systems, we could learn a lot by using the bees’ approach to face recognition.

Article Credit: Science Centric

A team of researchers including scientists from the University of Florida has shown insect colonies follow some of the same biological “rules” as individuals, a finding that suggests insect societies operate like a single “superorganism” in terms of their physiology and life cycle.

For more than a century, biologists have marveled at the highly cooperative nature of ants, bees and other social insects that work together to determine the survival and growth of a colony.

The social interactions are much like cells working together in a single body, hence the term “superorganism” — an organism comprised of many organisms, according to James Gillooly, an assistant professor in the department of biology at UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Now, researchers from UF, the University of Oklahoma and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have taken the same mathematical models that predict lifespan, growth and reproduction in individual organisms and used them to predict these features in whole colonies.

By analyzing data from 168 different social insect species including ants, termites, bees and wasps, the authors found that the lifespan, growth rates and rates of reproduction of whole colonies when considered as superorganisms were nearly indistinguishable from individual organisms.

The findings will be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This PNAS paper regarding the energetic basis of colonial living in social insects is notable for its originality and also for its importance,” said Edward O. Wilson, a professor of biology at Harvard University and co-author of the book “The Super-Organism,” who was not involved in the research. “The research certainly adds a new perspective to our study of how insect societies are organized and to what degree they are organized.”

The study may also help scientists understand how social systems have arisen through natural selection — the process by which evolution occurs. The evolution of social systems of insects in particular, where sterile workers live only to help the queen reproduce, has long been a mystery, Gillooly said.

“In life, two of the major evolutionary innovations have been how cells came together to function as a single organism, and how individuals joined together to function as a society,” said Gillooly, who is a member of the UF Genetics Institute. “Relatively speaking, we understand a considerable amount about how the size of multicellular organisms affects the life cycle of individuals based on metabolic theory, but now we are showing this same theoretical framework helps predict the life cycle of whole societies of organisms.”

Researchers note that insect societies make up a large fraction of the total biomass on Earth, and say the finding may have implications for human societies.

“Certainly one of the reasons folks have been interested in social insects and the consequences of living in groups is that it tells us about our own species,” said study co-author Michael Kaspari, a presidential professor of zoology, ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Oklahoma and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “There is currently a vigorous debate on how sociality evolved. We suggest that any theory of sociality be consistent with the amazing convergence in the way nonsocial and social organisms use energy.”

In addition to Gillooly and Kaspari, Chen Hou from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Hannah B. Vander Zanden of the University of Florida participated in the study.