How did Animals Evolve to Live in Colonies?
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- Опубліковано 7 сер 2024
- Animals will often fight in order to pass on their genes but there is one exception to this rule, animals that live in colonies. These animals usually have one mother that they aid in their reproductive success. So why do they function so differently to almost any other creatures in nature.
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Imagine being part of the monogamous hypothesis and devoting your life to helping your mom get laid
Lol
Humans have already done this. In traditional families, it is normal for the children to help their parents with chores until they are mature and move out, is it not? The children are not helping their mother get laid (she is already married to their father), but their labor helps support themselves and their siblings, thereby increasing their parents' genetic success.
That's how Justin Trudeau does.
And taking care of all the annoying babies she kept pumping out.
Pipping for mother.
This reminds me of the evolution of menopause. The idea of siblings being another way of passing your genes is believed to be a reason Orcas go through menopause. If the grandmother focuses instead on the success of her grandchildren, there's a better chance of her genes continuing to spread than having her own child. There is less competition for resources that way and the grandchildren are more likely to survive.
It's also hypothesized to be the reason why being gay wasn't selected against.
@@runakovacs4759 can you explain further please
@@cookie-nzl8940 Basically.
Imagine you've a large amount of children.
If each child has a child of their own, your tribe will suffer in terms of resources. Now, some won't have any luck with the opposite gender/sex even if they're cishets.
However, those who aren't even interested in reproductive sex (ace and homosexual people) will be guaranteed to be able to help their siblings raise their children, or otherwise benefit the tribe through added adult manpower.
Therefore, individuals who are not capable of reproduction can help their parents' genes pass on through siblings due to added support.
@@runakovacs4759 coz other animals aren't retarded like SOME humans
@@dv9239 Hey, just wanted to let you know that the r word is considered a slur. I know I grew up using it without thinking anything of it but it can be quite hurtful and harmful.
it was really nice when the armadilloe came out from underground I like armadilloes
: ) good for you dude
This dudes definitely high!
@@Dss-bm3rz he likes armadillos
nice amount of likes you got **nice**
You're awesome.
2:18
"Where do you work out?"
"At the library."
I didn't know about the shrimp! I want to learn more about them
Same
There's also eusocial thrips and aphids.
@@Refty Also a somewhat close relative of naked mole-rats, which have hair (Damaraland mole-rat), as well as a species of weevil, which is a beetle, so there are eusocial hairy rodents and beetles, which is pretty cool.
While everyone knows about termites being eusocial, what some people might not know is that they are essentially cockroaches, so there is a whole group of eusocial cockroaches too.
I wanna learn more about them through my mouth
Ditto.
9:47 An example of this is the avocado. It evolved to disperse its large seeds through the guts of prehistoric megafauna, which all died out by 10,000 years ago. But it was able to live on thanks to human domestication!
I must confess. I had never given this particular subject any thought before. Life can be a very odd character. :)
Indeed
@@mothlightmedia1936 love your work and style. Do you believe in R/k selection theory?
This video was chosen by my awesome patrons, if you would like to offer suggestions for the next poll leave them below.
Is your patron Ken Ham the Ken Ham from answers in genesis or a different Ken Ham
@@drew1613 There is only one true Ken Ham, because he doesn't believe in speciation
I believe you misspoke at 5:20. You said Hymenoptera share 50% of their DNA with their mother. I believe you meant they share 50% DNA with their father. This would make more sense with the diagram and with the idea that Hymenoptera propagate more of their DNA when they help their mother reproduce.
I do enjoy, probably a bit too much, this type of content and I like the way this channel handles it, the style of presentation, the amount of research and the production quality in general.
With that out of the way, I'd like to point out that at 5:21 the animation seems to suggest that a female of the species inherits half of the genetic code of the (aploid) father and 75% of the (diploid) mother.
The thing is that they inherit 100% of the genetic code from the (aploid) father, and 50% of the mother.
The paternal genetic material is exactly the same for all his offspring, since males have only one copy of DNA and there can't be recombination.
So to summarize, a female shares with her female siblings an exact copy of paternal DNA(which is 50% of their DNA) and on average half of the maternal DNA for a total 75% on average.
Edit: in the previous version of the comment I said that if "the female inherits half of the genetic code of the (aploid) father and 75% of the (diploid) mother [...] the siblings would still be, on average, 50% related." That is not correct. It would be indeed 75%. It just not how it works. I'm surprised nobody corrected me on that :P
I pinned your comment so people know
@@mothlightmedia1936 I feel important now :3
Wait but how does that work if they are supposed to share 50% of their DNA with their mother how would they share 75% of the DNA with their siblings?
@@Johnny-se6je the 75% share was in reference to her [female] siblings
@@SoulDelSol Yeah okay but how do they share 75% of the DNA with their siblings but 50% with their mother and father.
Ants developed agriculture before bald apes. Don’t simply reject humanity, reject monke and vertebraa, become ant.
I agree.
So... Reject individualsim
@@trla6505 Yes, individualism brings dread to existence. True happiness can only be achieved by collectivism.
@@theastrogoth8624 Stalin aprrobe
y e s
That ant-fungus relationship is mind blowing!
Think about ants farming aphids
I always wondered about this myself. I always figured that the individual wasps and bees must have found a reason to evolve to become colonial. The protection of resources as a group seems a very plausible reason.
I also love the Co-evolution part. It reminds me of the Mitochondria. How basically one strand of DNA was absorved millions of years ago by a cell and it became a part of it, allowing to grow into more complex constructs. Cooperation and evolving together seems to be a key to survival.
"Cooperation and evolving together seems to be a key to survival." Amen to that brother.
Let’s hope most Humans realize that soon
The bit about the leaf cutter ants blew my mind. Such a cool video man
something interesting about ants: There are some species of Ants found in Australia which were originally Usocial, but de-socialized and returned to their rouge routes, this has also happened with some bee species indicating that Usociality may only occur so long as certain conditions are present, and when these conditions leave desocialization occurs
I didn't know that and that is interesting, do you know the species name?
@@mothlightmedia1936 Sorry, I had gotten a few things mixed up in my head. I was thinking of the Australian Dinosaur ant which shares many characteristics with Sphecomyrma(old ancestor to ants, was a flightless wasp that was likley a forager) (the 2 strongly resemble eachother and share many traits) and I was also thinking of return to solitarity which has occurred most often with bees (For every occurence of eusociality forming, there was at least 1 reversal to solitarty) which indicates that eusociality may be costly to maintain, simultaneously the lack of a reversal to solitarity in many species may indicate that there is a "point of no return" which occurs from the high specialization of reproductive and non-reproductive castes. An example of a species that has undergone a return to solitary is Euglossini which evolved from a eusocial species, another god example would be the genus Centris
Damn this is sorta like civilizational collapse when people return to the more natural tribal level of organization
@@athingwhichexists actually I am 89% sure that eusocial bees evolved from solitary bees, as carnivory is not an ancestral trait to bees, and bees evolved from the wasp family crabronidae, which implies that bees evolved pollination first eusociality second. Forgive me if I misinterpreted your comment, but it seems to have a heavy bias towards bees = honeybees.
@@TheYeetedMeat Oh sorry, Yes eusocial bees evolved from solitary bees, but there have been instances in which eusocial bees have reverted back into solitary, a phenomenon known as reversal to solitary.
this channel is a hidden gem, and NEEDS the recognition it deserves.
What is so interesting about the hypothesis for how bee colonies started is how similar it is to the explanation by many archaeologists of the first urban settlements in human history. Huts located close together for defense but where people were still hunter gatherers living in their old ways with the addition of neighbors.
Entomology is one of my favorite branches of zoology. It fascinates me how alien these animals can be
Another typically fascinating and well told story. Thanks again.
I'd just like to add that your videos are also artistically very nicely put together. The mix of film clips, photos, and wonderful artwork is very relaxing and conducive to understanding.
Kudos. Cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott
The amount of beautiful, high quality photography and videography even of miniscule animals living underground or underwater is staggering. What a time to be alive.
Do a video on the evolution on dromaeosauridae and birds
He did. Look his previous video.
Im going to be honest this is my second video from you. First was the penguin video. Not actually sure how i found this channel but im glad to be watching it. Great video great content so far. Please keep this up.
Thank you I appreciate it
The more I learn about ants the more similarities I find to humans
Amen to that.
Oh God I'm having HxH flashbacks
Only humans are more intelligent
@@last_words596
i'd argue otherwise
@@Sandvichman. dude u cnat argue that and if u can try show me
Hey Moth Media, I've always been curious about how animals like insects evolved metamorphosis. I.E. The evolution of a chrysalis. Is it related to the amphibious metamorphosis of insects like dragonflies. So many questions
@Dan Nguyen -- I never thought of that. But that makes sense.
Metamorphosis is little short of a miracle.. it is basically 3 or 4 different animals sharing a lifecycle. The longer you think about it, the more stranger and magical insects become.
I believe one of the main reasons for metamorphosis is the ability for a single species to not compete for resources.
I.e. Caterpillars feed on vegetation, while butterflies feed on nectar. I forget how the process in which metamorphosis was selected for though.
I would highly recommend the book "Metamorphosis" by Frank Ryan. There has been a lot of research into metamorphosis which I feel has been largely ignored by mainstream science. This book re-addresses the balance. Also Sheffield University is researching metamorphosis and broadcast spawning in various marine creatures and the possibility of hybrids (in the past) between distantly related marine creature leading to something called Serial Chimerism. These are not new ideas as Frank Ryan explains as he follows the research of various scientists.
where do you get your amazing pictures and footage? ive just finished a zoology degree and you sum alot of interesting topics up so well, but your animations really make it
This is the best biology video I've seen in a while. Such a complex topic explained so clearly. Congrats, and keep up the woodwork, I mean, good work.
I watch and love many evolution related channels on youtube, but yours is my specially favourite channel, you do it in such a way that I can almost feel the evolutionary process running through, every little trait, speciation, the natural selection process, it's amazing.
I love ants, the specialized roles look goofy as hell with the head sometimes being 10x greater than the basic workers. Also a queen ant can live 30 years which I find astonishing, I believe termite queens live longer but termites arent as cool
Oh yea, and if you see a termite mound ever in your life... it may look like dirty, but trust me, that stuff is harder than concrete... dont kick it
I love how “ken ham” is a supporter lol
Why? What does ken ham mean
@@cesarcueto1995 there's a famous anti-evolution activist named Ken Ham. So it's funny that someone with that name is donating to a channel that talks about proof of evolution.
@@realityshotgun oh
Castes are somewhat iffy to say all have. A huge portion of ant species have no castes at all, but rather perform jobs based on age. A similar thing happens with eusocial bees a lot of the time. For ants specifically (and I believe bees too), it should be noted that males are only reproductives, specifically designed to mate. There are no male "worker" ants. There's also the interesting case with polygyny, where colonies have multiple completely unrelated queens that are all cared for.
Aren't we (our bodies) some sort of colonies.
Technically yes, but actually no.
Have you heard of colonial organisms? Some species consist of smaller, specialized animals -called zooids- working together as one. A famous example is the Portugese Man'o War. These all come from the same eggs, which then turn into many different kinds of eggs for each type of zooid. These zooids are attached to each other and cannot survive on their own but are still not all the same creature. This is why they are considered seperate creatures instead of normal body parts of the same singular creature.
There you have why normally multicellular organisms aren't considered colonies: it's all one big whole. Our mouth isn't a clump that trades food with our throat.
I'd say no since all our cells have identical DNAs.
It's not exactly the same but there are similarities. At some point in evolution some bacteria colonies started having individual cells that would not reproduce and would only pass on their genes by helping other cells with the same genes do so.
But we're various steps further in the level of integration.
check out multicellular organism evolution. i really find it interesting about the idea that mitochondria were a separate organism at one point that early cells incorporated into themselves.
oh and check out prokaryote and eukaryote cell evolution. super interesting stuff to look into the development of life on Earth. im no expert on this stuff, i just like reading about it.
@@vaimantobe3034 the phrase "attached to each other and cannot survive on their own" can also be readily applied to individual human organs, though, which in my mind makes human organs functionally identical to MoW zooids, just with a different name. Can that phrase truly be used as the main differentiating factor between humans+MoWs?
I mean, if you go REALLY far and only define a humans as "an interconnected mass of organs", than the only thing separating us from MoWs is that we've developed one big organ that envelops all our other organs (skin). Well, that and the fact that one of our organs has become self-aware lol. Personally, I like to think of the human body as a hyper-advanced, sentient colony. Like a flesh-robot that was once just an unthinking, robotic mass of organs, but one day gained self-awareness.
Its hard to find content this rich in information on youtube! You made the topic so interesting!
I think this means you haven't explored UA-cam enough - it's quite remarkable the amount of educational content that's on here
I just found this channel and it's awesome. Thanks for putting so much effort into these videos
I seriously LOVE your content!! You rock dude
in a sense, the emergence of colony life is akin to the emergence of multicellular life. Both involve smaller organisms working together as a whole, with the individuals diverging into specialized units.
Just leaving a comment so I know how I found this awesome channel. Keep up the good work!
I discovered this channel earlier today, thought the video was good but didn't sub. Then at complete random I was reading an article about bees and wondered how they could have evolved, got confused by the academic papers google brought up and figured I'd give YT a crack.. This was the only appropriate result and a great watch, I guess that has to be a sub!
Would’ve gotten an A on my animal behavior final if I’d seen this video a few months ago! Love it
top quality vid as always mate
1:46 there are even tarantulas (M.balfouri) which are highly social for spider-standarts, but don't have polymorphism
I've always actually never really thought about how Some species would have evolved to make colonies.
Really? Ive thought about it a lot
"I've always never..." SMH
This was beautiful.
I love this channel because it makes me think about things I would've never given a thought to otherwise.
Really like the video, Very informative. Love the channel
this is straight up my favourite channel
Love your videos they keep getting better
So Moth Light Media, when are we getting the evolutionary history of Moths and Butterflies? Here in my hometown, we have these giant moths, that used to frighten the hell out of me back when I was a kid. We call them the Witch Moths, because they are very dark, and I'd really like to see a video about them hehe.
I am almost certainly going to make that video seeing as it's a good way to talk about the evolution of flowers as well
@@mothlightmedia1936 I'll be happily expecting. Your content is very nice. I just subscribed today. Keep it up.
just found your channel and been watching a bunchof videos love them
I did not have a favorite type of ant before, but leafcutters are now.
Wonderful video!
When i see "ken ham" is one of the bigger contributors to this channel, i have myself a good laugh. lol
Great video!
the wasp photos and video clips make my skin crawl, but damn i find this sort of thing so interesting. great video!
Ants: discover agricoltur milions of years before us
Competitive Chimps: "Are you challenging me?"
*proceeds to beat them technologically and start space exploration ahead them*
"Ha, got it! Know your place trash"
Meanwhile 2 solitary ants, fungus in hand, leave the safety of the Persevearence rover, searching for a place to colonize.
@@staszekr03 Wouldn't they boil like in no time?
@@raresmuntean257 r/wooosh
Really good video!
I had to watch this many times. I
Thanks for the amazing content.
great video
Fantastic content. Particularly interesting to hear the genetic motivation behind eusocial breeding strategies. Perhaps we even see the consequences of kin selection today in human willingness to be more charitable to people more closely related to themselves.
Today I leared [8:31 - 9:58]:
There is a type of ant that domesticated a fungus, similarly to how humans domesticate crops.
The leaf cutting ants cut leaves and bring it to their nest, where they feed the leaf to a fungus, the fungus then grows and they start eating the fungus.
Most interesting: they have been doing this for so long that the type of fungus in the nest of the ants is not found in the wild at all, meaning that this ant have domesticated their own type of fungus.
What an excellent video!!
Very interesting video!
also there are solitary wasps and bees that chemically castrate their offsprings in order to make them stay with them in the nest and help raising the other eggs and larva.
I must admit this video gave me more than one headache since it has a good amount of complex concepts... and I love it!
Amazing video. Thank you
Your videos are of exceptional interest!
Awesome job!
Another awesome video
Great vid
This is my favorite evolution channel!!
Great video.
Please do one on Notoungulata
Amazing man. Thank you
What a beautiful video.
5:30
They are 75% related to their sisters and 25% related to their brothers rather than just being 75% related to their siblings as a whole but this is also only in the case that the colony possesses a single, singly-mated queen as opposed to a polygynous colony of multiply-mated queens which causes the degree of relation to go down even further. However, this drop in degree of relation still does not override the pressure of kin rearing.
7:13
Ants go through what's called haplodiploid sex determination. Within this form of sex determination, fertilized eggs become female and unferilized eggs become male.
Males within a nest will all contain a set of genes coming only from their mother since they came from unfertilized eggs and lack a father. Females will contain sets of genes coming from both parents, as they possess a father. Because of this, if all females within a colony share the same mother and father, they will have identical genes in common that come from their father's mother. Because they also share half of their genes from their mother and any given gene in the mother has a 50% chance of appearing in her daughter, many of the workers in the colony will be identical by common descent. The equation given to determine degree of relation between workers in a colony is (½*½+½)=¾, or 75%.
A female worker can therefore spread her own genes rather efficiently by helping to raise sister queens who are closer related to her than their mother, decreasing their chances of directly spreading their own genes while increasing their chances of indirectly doing such. This is the basis behind kin selection.
Inclusive fitness is defined as the ability of an individual organism to pass on its genes to the next generation, taking into account the shared genes passed on by the organism's close relatives. Under this idea, certain traits that are detrimental to the survival of one organism may evolve given they are disproportionately advantageous to its kin.
Now, the coefficient of relatedness is represented by this, (r), and is the probability that a gene in one individual is a direct copy by common descent of a gene in another. An individual's offspring's contribution to its own inclusive fitness depends on its coefficient of relatedness between it and its children, plus their close relatives. In other words, an individual's child contributes to its own inclusive fitness by having a higher coefficient of relatedness which would mean a given gene has a higher chance of passing on to future generations.
In male and female ant siblings, the coefficient of relatedness is about 25%. If a worker were to stay within a nest and invest equally in producing both male and female siblings, her average coefficient of relatedness to all produced siblings would go up to about 50% which would mean she would do just as well producing a 1:1 ratio of male:female offspring on her own.
In order for an individual to become a worker, helping behavior has to not only evolve but has to be advantageous. The worker must be able to contribute to her mother's inclusive fitness and, by extension, her own, in order to benefit from such helping behaviors.
Helping behaviors can be understood as an option in a species which already has parental care where non-parents can also benefit. In insects, this seems to imply there is a clearly defined nest in which a mother tends to her young, also seeming to imply that defensive mandibles and stings were important in the evolution of eusociality. Once helping behaviors have evolved in a population, a division of labor can be established in which economies of scale can contribute to the efficiency of the community. In other words, helpers must also be able to contribute significantly to the colony's economy.
Parental manipulation has also been suggested as a prime factor in worker evolution due to the importance of parental care. A parent could restrict her child's diet, rendering her incapable of founding her own colony which would mean the child's means of improving her own fitness would become contributing to the family economy, and the relatedness between the mother and the child would loosen the child's desire to escape such manipulation.
i love this channel
Hey I love this episode and everything you do on this channel. I hope your doing fine during these though times. Also since you said recommend some ideas I thought you should do a video on south Americas often IGNORED pro-ungulates or the many lineages of bison that roamed North America and Eurasia. Like bison antiquis, bison latiforms, Steppe Boison, European wisents, Plains bisons etc.
I'm doing well thank you I wish you the best aswell and both of those sound like good topics. I've actually been meaning to do a notoungulate video for a while
Absolutely fascinating
thanks ive been fascinated by this convergence of social structure,can you make about convergence of intellegence? like how mollasca,corvidae independently converge on complex nervous system
Yes I'll look into it, that sounds interesting
It’s fascinating to think of human agriculture and any of our social habits as a “selective advantage,” yet we can by comparing it to other animals.
Seems a very good demonstration of group selection.
Love your content bro! I've been bingewatching your video's the last few days. Keep up the good work, with your production value your succes will only be a matter of time
P.S. I would love to see you dive into the subject of mass extinctions and the marks they left on history
Thank you I really appreciate it
Hi I don't quite understand don't the ants share 75% of their genes with their mother and 25% with their father? 5:22 a quarter came from the father so I'm assuming the 75% came from the mother?
This guy's voice is so soothing
😳 ty for video
Too bad it doesn't have Pt subtitles. I mean, I understand english, but it gets hard when you are listening about a complex field. Amazing content, anyway! Thx!!!
This is my second video on the channel and...
I'm so happy I found this channel. :)
Time to binge watch.
ps.
Subbed
Ken Ham is a sponsor? I hope he learns something.
It’s likely someone saying that’s their name as a joke since we all know he is too stupid to actually watch a great channel like this
You have a patron called Ken Ham? Ironic
how does this guy not have more subs
This “Survival of Kin Theory” correlates with the way so many mammals will “adopt” children that smell similar, and reject even their own blood if tainted by a human’s touch. After all, ant colonies maintain their complex functions through “smell.”
Although I always enjoy your videos this one in particular was outstanding. I found so awesome that ants farm their own fungus
Love you
9:29 is that the queen? Cause that’s terrifying.
Yes.
@@Kittles92 That's terrifying
Ohhh, if that's terrifying, then you never saw termite queens... 😂
I've read the selfish gene so I already knew the reason, but I was not disappointed by this video because I learned so much from it!
Ive been really curious about this can you make a video about what enviromental pressures could make us de evolve into animals again like no prefrontal cortex
this is so damn interesting! life is amazing.
9:25 WHAT IS THAT?!
It looks like that ant (queen?) is titanic compared to those other ants.
Edit: it is a leaf cutter ant queen. Her size is apparently that comparatively huge.
She's like a Godzilla ant in comparison
Hey, can you make a video about the evolution of dinosaurs to birds.. from teeth to beaks. I'm just so curiouss
Good that you mentioned ecology. But it was James Hunt who started stressing that angle: He studied multiple origins of sociality in a wasp phylogeny in which all the species had about the same above-background “kin selection potential” and found that sociality evolved only when there were very strong ecological incentives. But since ~2005 EO Wilson, Hoelldobler, etc, have hijacked the controversy. Some people have indeed started saying that crucial for the existence -and thus for the evolution- of animal societies is not (or not so much) “kin selection” but rather the fact that there are very rewarding ecological niches out there that allow biomachines which adopt group-approaches to foraging and interference competition to be much more effective trophically (i.e., only secondarily “evolutionarily genetically” more “successful” !) than biomachines that adopt “solitary” strategies.
Complex life is modular. Colonies of single cell organisms evolved into multicellular organisms with only some cells dedicated to reproduction. Prehaps a eusocal colony could be considered a single organism?
This was a particularly interesting presentation. I have always wondered how such large groups came to be. It is certain that cooperation between individuals was something that evolved, grew and specialized over time. The earliest examples must only have had a small number of members since the idea of group welfare is a significant departure from the accepted idea of individuals battling for resources is something associated with mammals, fish lizards, snakes and amphibians. Perhaps their tiny size made them easy prey so the cooperative effort of building a protective nest grew out of that. Anyway, just my thoughts on the matter so far, I expect as I learn more about them I will come up with more ideas.
Like all things in evolution they usually get their initial start randomly via DNA recombination and mutations. basically some of the members of a species exhibited emergent, strange behaviors like cooperating with one another (if only in small but crucial ways at first) despite usually being solitary (only meeting to mate or fight over territory) which proved advantageous in the long run for those more collaborative members as their genes that served as the impetus for more cooperative tendencies got past on more than their 'selfish', strictly solitary, antisocial counterparts because their (the ones that used cooperation) survival rates into reproductive age were higher. (got to mate more often and more of their offspring survived long enough to mate themselves and rearing their own children if necessary, depending on the species)
This is a question I’ve always subconsciously wanted to know the answer to