Aphid cloning - Battle of the Animal Sexes

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Picture of librabooks40 achievements

+13 1. librabooks commented 11 years ago

The females would rather clone than have males to copulate with, but getting rid of males is difficult when they're there...Sounds like aphids are radical feminists! >:)
Picture of Sizzlik64 achievements

+12 2. Sizzlik (admin) commented 11 years ago

#1 An you sound like Sheldon Cooper :D
Picture of dariodexter32 achievements

-3 3. dariodexter commented 11 years ago

What did I just watch? o.O
Picture of huldu34 achievements

+3 4. huldu commented 11 years ago

The whole point of actual "breeding", beside adding population, is to add variation to your species. If something goes wrong some are bound to survive at least.
Picture of Thanny37 achievements

+13 5. Thanny commented 11 years ago

It has nothing to do with variation for the species. There's no such thing as "for the good of the species" in nature. That's just a myth.

Each aphid is a machine built by aphid genes for producing more aphid genes. Mixing with other batches of aphid genes increases any one gene's odds of increasing in number, because a fresh mix of genes is more likely to be resistant to parasites. Sex versus parasitism is like changing the locks versus burglary.

The asexual reproduction phase is very much like somatic cells in a single organism replicating. Each individual aphid is unimportant, which is why you see virtually no anti-predation behavior. It's more economic to make a whole bunch more aphids than to power the intelligence required to avoid ladybugs and parasitic wasps.
Picture of tastytim39 achievements

+11 6. tastytim commented 11 years ago

- "Having sex with your own clone is the most useless sex imaginable." :D
Picture of dariodexter32 achievements

+1 7. dariodexter commented 11 years ago

Why was I thumbed down? I love bug videos (of course the ones with David Attenborough), but this one was kinda...weird and unsettling...