Yeast reveals sexual selection in action

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

The yeast microbe provides way to track evolution gene by gene.

Sexual selection is difficult to work with in complex species. Scientists dispute over whether sexually favored traits represent side effects of healthy immune systems or other desirable traits or whether these preferences arise arbitrarily. One of the reasons that this is so difficult to figure out is that the traits involve multiple genes.

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: behavior sex genes genetics yeast model sexual selection evolutionary biology gene Yeast

Why Aren’t All People Beautiful?

Sue Wu submitted, created time 1 year 3 weeks (discovermagazine.com)

Natural selection, we’re told, is the process by which nature promotes our best qualities. But a look around strains that notion. If nature selects health, beauty, and intelligence, why are most of us far from flawless?

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: human reproduction sex gender populations sexual selection sexually antagonistic genes genetic diversity Natural Selection

Voyeurs put male fish off their ideal mate

snoopy submitted, created time 1 year 1 month (technology.newscientist.com)

An interesting research was carried out by some researchers these days. That says mating fish don't like an audience. If there’s another male spying on them, they change their mind about which female they prefer.
Researcher Plath thinks that fishes act like this to avoid sperm competition. Another possible explanation would be that the desire to fight a competitor distracts the very fishes from their true mate preference, although Plath considers this less likely

3 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: animal behavior group dynamics marine biology zoology procreation reproduction sex sexual selection fish