The Experts below are selected from a list of 1131 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Jean-luc Jung - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Cultural Transmission of Fine-Scale Fidelity to Feeding Sites May Shape Humpback Whale Genetic Diversity in Russian Pacific Waters
Journal of Heredity, 2018Co-Authors: Gaëtan Richard, Olga Titova, Ivan Fedutin, Debbie Steel, Ilya Meschersky, Marie Hautin, Alexander Burdin, Erich Hoyt, Olga Filatova, Jean-luc JungAbstract:Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) differences between humpback whales on different feeding grounds can reflect the cultural transmission of migration destinations over generations, and therefore represent one of the very few cases of gene-Culture Coevolution identified in the animal kingdom. In Russian Pacific waters, photo-identification (photo-ID) studies have shown minimal interchange between whales feeding off the Commander Islands and those feeding in the Karaginsky Gulf, regions that are separated by only 500 km and have previously been lumped together as a single Russian feeding ground. Here, we assessed whether genetic differentiation exists between these 2 groups of humpback whales. We discovered a strong mtDNA differentiation between the 2 feeding sites (FST = 0.18, ΦST = 0.14, P < 0.001). In contrast, nuclear DNA (nuDNA) polymorphisms, determined at 8 microsatellite loci, did not reveal any differentiation. Comparing our mtDNA results with those from a previous ocean-basin study reinforced the differences between the 2 feeding sites. Humpback whales from the Commanders appeared most similar to those of the western Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian feeding grounds, whereas Karaginsky differed from all other North Pacific feeding grounds. Comparison to breeding grounds suggests mixed origins for the 2 feeding sites; there are likely connections between Karaginsky and the Philippines and to a lesser extent to Okinawa, Japan, whereas the Commanders are linked to the Mexican breeding grounds. The mtDNA differentiation between the Commander Islands and Karaginsky Gulf suggests a case of gene-Culture Coevolution, correlated to fidelity to a specific feeding site within a particular feeding ground. From a conservation perspective, our findings emphasize the importance of considering these 2 feeding sites as separate management units.
Hal Whitehead - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the reach of gene Culture Coevolution in animals
Nature Communications, 2019Co-Authors: Hal Whitehead, Kevin N Laland, Luke Rendell, Rose Thorogood, Andrew WhitenAbstract:Culture (behaviour based on socially transmitted information) is present in diverse animal species, yet how it interacts with genetic evolution remains largely unexplored. Here, we review the evidence for gene–Culture Coevolution in animals, especially birds, cetaceans and primates. We describe how Culture can relax or intensify selection under different circumstances, create new selection pressures by changing ecology or behaviour, and favour adaptations, including in other species. Finally, we illustrate how, through culturally mediated migration and assortative mating, Culture can shape population genetic structure and diversity. This evidence suggests strongly that animal Culture plays an important evolutionary role, and we encourage explicit analyses of gene–Culture Coevolution in nature. The reciprocal interaction between genetic and cultural evolution is well recognised in humans. Here, Whitehead and colleagues review the growing body of evidence that Culture is also a major driver of both neutral and adaptive genetic evolution in non-human animals.
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gene Culture Coevolution in whales and dolphins
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017Co-Authors: Hal WhiteheadAbstract:Abstract Whales and dolphins (Cetacea) have excellent social learning skills as well as a long and strong mother–calf bond. These features produce stable Cultures, and, in some species, sympatric groups with different Cultures. There is evidence and speculation that this cultural transmission of behavior has affected gene distributions. Culture seems to have driven killer whales into distinct ecotypes, which may be incipient species or subspecies. There are ecotype-specific signals of selection in functional genes that correspond to cultural foraging behavior and habitat use by the different ecotypes. The five species of whale with matrilineal social systems have remarkably low diversity of mtDNA. Cultural hitchhiking, the transmission of functionally neutral genes in parallel with selective cultural traits, is a plausible hypothesis for this low diversity, especially in sperm whales. In killer whales the ecotype divisions, together with founding bottlenecks, selection, and cultural hitchhiking, likely explain the low mtDNA diversity. Several cetacean species show habitat-specific distributions of mtDNA haplotypes, probably the result of mother–offspring cultural transmission of migration routes or destinations. In bottlenose dolphins, remarkable small-scale differences in haplotype distribution result from maternal cultural transmission of foraging methods, and large-scale redistributions of sperm whale cultural clans in the Pacific have likely changed mitochondrial genetic geography. With the acceleration of genomics new results should come fast, but understanding gene–Culture Coevolution will be hampered by the measured pace of research on the socio-cultural side of cetacean biology.
Andrew D Foote - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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genome Culture Coevolution promotes rapid divergence of killer whale ecotypes
Nature Communications, 2016Co-Authors: John W Durban, Maria C Avilaarcos, Nagarjun Vijay, Matteo Fumagalli, Robin W. Baird, Andrew D Foote, Richard A. GibbsAbstract:Analysing population genomic data from killer whale ecotypes, which we estimate have globally radiated within less than 250,000 years, we show that genetic structuring including the segregation of potentially functional alleles is associated with socially inherited ecological niche. Reconstruction of ancestral demographic history revealed bottlenecks during founder events, likely promoting ecological divergence and genetic drift resulting in a wide range of genome-wide differentiation between pairs of allopatric and sympatric ecotypes. Functional enrichment analyses provided evidence for regional genomic divergence associated with habitat, dietary preferences and post-zygotic reproductive isolation. Our findings are consistent with expansion of small founder groups into novel niches by an initial plastic behavioural response, perpetuated by social learning imposing an altered natural selection regime. The study constitutes an important step towards an understanding of the complex interaction between demographic history, Culture, ecological adaptation and evolution at the genomic level.
Gaëtan Richard - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Cultural Transmission of Fine-Scale Fidelity to Feeding Sites May Shape Humpback Whale Genetic Diversity in Russian Pacific Waters
Journal of Heredity, 2018Co-Authors: Gaëtan Richard, Olga Titova, Ivan Fedutin, Debbie Steel, Ilya Meschersky, Marie Hautin, Alexander Burdin, Erich Hoyt, Olga Filatova, Jean-luc JungAbstract:Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) differences between humpback whales on different feeding grounds can reflect the cultural transmission of migration destinations over generations, and therefore represent one of the very few cases of gene-Culture Coevolution identified in the animal kingdom. In Russian Pacific waters, photo-identification (photo-ID) studies have shown minimal interchange between whales feeding off the Commander Islands and those feeding in the Karaginsky Gulf, regions that are separated by only 500 km and have previously been lumped together as a single Russian feeding ground. Here, we assessed whether genetic differentiation exists between these 2 groups of humpback whales. We discovered a strong mtDNA differentiation between the 2 feeding sites (FST = 0.18, ΦST = 0.14, P < 0.001). In contrast, nuclear DNA (nuDNA) polymorphisms, determined at 8 microsatellite loci, did not reveal any differentiation. Comparing our mtDNA results with those from a previous ocean-basin study reinforced the differences between the 2 feeding sites. Humpback whales from the Commanders appeared most similar to those of the western Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian feeding grounds, whereas Karaginsky differed from all other North Pacific feeding grounds. Comparison to breeding grounds suggests mixed origins for the 2 feeding sites; there are likely connections between Karaginsky and the Philippines and to a lesser extent to Okinawa, Japan, whereas the Commanders are linked to the Mexican breeding grounds. The mtDNA differentiation between the Commander Islands and Karaginsky Gulf suggests a case of gene-Culture Coevolution, correlated to fidelity to a specific feeding site within a particular feeding ground. From a conservation perspective, our findings emphasize the importance of considering these 2 feeding sites as separate management units.
Marcus W Feldman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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gene Culture Coevolution under selection
Theoretical Population Biology, 2018Co-Authors: Hilla Behar, Marcus W FeldmanAbstract:Abstract The joint evolutionary dynamics of phenotypes and genotypes are usually couched in terms of genetic variance contributions to changes in the phenotypic mean. Here, we study the evolution of a dichotomous phenotype whose transmission is controlled by one multi-allelic locus. The phenotype is under selection, which may be genotype-dependent. We answer classical population genetic questions about the phenogenotypic evolution, including the conditions for phenotypic and genotypic polymorphism, in terms of selection coefficients and rates of phenotypic transmission.
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niche construction and gene Culture Coevolution an evolutionary basis for the human sciences
2000Co-Authors: John F Odlingsmee, Kevin N Laland, Marcus W FeldmanAbstract:Traditionally evolutionary theory treats the adaptations of organisms as consequences of a process whereby natural selection moulds organisms to fit pre-established environments. The changes that organisms themselves cause in their own environments are seldom through to be evolutionarily significant. However, active organisms partly create their own selective environments by “niche construction,” and ancestral organisms can pass on legacies of modified natural selection pressures in their environments to their descendants. In this chapter, we build on conventional evolutionary theory by adding niche construction. We argue that the resulting enhanced theory of evolution provides a better basis for understanding how human cultural processes interact with human genetic processes in human evolution, and we discuss how human cultural niche construction may have co-directed, and may still be co-directing, human genetic evolution.
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gene Culture Coevolution and sex ratios ii sex chromosomal distorters and cultural preferences for offspring sex
Theoretical Population Biology, 1997Co-Authors: Jochen Kumm, Marcus W FeldmanAbstract:Cultural preferences for the sex of offspring may produce behavior, such as female infanticide, sex-selective abortion and sex-selective parental investment, which alter the sex ratio in a population. Empirical evidence suggests that some genetic sex-ratio distorters are located on the sex chromosomes. Interactions between cultural preferences and sex-linked sex-ratio distorters are examined. Criteria for the spread of cultural preferences and sex-chromosomal distorter alleles are derived analytically, and the Coevolution of preferences and distorters is examined through numerical iteration. Evolutionary equilibria and trajectories of gene-Culture interactions involving sex-chromosomal distorter alleles may produce severely male- or female-biased primary sex ratios and adult sex ratios in populations. Adult sex ratios, primary sex ratios, allele frequencies and the prevalence of cultural preferences in the population are sensitive to initial conditions and cultural transmission parameters. During the Coevolutionary process phenoallelic association is observed in many cases and is associated with unusual dynamics.
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gene Culture Coevolution and sex ratios the effects of infanticide sex selective abortion sex selection and sex biased parental investment on the evolution of sex ratios
Theoretical Population Biology, 1994Co-Authors: Jochen Kumm, Kevin N Laland, Marcus W FeldmanAbstract:Abstract The evolutionary consequences of culturally transmitted practices that cause differential mortality between the sexes, thereby distorting the sex ratio (e.g., female infanticide and sex-selective abortion), are explored using dynamic models of gene-Culture Coevolution. We investigate how a preference for the sex of offspring may affect the selection of genes distorting the primary sex ratio. Sex-dependent differences in mortality have been predicted to select for a male- or female-biased primary sex ratio, to have no effect, or to favor either under different circumstances. We find that when a mating pair′s behavior modifies mortality rates in favor of one sex, but does not change the number of offspring produced in the mating, the primary sex ratio will evolve a bias against the favored sex However, when the total number of offspring of a mating pair is significantly seduced as a consequence of their prejudice, the primary sex ratio will evolve to favor the preferred sex. These results hold irrespective of whether the sex ratio is distorted by the mother′s, the father′s or the individual′s own autosomal genes. The use of dynamic models of gene-Culture Coevolution allows us to explore the evolution of alleles which distort the sex ratio, as well as the final equilibrium states of the system. Gene-Culture interactions can provide equilibria different from those in purely genetic systems, slow the approach to these equilibria by orders of magnitude, and move the primary (PSR) and the adult sex ratio (ASR) away from any stable equilibrium for hundreds of generations.
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gene Culture Coevolution toward a general theory of vertical transmission
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1992Co-Authors: Marcus W Feldman, Lev A ZhivotovskyAbstract:Abstract A general formulation of cultural and genetic transmission is developed. The cultural transmission is vertical and the genetics may involve multiple loci. Each individual is represented by a phenogenotype, and conditions are given under which the evolutionary dynamics of phenogenotype frequencies are reducible to phenogametic or phenoallelic frequencies. The interaction between genes and Culture is specified by an association measure, and results on the order of magnitude of this association at equilibrium are presented.
