As incremental scientific discovery goes, a report in the current Science, by a Danish researcher plus colleagues in Australia, on the evolutionary conflicts that arise from sexual reproduction is about as one-small-steppish as it gets. Fine, presumably diligently done, but no paradigm buster.

Here is the news. The genes of male wasps, bees, ants, and such among  species of social insects, have an evolutionary edge if they mate with as many females as possible and at the same time prevent any other males from doing so successfully. Females, who in many species from this clan often mate over just one brief period of time, similarly have an edge by accumulating as large and diverse a lifetime supply of sperm as possible. The report moves things forward with details on the ways that sperm left in one female by different males wage chemical warfare to neuter or kill off one another, and the ways that female reproductive tracts try to keep these competing sperm lines from doing so. Interesting, academic, excellent example for Evolution 101 but, as it happens, not many people wrote it up right away.

Exceptions include popular Not Exactly Rocket Science blogger and science writer Ed Yong, and at ABC-Australia Anna Salleh. Both handle it nicely and with enough detail to satisfy readers who never much thought about such things before.

ONE OTHER THING:

Now I tread carefully in bringing up one item to which these two articles pay no attention, and that was provided to them by the editors at Science. It is featured at the journalists’ advance press material on line site and shows, helpfully and to remind us that these insects include ones well know to the public, a photo from Australia of a honeybee hive protruding from a hollow in a tree. Other photos include that one up there of two bumblebees. The topic here relates to sex and sexual organs. It cannot just be me. Can using a beehive photo that looks so distinctly, um, mammalian, be an accident?  Honeycombs come in all shapes. I am a little bit priggish but welcome matter-of-fact discussion of sex when it’s sensible. But I am baffled – is this a wonderful metaphoric image to use, sort of vulvaic with little things buzzing around like sperm, or … what? Is it bold whimsy, dumb, a small harmless joke …. I cannot quite categorize it.

Grist for the Mill: Smithsonian Institution Press Release ;

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.