
How plants evolved to make ants their servants - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2018-11-evolved-ants-servants.html
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titzer
This is really cool research. Nature is fascinating, complex and beautiful.
Amazing the societies which it develops!

But that said, this result should not be surprising if we would get our minds
out of the very narrow species-oriented view of nature, where individuals and
populations are selfish (even gluttonous) over-consumers and over-reproducers.
This model is just _wrong_. Nature is a vast _cooperation_ of thousands,
millions of species. Cooperation at a larger scale that is very much like--in
fact, might be called exactly the same--as our bodies, which are complex
systems of interacting microorganisms, not all of which have a human genome.

Nature is one giant organism, and the species and individuals that we elevate
to godly status are really just cogs and wheels in the grand scheme of things.

~~~
kopo
People like to keep saying the elite will reach godhood thanks to the
increasing pace of biological/technical progress (that they will reap the
most). But the opposite might well happen. The more data that pours in the
more obvious it may become they are all, like you say, just replaceable cogs.

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ogig
I recently discovered ant keeping while looking for projects to do with my
daughter. They are amazing animals to learn about, the amount of quirks in
their different species is fascinating. I've spent hours watching ants on
Youtube, AntsCanada channel is specially good.

We got two queens and now they are growing a small colony. We are looking
forward building a bigger formicarium as they grow. Patience is required.

I guess most Americans won't be surprised since it was a common educational
activity in the 60s over there.

~~~
patates
I watched all the videos of AntsCanada [0], I wish I had the means to do ant
keeping myself. Amazing animals!

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/AntsCanada/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/AntsCanada/videos)

~~~
ivanhoe
that channel is amazing, I highly recommend it

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danaos
It goes both ways. In my garden I observed ants carrying tiny little parasitic
aphids up on sensitive plant spots and eat their glucose rich feces they
produce by sucking fluids from the plant.

~~~
markdown
Fijian ants grow their own crops:

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2113410-fijian-ants-
gro...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2113410-fijian-ants-grow-their-
own-plant-cities-and-farm-tropical-fruits/)

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aasasd
In regard to the question of who was first: while I understand that evolution
is built on random mutations, still it seems to me that ants, being endowed
with organs for mobility and sight, are in a much better position to take the
initiative on innovation.

~~~
Nasrudith
It is all relative to costs. If they were going with hollow thorns anyway it
is theoretically possible the thorns could have existed before there was
anything eating them as a "fluke" that didn't cost much anyway.

Pre-ants they could have had variants with hollow ones mixed in. Once the
hollow ones gave a significant advantage the other styles would fade away
unless there were biochemical constraints.

I don't know for sure but I would expect slow evolution from hive insects -
their reproductive members are a fraction and thus a smaller working genepool.
Ironically the sessile but more genetically diverse plants could have
outmaneuvered the ants. For an example of biochemical constraints take sickle
cell anemia trait for instance. One copy makes red blood cells just deformed
enough to function but give malaria resistance. Two however and the cells go
conclave. The little bastard mosquitoes and their littler bastard malaria made
for a nasty situation. In regions with endemic malaria no copies and you are
probably screwed - malaria will probably kill you unless you flee the region -
a risk in itself. With two you don't need to worry about malaria killing you -
your sickle cell anemia will do it on its own just fine. With one you are
a-okay but your children or mate stand a chance of getting either bad outcome.

The transmission method has leas to malaria as the number one historical
killer.

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yters
The title says 'how' the article says 'don't know'. Maybe the title should be
a question instead of a statement.

> But scientists weren't sure how the evolutionary relationship between ants
> and plants got started.

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rezeroed
These anthropomorphic evolution titles annoy me. How plants favourable to ants
gained reproductive advantage.

~~~
lamename
I used to feel the same way, but I think there's some value in simplifying or
making scientific ideas more attractive.

The avg tax payer is not interested in obscurity for the sake of accuracy.
This is a flaw of the human mind, but something to be exploited rather than
resisted when conveying complex ideas.

Of course there should be subtleties mentioned in these articles, but for a
headline? I think it's ok to get people excited.

*I'm aware that evolution in particular is poorly misunderstood by some sections of the public, and anthropomorphism in this case may be worse than the general case I'm talking about.

~~~
cgriswald
There is a ton of value in making scientific ideas simpler. Sagan, Hawking,
and plenty of others have done a great job taking complex ideas and distilling
them down into apt metaphors for public consumption without grossly
misrepresenting the ideas. This clickbaity title with a questionable metaphor
isn't exactly in the same class.

> Of course there should be subtleties mentioned in these articles, but for a
> headline? I think it's ok to get people excited.

Just to disappoint them later? "Amazing thing! Okay, now that we have your
attention, here's the boring truth with precious little detail, but you'll see
that what we said was _technically_ true or could be in the future."

That disappointment was what taught me as a child that people can write
anything, it doesn't have to be accurate or true. So I guess _some_ good comes
out of it, but it's always been a huge turn off for me.

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Stephen-E
Recently finished reading Semiosis by Sue Burke
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35018907-semiosis](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35018907-semiosis))
that's a great fictional fictional exploration of this taken to extremes.
Highly recommended.

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AndrewOMartin
I look forward to "How chickens and cannabis evolved to make humans their
servants".

~~~
nine_k
This is how being tasty and easy to catch can lead to _enormous_ reproductive
success, plentiful free food, and access to advanced medicines, also free!
Cats, who chose a different route, get the reverse if that, being spayed as a
norm, getting their nature's KPI much lower than chickens' or even cows'. Oh
wait...

Seriously, you can see it as an evolutionary trap of specialization, getting
into a deep (local) maximum without a feasible way out, should circumstances
change.

~~~
netcan
Chickens are hard to catch. Source: Rocky

~~~
wild_preference
Their eggs aren't!

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nickmancol
I think that there is a short story from Isaac Asimov with this exactly plot.

~~~
hansbo
I believe you are thinking of Each an Explorer:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Each_an_Explorer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Each_an_Explorer)

~~~
nickmancol
Thank you!

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vbuwivbiu
plants didn't evolve "to make ants" anything, and there's no such
anthropomorphic relationship here, it's symbiosis like everything else in
nature

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booleandilemma
_How plants evolved to make ants their servants_

We humans would think this way, wouldn’t we?

I feel bad for the first primitive alien race our descendants encounter,
however many eons from now.

~~~
Nasrudith
They're not wrong except in intentions that literally don't exist. The plants
have something the ants want and it needs to be protected to keep on providing
it.

Cats domesticated themselves thanks to early farmers and granaries - the
wildcat ancestors who had the shortest scatter distance and endeared
themselves to humans got to spend more time pouncing on mice and rats that
were flooding their stores as opposed to fleeing whenever the towering giants
known as man came.

(Although I can't help but imagine a farmer getting spooked the first time a
cat got in among the grainery where he was going to shoo the rat pile, again
seeing a cat with a dead rat in its mouth and thinking the rats plaguing him
are now giant cannibals.)

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nyc111
> If _evolution_ is an arms race between species developing ways to profit off
> of their neighbors...

But why are they calling this process "evolution"? This is symbiosis not
evolution.

~~~
inportb
It's symbiosis _and_ evolution (coevolution).

