Communicating Across Kingdoms?
Researchers pinpoint microRNAs that could play a role in how Wolbachia bacteria manipulate their arthropod hosts.
| December 15, 2014
Excerpt:
“I am not sure that I would call this ‘communication,’ however,” he added, as the authors have in their paper.
My comment: I’m rather certain that no evolutionary theorist will recognize this as communication because they typically claim mutations can be linked to increasing organismal complexity. This work indirectly links mutations to perturbed protein folding, diseases, and disorders.
Works published by Leslie Vosshall’s group and by others have linked the epigenetic landscape to the physical landscape of DNA in the organized genomes of insects via experience-dependent de novo creation of olfactory receptors. Their works link the epigenetically-effected microRNA/messenger RNA balance from RNA-directed DNA methylation and RNA-mediated amino acid substitutions to cell type differentiation via conserved molecular mechanisms in species from microbes to man.
The molecular mechanisms are nutrient-dependent and pheromone-controlled because the nutrient-dependent amino acid substitutions must be fixed in organized genomes via protein folding in the context of the species-specific physiology of reproduction. That fact links Darwin’s ‘conditions of life’ to cell type differentiation via examples provided in Nutrient-dependent/pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution: a model.
For supporting documentation that places the role of mutations in their proper perspective of pseudoscientific nonsense that began with de Vries definition of “mutation,” see: Amino Acid Residues Contributing to Function of the Heteromeric Insect Olfactory Receptor Complex ; orco mutant mosquitoes lose strong preference for humans and are not repelled by volatile DEET; and Evolution of mosquito preference for humans linked to an odorant receptor.
Those who accept definitions and try to link them to biologically-based behavior have done so without recognizing the role that feedback loops must play in protein folding that links ecological variation to ecological adaptations. Instead, they claim mutations lead to the evolution of biodiversity, when serious scientists know that Feedback loops link odor and pheromone signaling with reproduction in species from microbes to man via conserved molecular mechanisms of communication. See also: Signaling Crosstalk: Integrating Nutrient Availability and Sex. Let’s stop the nonsense and call communication what it is, and recognize it for what it does.
Communication enables nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled cell type differentiation via amino acid substitutions that control thermodynamic cycles of protein biosynthesis and degradation. Mutations perturb protein folding, which is why they are not beneficial and cannot lead to the evolution of increasing organismal complexity.
