Commensal bacteria play a role in mating preference of Drosophila melanogaster
Excerpt: “The major findings of this study are (i) diet-induced mating preference occurred in D. melanogaster after only one generation on different growth media and was maintained under these conditions for at least 37 generations, (ii) fly-associated commensal bacteria were responsible for the mating preference…”
Reported as: Bacteria Help Flies Select Mates
Excerpt: “A new study shows that bacteria that inhabit the flies help sway their choice of partners. The microbes might even lead to the creation of new species.”
Diversity and function of the avian gut microbiota
Excerpt: “With a broader knowledge of avian hosts, we may be able to compare and contrast solutions of terrestrial vertebrate hosts to various physiological challenges, perhaps gaining insight into the evolution of the intestinal microbiota in a broader sense.”
My comment: Do gut microbes evolve?
The microbiota-gut-brain axis: neurobehavioral correlates, health and sociality
Excerpt: The phyla with the largest biomass (e.g., arthropods) are also those with more symbioses reported (McFall-Ngai, 2005). McFall-Ngai (2005) suggests that a crucial difference between vertebrates and invertebrates is based on the relationship between the immune system and its association with microbial life.
Response to my comment: References available to us suggest that microbial life has an important role as one of the mechanisms underlying the establishment of social relationships from insects to humans; in areas as important as kin recognition, mate selection and group-level identity.
Microbial genes, brain & behaviour – epigenetic regulation of the gut–brain axis
Excerpt: “The gut microbiota helps to break down certain nutrients, which subsequently can be further metabolized by host cells. Interestingly, several of these products are associated with neural function. As such, gut bacteria produce amino acids, such as GABA and tryptophan, and monoamines, such as serotonin, histamine and dopamine, that play important roles in the brain as neurotransmitters or their precursors…”
Individual diet has sex-dependent effects on vertebrate gut microbiota
Excerpt: “Finally, we show that the sex*diet interactions found here also occur in humans. Our results show that across four disparate vertebrate species, diet has a sex-specific effect on host gut microbiota.”
At the same time differences in Fragile X Syndrome have been attributed to one amino acid substitution “...findings indicate that sex differences in home range size and spatial abilities may still persist in humans living in urbanized Western societies, but are also influenced by environmental experience.”
These findings are placed into the context of evolutionary theory.
There is no experimental evidence of biologically-based cause and effect that links any evolutionary event to sex differences or to similarities in morphological or behavioral phenotypes of species from microbes to man. The assumptions about adaptive functions cannot be placed into any model of epigenetic cause and effects on hormones that affect sex differences in cell types and behavior. Therefore, the conclusion from this open access paper represents nothing more than meaningless results that are meaningfully interpreted.
Did anyone ever think that “…the knowledge and cognitive representation of the individual’s home range” is not experience-dependent, nutrient-dependent, and pheromone-controlled via the physiology of reproduction in the context of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance?
