Evolution: hybridization in ants (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 21, 2022, 21:03 (702 days ago) @ David Turell

Common in wood ants:

https://phys.org/news/2022-12-rapid-genome-evolution-hybrid-ant.html

"Over the past ten years, the DNA sequencing revolution has revealed that mating between two different species, i.e., hybridization, once considered rare, is actually widespread across the tree of life. This came as a surprise—hybridization was considered mostly detrimental since offspring are not always viable and can be infertile, like mules. However, many studies showed that hybridization could have beneficial consequences and help populations adapt to new environments.

"For instance, in humans, Tibetan populations are adapted to low oxygen concentrations found under high altitudes thanks to genetic material acquired through hybridization, 50,000 years ago, between modern and archaic humans, now extinct populations (such as Neanderthals). This year, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Svante Pääbo (Max Planck Institute) for his work on human evolution, including gene exchange between modern and archaic humans.

"Researchers at the University of Helsinki took advantage of distinct hybrid wood ant populations identified in Southern Finland to study whether hybridization was predictable. They found that after multiple hybridization events between two wood ant species, distinct hybrid populations evolved independently in the same direction. They are nowadays highly similar to one another in terms of genetic composition, suggesting that the outcome of hybridization is predictable. Researchers also determined that hybridization occurred less than 50 ant generations ago, approximately 125 years ago, making it a fairly rapid case of evolution in the wild.

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"Finnish wood ants give the opportunity to observe multiple, very recent hybridization events, and the amount of predictability we found despite this recency is remarkably high, which is quite novel," explains researcher Pierre Nouhaud, from the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki.

"'In the meantime, our study also confirms previous results obtained in a handful of species, including humans, suggesting the patterns we see in wood ants are quite general."

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"'On an evolutionary timescale, we are dealing with recent events, less than 50 ant generations, which had very little time to leave footprints in DNA sequences. This means it can be hard to distinguish between competing hypotheses. In our study we performed computer simulations considering different evolutionary scenarios to take this uncertainty into account and ensure our results are robust," says Nouhaud."
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Comment: this study shows that hybridization offers survival benefits. Note second paragraph discusses human benefits. This process does not advance evolution but creates variations on specific species. No intervention by God necessary.