Researchers Test Whether Red Queen Hypothesis Makes Species Resilient

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Newswise In Lewis Carrolls 1871 classic novel Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen tells Alice: Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.

Over the years, evolutionary biologists have used the Red Queens statement to refer to the Red Queen hypothesis, which describes how living organisms, including humans, manage to survive in a changing environment by adapting through sexual reproduction. According to a University of Iowa researcher, the hypothesis is supported.

In a paper published in the journal Biology Letters, lead author Deanna Soper, postdoctoral researcher in the UI Department of Biology and currently visiting assistant professor at Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin, and her colleagues write about testing a version of the Red Queen hypothesis.

In particular, they addressed whether a particular prediction of the hypothesis was metthat exposure to parasites increases multiple mating in New Zealand freshwater snails (Potamopyrgus antipodarum).

What they found was that a challenge to the health of the snails caused the snails to respond by increasing their rate of mating and their number of mates.

"Under the Red Queen hypothesis, sexual reproduction gives an advantage over asexual reproduction because sexually reproducing organisms shuffle their genes during sex cell formation and fusion of sex cells from two individuals, says Soper. This means that the resulting offspring of sexually reproducing individuals may have an increased likelihood of escaping infection due to the production of unusual genetic backgrounds.

Here, we test the prediction that exposure to parasites would increase mating behavior and number of sexual partners. We found that indeed parasites cause an increase in mating activity and promiscuity when exposed to parasites, she says.

What Soper and her colleagues did was to expose the fresh-water snails to the eggs of a parasite that have the effect of sterilizing the snails. Interestingly, they found that such exposure caused both male and female snails to increase their sexual behavior.

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Researchers Test Whether Red Queen Hypothesis Makes Species Resilient