Genetic Engineering of Ants

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16424096

I found this interesting, now obviously I'm not about to think that this means we'll be seeing much practical application of this discovery, at least not the science fictiony kind, and not for years in either case, but it's still cool.

Dr Abouheif and his team studied Pheidole ants - a large group of more than 1,000 related species. Of those, there are just eight that have a so-called supersoldiers, which help protect the colony by blocking the entrance from invaders using their oversized heads.

The idea of attempting to "programme" developing ants to become these giant soldiers was triggered when Dr Abouheif noticed that another common Pheidole ant species, which does not have any supersoldiers in its colony, had a few strangely big-headed colony members.

"We were collecting [the ants] on Long Island, New York, and we noticed some monstrous-looking soldiers," Dr Abouheif said.

The apparently mutant ants looked just like the rare supersoldier caste of related species, so the scientists set out to find out what had caused them to take that form.

"We understand a lot about how these different castes are produced during development of the ant larvae," said Dr Abouheif.

When a queen lays eggs, he explained, each egg can develop into a different caste depending on the environment it is in - the temperature it develops at and the nutrition it receives. But the key to "switching" into a specific cast is controlled to a large extent by one chemical inside the eggs, which is called juvenile hormone.

"So if you treat any species at the right time in development, just with a hormone, you can induce the development of the supersoldier," explained Dr Abouheif.

"The fact that you can induce it in all these different species [that don't naturally have that caste], means that one common ancestor of all these species had [supersoldiers]."

The discovery, he went on to explain, could have far-reaching implications for how scientists would view and study evolution.

That design sure sounds intelligent.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
That design sure sounds intelligent.

I agree.

Edit - Wait, you're making a snarky comment about evangelicals, aren't you? I was agreeing because I thought it was a very clever control system that evolution had gifted the ants.

Intelligent design is as bad as Gaia Theory when it comes to pseudo-science.

Edit: When I say Gaia Theory, I mean the hardcore version that basically treats the world as a giant organism as much alive as a human.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Intelligent design is as bad as Gaia Theory when it comes to pseudo-science.

Edit: When I say Gaia Theory, I mean the hardcore version that basically treats the world as a giant organism as much alive as a human.

Probably the wrong forum but I personally believe that the earth has a spirit: Gaia, if you will. Not sure about the sun or other planets.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I agree.

Edit - Wait, you're making a snarky comment about evangelicals, aren't you? I was agreeing because I thought it was a very clever control system that evolution had gifted the ants.

Both.

The actual evolutionary benefit sort of escapes me unless the ants make these foreign types in nature when they need them.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Probably the wrong forum but I personally believe that the earth has a spirit: Gaia, if you will. Not sure about the sun or other planets.

I was speaking about people who try to pimp out such a philosophy as a legitimate scientific theory.

I enjoy hearing about stuff like this, it's interesting. It's a shame, though, that a particular group in the world seem to be constantly developing new understanding of the world, while a large contingent remains stagnant because of cultural ignorance. The scientific divide in the country is, to me, as large as the far-more-publicized economic one.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Both.

The actual evolutionary benefit sort of escapes me unless the ants make these foreign types in nature when they need them.

I don't know exactly what you mean by the second part but I can say that the benefit of having a much stronger and larger "Soldier Ant" is highly beneficial to a colony from invaders or predators.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I don't know exactly what you mean by the second part but I can say that the benefit of having a much stronger and larger "Soldier Ant" is highly beneficial to a colony from invaders or predators.

Ah, but that's the source of my question. These species don't produce "supersoldiers", not usually, their young never develop into them. In fact supersoldiers are quite rare in the kind of ants they're experimenting on.

So maybe there are two questions:
Why do more than 99% of these species not use supersoldiers?
Is there an actual benefit to being able to make supersoldiers (ie the ants choose to make them if needed) or is it just an interesting result of their ancestry?

It mybe

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Ah, but that's the source of my question. These species don't produce "supersoldiers", not usually, their young never develop into them. In fact supersoldiers are quite rare in the kind of ants they're experimenting on.

So maybe there are two questions:
Why do more than 99% of these species not use supersoldiers?
Is there an actual benefit to being able to make supersoldiers (ie the ants choose to make them if needed) or is it just an interesting result of their ancestry?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Ah, but that's the source of my question. These species don't produce "supersoldiers", not usually, their young never develop into them. In fact supersoldiers are quite rare in the kind of ants they're experimenting on.

So maybe there are two questions:
Why do more than 99% of these species not use supersoldiers?
Is there an actual benefit to being able to make supersoldiers (ie the ants choose to make them if needed) or is it just an interesting result of their ancestry?

Originally posted by Mindship
Goldilocks Percentage? In their evolutionary history, there may've been populations with different percentages, but they didn't last because fewer supersoldiers meant insufficient protection, and more may've, eg, unbalanced the division of labor. What this species does now is "just right" (?)

This is my answer, actually.

But, I would go on to say that he supersoldier DNA still being present in other non-supersoldier ant species is just evidence of vestigial traits/DNA left over from prior ancestors. This would be similar to having an appendix that could be activated, in the womb, by a hormone. Sure, we don't use our appendix anymore but what if our appendix activated, in the womb, in 1 out of 500,000 people? Then we would have a parallel in humans for "supersoldiers".

But, yeah, too many supersoldiers and the species develops into something like the driver ants in Africa: they become a nomadic and highly carnivorous species specialized in actively attacking things for food. OR it could result, as Mindship states, in a situation where you do not have enough "worker" ants. So a nice balance must be formed.

Cool but creepy at the same time.