The eyes have it: Females of many species prefer mates with extravagant traits

Article Abstract:

It has been suggested by Fisher that male peacocks have elaborate traits only because the females find them attractive, and others believe that the showy traits indicate the quality of the male. Gerald Wilkinson and colleagues have studied stalk-eyed flies (Diopsidae), providing strong evidence abut the type of genes females prefer. Male ey span often exceeds body length, and females showed a strong preference for males with a large eye span. It was also found that the male eye span covaried with the ability to restrain the driving X chromosome, and males with large eye span produced male-biased sex ratios, while those with short eye span produced female-biased sex ratios.

Research, Eye, Flies, Diptera, Sex ratio

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... And scandalous symbionts

Article Abstract:

The accelerated rate of evolution in the aphid endosymbiotic bacteria Buchnera permits the survival of asexual lines in the absence of sexual reproduction. The rate of harmful non-synonymous mutations is higher in the symbiotic bacteria as compared to the free-living lines, due to the absence of the repair enzyme. The mutations are severely harmful instead of being marginally harmful, allowing them to be removed before they can accumulate. The mutant bacteria are replaced by non-mutant bacteria. The bacteria use the chaperone protein GroEL to stabilize mutant decayed proteins.

Analysis, Reports, Microbial mutation, Endosymbiosis

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Siberian mice upset Mendel

Article Abstract:

People possessing the heterozygous sickle-cell gene are immune to Malaria attack, but heterozygote parents do not always have heterozygote children. Ruvinsky, Agulnik and Sabantsev, Russian scientists conducting research on an house mice, found that the aberrant chromosome is 30% larger than the wild type because it has too large homogenous insertions in inversion (In). Mating of homozygous wild-type males with heterozygous females results in 85% of progency inheriting the insertions. A rare segregation in In occurs during Ooenesis as a result of meiotic drive.

Sickle cell anemia, Genetic aspects, Malaria

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