February 5, 2025 • 30 mins
It's a listener questions episode! I answer your questions, from whether it's good to be a mutant, why dogs do little kickies after potties, to the difference between colonial organisms and multicellular organisms. What's the deal with zooids!?!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show, it's a quick little listener's
Questions episode. Now, do not worry. I have a bunch
of really cool guests lined up that I am scheduling.
So it is happening, folks, and I'm super excited. But today, yes,
(00:30):
a little listener questions episode. You guys wrote to me
some pretty amazing questions and I would like to answer them.
So let's take a moment to dive into a think
hoole and answer some questions. Hi, Katie, I was recently
re listening to the lemon and grapefruit episodes of Secretly
(00:51):
Incredibly Fascinating, and in those episodes, Alex springs up that
citrus can cross breed and mutate easily with each other.
I would like to know if there are any other
genuses of organisms that can cross breed and mutate as
well or better than citrus. Also, are there any specific
genes or structures in organisms that facilitate mutations? Overall? I
(01:13):
was thinking and wondering if an organism's ability to more
easily mutate would be an evolutionary advantage. Thank you for
the great podcast, Daniel. Thank you so much, Daniel. This
is really a fantastic question. Also, thanks for the secretly
incredibly fascinating shout out. That is a show that I
do with Alex Schmidt where he teaches me about wild
(01:34):
stuff every week. So let's tackle this question one part
at a time. So can animals cross breed and facilitate evolution?
So can there be a hybrid animal that progresses evolution? Yes,
this can happen as long as the animals are closely related.
(01:55):
So this is called hybrid speciation when you have two
different species who create a hybrid, and then that hybrid
goes on to propagate and create its own species. So
in plants it is far more common than in animals,
likely because hybridization is less likely to make them infertile.
(02:17):
You also have more rapid reproductive cycles in a lot
of plants. In animals, the reason hybridization often causes the
offspring to be sterile is when the number of chromosomes
don't line up. Say one animal has twenty chromosomes and
the other has twenty one, and then when you add
(02:39):
those together, the hybrid is going to have an uneven
number of chromosomes, say forty one, and when it tries
to split that in half and create its own gameats,
this odd number of chromosomes means that it doesn't have
pairs that can recombine properly, like not missing the other
half of a zipper, so that when it goes through
(03:00):
myosis in the creation of its gam meats, it can't
create viable gameats even though it was able to be
created by its parents. Sometimes hybrids can be created have
an even number of chromosomes because the two species ended
(03:20):
up having matching sets of chromosomes the matching numbers, and
then they can reproduce and then so this hybrid, which
is viable and not sterile, could become a new species.
Doesn't always, so this is the case for Koi wolves.
So coyotes hybridized with red wolves, who are becoming very
(03:40):
quickly more common in eastern North America, potentially displacing red wolves,
and so this could be a case of hybrid speciation.
But in order to become a new species, the hybrid
has a pretty difficult task. It has to both be
fertile and more fit in order to become its own
(04:02):
viable species, particularly one that takes over the evolutionary niche
left thereby its predecessors. So, in terms of what kinds
of animals are really good at creating hybrid speciation, insects
seem to be the best at it in terms of
creating new hybrid species that then becomes their own species.
(04:23):
So this is probably due to just the sheer quantity
and diversity of insects, making viable and successful combinations much
more likely. So one example is fruitflies. Fruitflies are a
family that seems to hybridize and specie pretty well. So
onto the next part of your question, So are there
(04:46):
specific genes or structures in organisms that facilitate mutations? And
would an organism's ability to more easily mutate be an
evolutionary advantage? So let's talk about the second part of
the question. First, is more easily mutating a good thing
(05:07):
for a species because it makes you more likely to
evolve faster. So mutation is a bit like genetic gambling
or maybe an investment portfolio, where there's, you know, the
bigger the risk, perhaps the bigger the reward, but also
the bigger the downfall that you might have. So most
(05:32):
mutations that occur are actually either neutral or actively harmful
to an animal. Only rarely is a mutation actually beneficial.
So the more dramatic the mutation, say a mutation that
makes you just not have a head right, the more
(05:53):
dramatic the problem. So if you're if you have a mutation,
like there's a very low chance that it's going to
be helpful, there's some chance that it's going to be neutral,
and it could get passed on, and then there's a
(06:14):
pretty good chance that that mutation is actually going to
negatively impact your survival. So it's very very rare that
like a dramatic mutation would be beneficial and then lead
to a sudden jump in evolution. It can happen, but
it's very very rare. So if you're an animal, do
you want there to be a higher chance of genetic errors?
(06:37):
And I would say probably not. So, in addition to
many mutations being harmful to offspring, greater risks for genetic
errors would potentially increase the risk of cancer because cancer
is a result of genetic mishaps genetic errors that causes
the cells to reproduce uncontrollably and not go through cell death,
(07:02):
which is called apoptosis, So having a genetic error that
creates these like bad immortal cells is not good. And
so yeah, it would not necessarily be advantageous to have
a greater rate of mutations in order to facilitate evolution.
(07:22):
You want some chance of mutation without it being too
much of a risk, like having a you know, kind
of diversified investment portfolio instead of something that's very very
you know, wild and chaotic and volatile. I don't actually
know much about investment. I can't give you advice, probably
both legally and also just I'm not good at it,
(07:44):
so don't listen to me. So there are some ways
to increase your chance of positive genetic mutations. One is
a greater genetic library. So the more genes and the
more diverse genes that a species has had, the more
it has to kind of randomly pull upon in response
(08:05):
to environmental pressures, and more stuff to kind of play with,
like more legos in a giant bin that could be
used to create new mutations or new characteristics. So like
kind of think of your genetic code as an archive
full of like blueprints, only some of which are actually
(08:28):
used and copied over to build things. Actually a lot
of it is not generally used. But say like there's
like an earthquake or something and a blueprint falls next
to another blueprint and changes the design. The more blueprints
you have, the more chances you have to find something
that might actually address a certain issue. Like, say an
(08:49):
earthquake happened, all your bridges got damaged, and this blueprint
that kind of fell off the shelves next to this
other one gives you an idea for more flexible bridge,
which maybe it's a little weaker, but in this situation,
in this type of environment, with a lot of earthquakes,
having the more flexible bridge is actually better. So so
(09:10):
for an animal, what this means, right, is if you
have a large sort of genome, a large genetic lot
of genetic diversity, a big genetic library, and then also
other members of your species who have their own sort
of large genetic library, there's a good chance that, say
there's an environmental pressure, right, some change in your environment,
(09:33):
maybe a disease or a new predator, there's a greater
chance that you're going to randomly Again, none of this
can be planned, right, It's all a random mutation that
happens to be able to address some environmental pressure. Even
though most mutations are either neutral or bad, once in
(09:53):
a while you might happen upon a mutation that's actually good.
And it's those rare cases that advanced evolution. And that's
why evolution is so so so slow. Millions and millions
of years to get to where we are at the
very least, you know, like like a thousand years on
(10:15):
the evolutionary timescale is very short, so hundreds of thousands
of years. It might take like hundreds of thousands of
years to address a certain evolutionary problem, right, So it's
very very very slow. It's hard to have really rapid evolution.
It can happen, like there are cases in which animals
(10:36):
adapt to situations quite quickly, it's just that's not super common, right,
Especially the more dramatic the change has to be, the
less likely it is to be happening really rapid, because
the more dramatic the change, the more likely it's going
to mess up that organism in a way it can't survive.
(10:58):
So like, hey, if there's a lot of flooding around us,
why can't we evolve gills in a few generations, Well,
you mess with our ability to breathe. The most likely
outcome is our offspring is just gonna die and not
be able to function. So going from something really dramatic
whereas like say having more of a say more say
(11:23):
the sun gets really bright, right, and then we end
up having more brown eyed people because they end up
being a lot more well suited to a lot of
harsh light or something. This is just an example. I
have nothing against blue eyed people. I have blue eyes myself,
but in that case, perhaps brown eyes might become more common,
right Like if somehow having really in a situation. Now
(11:46):
we live in a society right where we have sunglasses,
so this would not happen. I want to be clear,
but say, you know, we're an antle that really relies
on our site, and then say, if you have blue eyes,
you're a lot more sensitive to light. Then maybe blue
eyes might start to phase out a little bit more quickly,
right because eye color is something is a trait that
(12:08):
could say mutate or change really quickly without it being
devastating to the whole body. Right Like, like certain there's
certain sort of more superficial or minor changes to the
body that could be could happen more rapidly, like hair loss, right,
hair gain, or hair loss that's not necessarily going to
(12:29):
doom an animal. Right, So you might have changes in coat,
changes in coat color changes, you know, slight changes in size,
things like that can happen much more quickly over an
evolutionary timeline than say, whether you have lungs or gills,
whether you have legs or tentacles. Right. So, yeah, so
evolution just happens really really slow because mutations are definitely
(12:54):
not something you typically want. You typically don't want a
mutation typically that would be bad news or at the
very least neutral. It's super super rare for there to
be a mutation that's actually beneficial, that's actually going to
make the offspring more viable than its parents. But it
does happen, and that's the whole reason that evolution works.
(13:17):
So that's why it's really slow. Now onto the next
part of the question. Are there certain genes and structures
more prone to mutations? Absolutely, there's structures and genes more
prone to mutations, both in bad ways and potentially very
(13:38):
rarely in good ways. So these are genetic hotspots that
are more prone to mutation. Usually well, especially this happens
in DNA strands with many repeating sequences which can cause
that little enzyme that runs along your DNA to copy
it called a polymerase, to kind of like when it
(14:01):
like decouples from the DNA and then reattaches and it
can actually sort of like lose its spot more easily
if you have repetitions of certain sequences. So it's kind
of like if you're trying to memorize a really long
sequence of numbers or letters, say, like you know, you're
(14:22):
memorizing a pin or a telephone number, and then like
there's like a bunch of fives, and it's like, I
can't remember how many fives there were? Were there four
fives or five fives? That's sort of not on an
intellectual level, right, a polimeraise can't think. But on a
physical level, the reattachment is more likely to happen erroneously
(14:43):
in slip when you have repeating sequences, So this is
more likely to result in a mutation. This is actually
something that could be you know, like in terms of practicality, right,
like you may have DNA hotspots that are prone to mutation,
and that can be a bad thing, like be more
likely to result in say certain types of cancers. But
(15:07):
you know you also have say like if you have
cells that are certain characteristics of somatic cells, that means
like cells that are not involved in creating offspring. Somatic
cells in generally are more likely to mutate, right, because
(15:27):
they only affect really that cell and then that cells offspring.
It doesn't affect an entire like new organism and new offspring.
So like you know, skin cells or muscle cells, right,
are much more likely to have some kind of like
mutation than germline cells. So germline cells meaning cells involved
(15:50):
in creating gam meets, and those gam meats are what
then create offspring, right, sperm and eggs. So it's much
more likely you have mutations in cells that are happening
like happening in your body, then you are to have
mutations that affect your offspring. And in general that's a
(16:10):
good thing because if you have a mutation of of
something important for your offspring, most likely that's going to
result in say like a spontaneous abortion, right, a miscarriage,
which is very natural, happens very often, and or you know,
(16:32):
in some some severe cases, right, the offspring has some
severe issue that makes it harder for it to survive.
So you know, it's it's a really it's a really
interesting thing. Evolution has to be really slow. If it
were too fast, basically, our cells would be mutating at
(16:53):
such a rate that we would have so many potential problems, cancer,
debilitating mutations that say, like, you know, like I said,
the example is like a mutation that like lops your
whole head off, right, Like you're born without a head.
You can't really do much. So mutations have to be
(17:14):
countered counterbalanced by, you know, some some slowness. Otherwise, things
that mutate too quickly are not going to last very
long because they're taking too many genetic risks. But like
I said, you know, having a lot of genetic diversity,
a huge genetical library is one way that animals can
(17:35):
instead of going for speed of mutations, going for a
higher probability of different types of diverse mutations and then
increasing the chance that one of those mutations might end
up being something good. All right, on to the next
(17:55):
listener question. Hi, Katie, our three year old German shepherd Betty.
Sometimes we'll kick up the grass behind her after going
to the bathroom, both number one and number two. The
last time we saw this. My daughters Eleanor and Penelope
seven and ten almost tune and I try to figure
out why dogs do this. Their guesses were to either
(18:18):
spread the smell or conversely cover the smell. I suggested
maybe it is like doggy toilet paper, kicking up grass
and leaves and such to knock shake loose any hangers on.
I further suggested, maybe Betty evolved to have a higher
likelihood of kicking dirt at me while I bent over
to pick up her poop. Any actual research on this topic,
(18:38):
what are your thoughts? Thank you? Patrick? Hi? Patrick, Yes,
there is actually some research on this topic. It is
a very common behavior among dogs. My dog does it too,
which is especially funny when she poops on cobblestone and
she tries to scratch at that nothing really happens. Also,
don't worry, I pick up every single dog turn she
(19:01):
leaves on the cobblestones because I am not a filthy degenerate.
I very much believe in picking up dog doodoes, to
the point where my dog probably thinks I'm obsessed with
collecting her poop. Okay, so you may notice that your
dog is more likely to do it when another dog
(19:21):
is around, right like after she's pooped or peed and
she sees another dog, maybe she's more likely to scratch
at the ground, or even when you stoop down to
pick up the poop, that's when your dog suddenly decides
it's scratch and time, tend to kick up some turf
and possibly peepee or poopoo in your face. So this
seems to be an instinctive territory marking response. So rather
(19:45):
than covering up the smell, which is a very good theory,
they seem to actually be trying to enhance it. So
they're likely using scent glands on their paws to make
some smell markings. There might be visual cues like scratch marks,
and given that it's more likely to be done actively
in the presence of other dogs, according to studies, it
(20:09):
might be a form of visual communication too, so like hey,
look at me, I'm marking my territory. I'm doing it
in front of you, just so you know what's going on.
So my theory is that dogs feel pretty vulnerable when
they poop and pee, so I suspect that scratching, even
growling after they use the toilet may be a way
(20:31):
of defensively marking their territory. But also not just in
terms of saying like, this is my spot, but a
warning to other dogs who any dogs that might have
an idea about messing with them while they're in such
a vulnerable potty position, just like, hey, I'm alert and
I'm aware and I see you and back off. This
is my toilet, like don't mess with me, essentially while
(20:54):
I'm doing my potties, which I can totally you know,
but I get it, like when someone's pounding on the
door when I'm trying to do my potties, I get
very upset. So an anecdotal example is that my dog
primarily does the ground scratching behavior after she goes to
the bathroom when she notices another dog approaching. So I
(21:18):
think that for her, she's feeling sort of insecure, and
so it's not necessarily that she really wants this to
be part of her territory as much as it's saying like, hey,
I see you there, this is my toilet. Don't bother
me while I'm doing my potties and don't try to
take advantage of me when I'm in this vulnerable position
like I'm on it and I want you to know.
(21:38):
And other dogs that might pass by here know that like,
I'm aware, I'm on it, and I'm not going to
tolerate anyone messing with me when I do my potties.
So yeah, I think that if a dog is feeling
territorial defensive, insecure, or simply wants to communicate this is
my toilet, the kicking behavior helps them spread their scent
and visually communicate that they're not going to tolerate interlopers
(22:03):
or look at loose. So interestingly, there was a study
that found that older shelter dogs were more likely to
do the ground scratching behavior, which does lend a bit
of credence to my theory that dogs who are more insecure,
perhaps feeling that they don't have a stable established territory
or that they're in an area that may be frequented
(22:24):
by other dogs, that they might be more likely to
do the ground scratching behavior in general. Now, I don't
want anyone to like freak out and think, oh, no,
I have an insecure dog. That's not necessarily what I'm saying,
Like this might be more of a general rule, like
if your dog may have no problems or not be
insecure at all, they may like have the sort of
(22:46):
instinct to do it and then just kind of really
enjoy the feeling of it, like the feeling of scratching,
the feeling of security of like kind of securing their toilet.
For instance, my dog really enjoys doing sort of scratching,
digging and real behavior in her bed and on the
couch when she's really relaxed, So that is not a
stress behavior. That's her relaxing and kind of settling and
(23:09):
sort of like tucking herself in and feeling secure. So
I don't think it's always a stress response, but for
a lot of dogs it might be like when they
are feeling a little vulnerable or a little insecure. It's
not a problem though, Like it's it's not a problem
behavior unless for some reason they it seems to really
stress them out. Like it's very very common, So I
(23:29):
wouldn't worry about it other than the fact that your
dog it does seem to be kicking turf into your face,
which you know is a little disrespectful, but hey, what
are you gonna do about it? I think that she's
made her point, which is you should, you know, give
her maybe some reading materials while she's going to the bathroom.
(23:50):
My newspaper think about it all right, onto the next
listener question. Hi Katie. Every day in my seventh grade
Life Science Clubs clssroom, I highlight some organism. Sometimes they're
just living things I find cool or interesting. Other times
the creatures related to the day's topic. Tomorrow we begin
that middle school rite of passage, the cell model project.
(24:13):
I remember that tomorrow's creature is going to be the
Portuguese man o war. I'm highlighting this creature because it
is a complex colonial organism with several zooids, which are
multicellular little things that are specialized in work together. But wait,
doesn't that mean the whole organism is multi cellular? Some
(24:33):
internet person wrote it is colonial from the morphological, developmental,
and evolutionary points of view. I have an idea of
what that means, but don't have time right now to
research the details of it. This is what made me
think of you, because that's literally your job as the
host of my favorite podcast. I would love to hear
a show about this distinction and other examples of organisms
that blur the lines between unicellular, colonial and multicellular. As always,
(24:57):
I love the show and wish you the best. And
this is from Amanda m Hi Amanda, this is a
fantastic question, and I love the Portuguese Man of War.
They are beautiful, They're amazing. They look like aliens, sort
of like a cross between a jellyfish and a discarded
shopping bag floating in the ocean. Definitely not something you
(25:17):
said should touch, given their venomous stingers. And that's a
great idea for a whole episode to do a show
about colonial and multicellular organisms. I will probably do that,
but for now let me answer your questions. So the
difference between a unicellular and multicellular organism is straightforward, right,
A single cell like a protozoan versus multiple cells. But
(25:42):
what is a colonial organism and how does it distinguish
itself from a multi cellular organism? So why is a
man of war considered a colonial organism whereas a jellyfish
is considered multicellular. So technically, a colonial organism is one
made up of individual organisms that could, in theory, be
(26:06):
separated from the collective organism and survive. And these are
called zooids. So a human skin cell can't survive on
its own, whereas like a zooid such as a part
of a piece of coral like a coral polyp could
in theory or in general, survive on its own. The
reason the man o war is confusing is that it
(26:29):
has progressed so far into being a colonial organism that
the individual zooids now act more like little organelles, and
it couldn't really survive on their own. So the distinction
between a man of war and a multicellular organism is
partially semantic, but also it's in terms of how it
(26:52):
develops and its evolutionary history. So I think the best way,
perhaps most horrifying way, but the best way to imagine
it is it's as if a human embryo, like a
human fetus, cloned itself in utero, differentiated a bunch of
other fetuses that were good at different jobs, and formed
(27:14):
a giant monster made out of hundreds of babies, and
then evolved to the point where all these babies were
connected by tissue and there were helpless and would die
on their own if you separated them from the giant,
horrifying megatron baby. So one could argue that functionally this
is the same as a multicellular organism, or maybe it's
(27:36):
on its way to being a multicellular organism, but the
way it evolved right in the way that it developed,
right as like basically making a bunch of clones of
itself and then each like sort of clone organism, differentiating
sort of starting out as a collection of zoids and
then becoming more of a cohesive, interdependent organism. The way
(28:00):
things are classified now, this would be considered a colonial organism.
But it's a really good question because there is it's
there's a lot of gray areas in evolutionary biology, and
this is one of them. At one point, does something
that's like a colonial organism just become a multicellular organism
(28:20):
and a lot of it's a lot of it's a
semantic difference, but it's it's a semantic difference that's based
on its evolutionary history and the way that it develops, right,
the reproductive cycle, the way it develops. So that is
the answer to your question, I hope, and definitely stay
tuned in the future because I will. It's a great
(28:43):
idea for an episode to do one on colonial organisms
and why they're so weird, what's going on with those guys? Well,
thank you guys again so much for your questions. If
you have a question, please write to me at Creature
featurepod at gmail dot com. I do love doing these
listener questions episodes. Let me know so if you enjoy
(29:04):
hearing them, if you want me to do less more
of them, but I am definitely. I have a really
great lineup of guests coming up on the show, so
I'm gonna have some fowlength episodes with a guest so
that I'm not just staring at my dog talking to
her as I'm podcasting, right, Cookie, Is that better? Yep? Yep,
(29:28):
She's leaving. She doesn't want me to do this anymore anyways,
Thank you guys so much for listening, and thanks to
the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina.
Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like
the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast,
or Hey guess what where you listen to your favorite shows.
(29:49):
I can't judge you, and I'm not your mother, so
I can't tell you what to do. But don't touch
a man o war. It's outchi kaboobers. It'll hurt you,
even though it does look kind of like a pretty
grocery bag floating in the ocean. See you next Wednesday.
M
Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show, it's a quick little listener's
Questions episode. Now, do not worry. I have a bunch
of really cool guests lined up that I am scheduling.
So it is happening, folks, and I'm super excited. But today, yes,
(00:30):
a little listener questions episode. You guys wrote to me
some pretty amazing questions and I would like to answer them.
So let's take a moment to dive into a think
hoole and answer some questions. Hi, Katie, I was recently
re listening to the lemon and grapefruit episodes of Secretly
(00:51):
Incredibly Fascinating, and in those episodes, Alex springs up that
citrus can cross breed and mutate easily with each other.
I would like to know if there are any other
genuses of organisms that can cross breed and mutate as
well or better than citrus. Also, are there any specific
genes or structures in organisms that facilitate mutations? Overall? I
(01:13):
was thinking and wondering if an organism's ability to more
easily mutate would be an evolutionary advantage. Thank you for
the great podcast, Daniel. Thank you so much, Daniel. This
is really a fantastic question. Also, thanks for the secretly
incredibly fascinating shout out. That is a show that I
do with Alex Schmidt where he teaches me about wild
(01:34):
stuff every week. So let's tackle this question one part
at a time. So can animals cross breed and facilitate evolution?
So can there be a hybrid animal that progresses evolution? Yes,
this can happen as long as the animals are closely related.
(01:55):
So this is called hybrid speciation when you have two
different species who create a hybrid, and then that hybrid
goes on to propagate and create its own species. So
in plants it is far more common than in animals,
likely because hybridization is less likely to make them infertile.
(02:17):
You also have more rapid reproductive cycles in a lot
of plants. In animals, the reason hybridization often causes the
offspring to be sterile is when the number of chromosomes
don't line up. Say one animal has twenty chromosomes and
the other has twenty one, and then when you add
(02:39):
those together, the hybrid is going to have an uneven
number of chromosomes, say forty one, and when it tries
to split that in half and create its own gameats,
this odd number of chromosomes means that it doesn't have
pairs that can recombine properly, like not missing the other
half of a zipper, so that when it goes through
(03:00):
myosis in the creation of its gam meats, it can't
create viable gameats even though it was able to be
created by its parents. Sometimes hybrids can be created have
an even number of chromosomes because the two species ended
(03:20):
up having matching sets of chromosomes the matching numbers, and
then they can reproduce and then so this hybrid, which
is viable and not sterile, could become a new species.
Doesn't always, so this is the case for Koi wolves.
So coyotes hybridized with red wolves, who are becoming very
(03:40):
quickly more common in eastern North America, potentially displacing red wolves,
and so this could be a case of hybrid speciation.
But in order to become a new species, the hybrid
has a pretty difficult task. It has to both be
fertile and more fit in order to become its own
(04:02):
viable species, particularly one that takes over the evolutionary niche
left thereby its predecessors. So, in terms of what kinds
of animals are really good at creating hybrid speciation, insects
seem to be the best at it in terms of
creating new hybrid species that then becomes their own species.
(04:23):
So this is probably due to just the sheer quantity
and diversity of insects, making viable and successful combinations much
more likely. So one example is fruitflies. Fruitflies are a
family that seems to hybridize and specie pretty well. So
onto the next part of your question, So are there
(04:46):
specific genes or structures in organisms that facilitate mutations? And
would an organism's ability to more easily mutate be an
evolutionary advantage? So let's talk about the second part of
the question. First, is more easily mutating a good thing
(05:07):
for a species because it makes you more likely to
evolve faster. So mutation is a bit like genetic gambling
or maybe an investment portfolio, where there's, you know, the
bigger the risk, perhaps the bigger the reward, but also
the bigger the downfall that you might have. So most
(05:32):
mutations that occur are actually either neutral or actively harmful
to an animal. Only rarely is a mutation actually beneficial.
So the more dramatic the mutation, say a mutation that
makes you just not have a head right, the more
(05:53):
dramatic the problem. So if you're if you have a mutation,
like there's a very low chance that it's going to
be helpful, there's some chance that it's going to be neutral,
and it could get passed on, and then there's a
(06:14):
pretty good chance that that mutation is actually going to
negatively impact your survival. So it's very very rare that
like a dramatic mutation would be beneficial and then lead
to a sudden jump in evolution. It can happen, but
it's very very rare. So if you're an animal, do
you want there to be a higher chance of genetic errors?
(06:37):
And I would say probably not. So, in addition to
many mutations being harmful to offspring, greater risks for genetic
errors would potentially increase the risk of cancer because cancer
is a result of genetic mishaps genetic errors that causes
the cells to reproduce uncontrollably and not go through cell death,
(07:02):
which is called apoptosis, So having a genetic error that
creates these like bad immortal cells is not good. And
so yeah, it would not necessarily be advantageous to have
a greater rate of mutations in order to facilitate evolution.
(07:22):
You want some chance of mutation without it being too
much of a risk, like having a you know, kind
of diversified investment portfolio instead of something that's very very
you know, wild and chaotic and volatile. I don't actually
know much about investment. I can't give you advice, probably
both legally and also just I'm not good at it,
(07:44):
so don't listen to me. So there are some ways
to increase your chance of positive genetic mutations. One is
a greater genetic library. So the more genes and the
more diverse genes that a species has had, the more
it has to kind of randomly pull upon in response
(08:05):
to environmental pressures, and more stuff to kind of play with,
like more legos in a giant bin that could be
used to create new mutations or new characteristics. So like
kind of think of your genetic code as an archive
full of like blueprints, only some of which are actually
(08:28):
used and copied over to build things. Actually a lot
of it is not generally used. But say like there's
like an earthquake or something and a blueprint falls next
to another blueprint and changes the design. The more blueprints
you have, the more chances you have to find something
that might actually address a certain issue. Like, say an
(08:49):
earthquake happened, all your bridges got damaged, and this blueprint
that kind of fell off the shelves next to this
other one gives you an idea for more flexible bridge,
which maybe it's a little weaker, but in this situation,
in this type of environment, with a lot of earthquakes,
having the more flexible bridge is actually better. So so
(09:10):
for an animal, what this means, right, is if you
have a large sort of genome, a large genetic lot
of genetic diversity, a big genetic library, and then also
other members of your species who have their own sort
of large genetic library, there's a good chance that, say
there's an environmental pressure, right, some change in your environment,
(09:33):
maybe a disease or a new predator, there's a greater
chance that you're going to randomly Again, none of this
can be planned, right, It's all a random mutation that
happens to be able to address some environmental pressure. Even
though most mutations are either neutral or bad, once in
(09:53):
a while you might happen upon a mutation that's actually good.
And it's those rare cases that advanced evolution. And that's
why evolution is so so so slow. Millions and millions
of years to get to where we are at the
very least, you know, like like a thousand years on
(10:15):
the evolutionary timescale is very short, so hundreds of thousands
of years. It might take like hundreds of thousands of
years to address a certain evolutionary problem, right, So it's
very very very slow. It's hard to have really rapid evolution.
It can happen, like there are cases in which animals
(10:36):
adapt to situations quite quickly, it's just that's not super common, right,
Especially the more dramatic the change has to be, the
less likely it is to be happening really rapid, because
the more dramatic the change, the more likely it's going
to mess up that organism in a way it can't survive.
(10:58):
So like, hey, if there's a lot of flooding around us,
why can't we evolve gills in a few generations, Well,
you mess with our ability to breathe. The most likely
outcome is our offspring is just gonna die and not
be able to function. So going from something really dramatic
whereas like say having more of a say more say
(11:23):
the sun gets really bright, right, and then we end
up having more brown eyed people because they end up
being a lot more well suited to a lot of
harsh light or something. This is just an example. I
have nothing against blue eyed people. I have blue eyes myself,
but in that case, perhaps brown eyes might become more common,
right Like if somehow having really in a situation. Now
(11:46):
we live in a society right where we have sunglasses,
so this would not happen. I want to be clear,
but say, you know, we're an antle that really relies
on our site, and then say, if you have blue eyes,
you're a lot more sensitive to light. Then maybe blue
eyes might start to phase out a little bit more quickly,
right because eye color is something is a trait that
(12:08):
could say mutate or change really quickly without it being
devastating to the whole body. Right Like, like certain there's
certain sort of more superficial or minor changes to the
body that could be could happen more rapidly, like hair loss, right,
hair gain, or hair loss that's not necessarily going to
(12:29):
doom an animal. Right, So you might have changes in coat,
changes in coat color changes, you know, slight changes in size,
things like that can happen much more quickly over an
evolutionary timeline than say, whether you have lungs or gills,
whether you have legs or tentacles. Right. So, yeah, so
evolution just happens really really slow because mutations are definitely
(12:54):
not something you typically want. You typically don't want a
mutation typically that would be bad news or at the
very least neutral. It's super super rare for there to
be a mutation that's actually beneficial, that's actually going to
make the offspring more viable than its parents. But it
does happen, and that's the whole reason that evolution works.
(13:17):
So that's why it's really slow. Now onto the next
part of the question. Are there certain genes and structures
more prone to mutations? Absolutely, there's structures and genes more
prone to mutations, both in bad ways and potentially very
(13:38):
rarely in good ways. So these are genetic hotspots that
are more prone to mutation. Usually well, especially this happens
in DNA strands with many repeating sequences which can cause
that little enzyme that runs along your DNA to copy
it called a polymerase, to kind of like when it
(14:01):
like decouples from the DNA and then reattaches and it
can actually sort of like lose its spot more easily
if you have repetitions of certain sequences. So it's kind
of like if you're trying to memorize a really long
sequence of numbers or letters, say, like you know, you're
(14:22):
memorizing a pin or a telephone number, and then like
there's like a bunch of fives, and it's like, I
can't remember how many fives there were? Were there four
fives or five fives? That's sort of not on an
intellectual level, right, a polimeraise can't think. But on a
physical level, the reattachment is more likely to happen erroneously
(14:43):
in slip when you have repeating sequences, So this is
more likely to result in a mutation. This is actually
something that could be you know, like in terms of practicality, right,
like you may have DNA hotspots that are prone to mutation,
and that can be a bad thing, like be more
likely to result in say certain types of cancers. But
(15:07):
you know you also have say like if you have
cells that are certain characteristics of somatic cells, that means
like cells that are not involved in creating offspring. Somatic
cells in generally are more likely to mutate, right, because
(15:27):
they only affect really that cell and then that cells offspring.
It doesn't affect an entire like new organism and new offspring.
So like you know, skin cells or muscle cells, right,
are much more likely to have some kind of like
mutation than germline cells. So germline cells meaning cells involved
(15:50):
in creating gam meets, and those gam meats are what
then create offspring, right, sperm and eggs. So it's much
more likely you have mutations in cells that are happening
like happening in your body, then you are to have
mutations that affect your offspring. And in general that's a
(16:10):
good thing because if you have a mutation of of
something important for your offspring, most likely that's going to
result in say like a spontaneous abortion, right, a miscarriage,
which is very natural, happens very often, and or you know,
(16:32):
in some some severe cases, right, the offspring has some
severe issue that makes it harder for it to survive.
So you know, it's it's a really it's a really
interesting thing. Evolution has to be really slow. If it
were too fast, basically, our cells would be mutating at
(16:53):
such a rate that we would have so many potential problems, cancer,
debilitating mutations that say, like, you know, like I said,
the example is like a mutation that like lops your
whole head off, right, Like you're born without a head.
You can't really do much. So mutations have to be
(17:14):
countered counterbalanced by, you know, some some slowness. Otherwise, things
that mutate too quickly are not going to last very
long because they're taking too many genetic risks. But like
I said, you know, having a lot of genetic diversity,
a huge genetical library is one way that animals can
(17:35):
instead of going for speed of mutations, going for a
higher probability of different types of diverse mutations and then
increasing the chance that one of those mutations might end
up being something good. All right, on to the next
(17:55):
listener question. Hi, Katie, our three year old German shepherd Betty.
Sometimes we'll kick up the grass behind her after going
to the bathroom, both number one and number two. The
last time we saw this. My daughters Eleanor and Penelope
seven and ten almost tune and I try to figure
out why dogs do this. Their guesses were to either
(18:18):
spread the smell or conversely cover the smell. I suggested
maybe it is like doggy toilet paper, kicking up grass
and leaves and such to knock shake loose any hangers on.
I further suggested, maybe Betty evolved to have a higher
likelihood of kicking dirt at me while I bent over
to pick up her poop. Any actual research on this topic,
(18:38):
what are your thoughts? Thank you? Patrick? Hi? Patrick, Yes,
there is actually some research on this topic. It is
a very common behavior among dogs. My dog does it too,
which is especially funny when she poops on cobblestone and
she tries to scratch at that nothing really happens. Also,
don't worry, I pick up every single dog turn she
(19:01):
leaves on the cobblestones because I am not a filthy degenerate.
I very much believe in picking up dog doodoes, to
the point where my dog probably thinks I'm obsessed with
collecting her poop. Okay, so you may notice that your
dog is more likely to do it when another dog
(19:21):
is around, right like after she's pooped or peed and
she sees another dog, maybe she's more likely to scratch
at the ground, or even when you stoop down to
pick up the poop, that's when your dog suddenly decides
it's scratch and time, tend to kick up some turf
and possibly peepee or poopoo in your face. So this
seems to be an instinctive territory marking response. So rather
(19:45):
than covering up the smell, which is a very good theory,
they seem to actually be trying to enhance it. So
they're likely using scent glands on their paws to make
some smell markings. There might be visual cues like scratch marks,
and given that it's more likely to be done actively
in the presence of other dogs, according to studies, it
(20:09):
might be a form of visual communication too, so like hey,
look at me, I'm marking my territory. I'm doing it
in front of you, just so you know what's going on.
So my theory is that dogs feel pretty vulnerable when
they poop and pee, so I suspect that scratching, even
growling after they use the toilet may be a way
(20:31):
of defensively marking their territory. But also not just in
terms of saying like, this is my spot, but a
warning to other dogs who any dogs that might have
an idea about messing with them while they're in such
a vulnerable potty position, just like, hey, I'm alert and
I'm aware and I see you and back off. This
is my toilet, like don't mess with me, essentially while
(20:54):
I'm doing my potties, which I can totally you know,
but I get it, like when someone's pounding on the
door when I'm trying to do my potties, I get
very upset. So an anecdotal example is that my dog
primarily does the ground scratching behavior after she goes to
the bathroom when she notices another dog approaching. So I
(21:18):
think that for her, she's feeling sort of insecure, and
so it's not necessarily that she really wants this to
be part of her territory as much as it's saying like, hey,
I see you there, this is my toilet. Don't bother
me while I'm doing my potties and don't try to
take advantage of me when I'm in this vulnerable position
like I'm on it and I want you to know.
(21:38):
And other dogs that might pass by here know that like,
I'm aware, I'm on it, and I'm not going to
tolerate anyone messing with me when I do my potties.
So yeah, I think that if a dog is feeling
territorial defensive, insecure, or simply wants to communicate this is
my toilet, the kicking behavior helps them spread their scent
and visually communicate that they're not going to tolerate interlopers
(22:03):
or look at loose. So interestingly, there was a study
that found that older shelter dogs were more likely to
do the ground scratching behavior, which does lend a bit
of credence to my theory that dogs who are more insecure,
perhaps feeling that they don't have a stable established territory
or that they're in an area that may be frequented
(22:24):
by other dogs, that they might be more likely to
do the ground scratching behavior in general. Now, I don't
want anyone to like freak out and think, oh, no,
I have an insecure dog. That's not necessarily what I'm saying,
Like this might be more of a general rule, like
if your dog may have no problems or not be
insecure at all, they may like have the sort of
(22:46):
instinct to do it and then just kind of really
enjoy the feeling of it, like the feeling of scratching,
the feeling of security of like kind of securing their toilet.
For instance, my dog really enjoys doing sort of scratching,
digging and real behavior in her bed and on the
couch when she's really relaxed, So that is not a
stress behavior. That's her relaxing and kind of settling and
(23:09):
sort of like tucking herself in and feeling secure. So
I don't think it's always a stress response, but for
a lot of dogs it might be like when they
are feeling a little vulnerable or a little insecure. It's
not a problem though, Like it's it's not a problem
behavior unless for some reason they it seems to really
stress them out. Like it's very very common, So I
(23:29):
wouldn't worry about it other than the fact that your
dog it does seem to be kicking turf into your face,
which you know is a little disrespectful, but hey, what
are you gonna do about it? I think that she's
made her point, which is you should, you know, give
her maybe some reading materials while she's going to the bathroom.
(23:50):
My newspaper think about it all right, onto the next
listener question. Hi Katie. Every day in my seventh grade
Life Science Clubs clssroom, I highlight some organism. Sometimes they're
just living things I find cool or interesting. Other times
the creatures related to the day's topic. Tomorrow we begin
that middle school rite of passage, the cell model project.
(24:13):
I remember that tomorrow's creature is going to be the
Portuguese man o war. I'm highlighting this creature because it
is a complex colonial organism with several zooids, which are
multicellular little things that are specialized in work together. But wait,
doesn't that mean the whole organism is multi cellular? Some
(24:33):
internet person wrote it is colonial from the morphological, developmental,
and evolutionary points of view. I have an idea of
what that means, but don't have time right now to
research the details of it. This is what made me
think of you, because that's literally your job as the
host of my favorite podcast. I would love to hear
a show about this distinction and other examples of organisms
that blur the lines between unicellular, colonial and multicellular. As always,
(24:57):
I love the show and wish you the best. And
this is from Amanda m Hi Amanda, this is a
fantastic question, and I love the Portuguese Man of War.
They are beautiful, They're amazing. They look like aliens, sort
of like a cross between a jellyfish and a discarded
shopping bag floating in the ocean. Definitely not something you
(25:17):
said should touch, given their venomous stingers. And that's a
great idea for a whole episode to do a show
about colonial and multicellular organisms. I will probably do that,
but for now let me answer your questions. So the
difference between a unicellular and multicellular organism is straightforward, right,
A single cell like a protozoan versus multiple cells. But
(25:42):
what is a colonial organism and how does it distinguish
itself from a multi cellular organism? So why is a
man of war considered a colonial organism whereas a jellyfish
is considered multicellular. So technically, a colonial organism is one
made up of individual organisms that could, in theory, be
(26:06):
separated from the collective organism and survive. And these are
called zooids. So a human skin cell can't survive on
its own, whereas like a zooid such as a part
of a piece of coral like a coral polyp could
in theory or in general, survive on its own. The
reason the man o war is confusing is that it
(26:29):
has progressed so far into being a colonial organism that
the individual zooids now act more like little organelles, and
it couldn't really survive on their own. So the distinction
between a man of war and a multicellular organism is
partially semantic, but also it's in terms of how it
(26:52):
develops and its evolutionary history. So I think the best way,
perhaps most horrifying way, but the best way to imagine
it is it's as if a human embryo, like a
human fetus, cloned itself in utero, differentiated a bunch of
other fetuses that were good at different jobs, and formed
(27:14):
a giant monster made out of hundreds of babies, and
then evolved to the point where all these babies were
connected by tissue and there were helpless and would die
on their own if you separated them from the giant,
horrifying megatron baby. So one could argue that functionally this
is the same as a multicellular organism, or maybe it's
(27:36):
on its way to being a multicellular organism, but the
way it evolved right in the way that it developed,
right as like basically making a bunch of clones of
itself and then each like sort of clone organism, differentiating
sort of starting out as a collection of zoids and
then becoming more of a cohesive, interdependent organism. The way
(28:00):
things are classified now, this would be considered a colonial organism.
But it's a really good question because there is it's
there's a lot of gray areas in evolutionary biology, and
this is one of them. At one point, does something
that's like a colonial organism just become a multicellular organism
(28:20):
and a lot of it's a lot of it's a
semantic difference, but it's it's a semantic difference that's based
on its evolutionary history and the way that it develops, right,
the reproductive cycle, the way it develops. So that is
the answer to your question, I hope, and definitely stay
tuned in the future because I will. It's a great
(28:43):
idea for an episode to do one on colonial organisms
and why they're so weird, what's going on with those guys? Well,
thank you guys again so much for your questions. If
you have a question, please write to me at Creature
featurepod at gmail dot com. I do love doing these
listener questions episodes. Let me know so if you enjoy
(29:04):
hearing them, if you want me to do less more
of them, but I am definitely. I have a really
great lineup of guests coming up on the show, so
I'm gonna have some fowlength episodes with a guest so
that I'm not just staring at my dog talking to
her as I'm podcasting, right, Cookie, Is that better? Yep? Yep,
(29:28):
She's leaving. She doesn't want me to do this anymore anyways,
Thank you guys so much for listening, and thanks to
the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina.
Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like
the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast,
or Hey guess what where you listen to your favorite shows.
(29:49):
I can't judge you, and I'm not your mother, so
I can't tell you what to do. But don't touch
a man o war. It's outchi kaboobers. It'll hurt you,
even though it does look kind of like a pretty
grocery bag floating in the ocean. See you next Wednesday.
M
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Katie Goldin
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