Model Organisms

Nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled stickleback evolution

September 8, 2013
James Kohl
Diseases & Disorders, Human Brain, Model Organisms
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Sexual imprinting on ecologically divergent traits leads to sexual isolation in sticklebacks Excerpt: “Odour differences may be owing to pleiotropic effects of adaptive differences in diet [18], habitat [12] and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) alleles selected by parasite differences [19,20].” Excerpt: “…imprinting has turned odour and nuptial coloration into magic traits.” My comment: In my model, natural odour production in vertebrates is not a magic trait. It results from the role of food odours in nutrient-dependent RNA-mediated ecological niche construction.…

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A thought experiment

May 29, 2012
James Kohl
Adaptations, Ecology, Model Organisms, Variations
No Comments

I may be confused about proximate and ultimate cause, especially if the role of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance is not central to the extended evolutionary synthesis. Isn’t transgenerational epigenetic inheritance the problem that led Dickins and Rahman to suggest a thought experiment; one where epigenetic mechanisms introduce shifts in learning bias for certain associations as would endocrine functioning? If so, my model (Kohl, 2012), which combines the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals and pheromones with biased endocrine functioning and adaptive evolution,…

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