It’s not evolution, just adaptation

…”evolve” is not the correct term. The microbes adapted. – Cornelius Hunter

We heard several accusations during the recent Presidential campaign that one or the other candidate, or an interviewer, had taken a quote out of context. Of course, every quote is taken out of context. That’s what a quote is; otherwise it’s just the whole speech, or interview, or whatever. The important question is whether or not it’s taken out of context in a way that changes its meaning.

One thing I don’t do, and never have done, on this blog is intentionally misrepresent other people’s positions.  The quote above, from a recent post by Cornelius Hunter on Evolution News and Views, means just what it says. He really is arguing that microbial adaptation observed in Lenski-style experiments is not evolution.

[Read more…]

Initiation of cell division in Chlamydomonas

Deborah Shelton and colleagues have published a new article arguing that the reigning model of cell division initiation in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii needs to be revised [full disclosure: Dr. Shelton and I were labmates in Rick Michod’s lab at the University of Arizona]. The evolution of multicellularity almost certainly involved changes in cell cycle regulation; for example, there is good evidence that changes to the cell cycle regulator retinoblastoma were involved in the initial transition to multicellular life in the volvocine algae. So understanding cell cycle regulation is vital for understanding the evolution of multicellularity.

[Read more…]

Spheroids without inversion: Astrephomene development

Algae in the family Volvocaceae are (with one exception) little spheroids that swim around in freshwater lakes, ponds, and puddles. Volvox is by far the most famous of these algae, but there are a number of smaller genera, including Eudorina, Pleodorina, and Pandorina:

Fig. 1 from Herron 2016. Examples of volvocine species. (A) Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, (B) Gonium pectorale, (C) Astrephomene gubernaculiferum, (D) Pan- dorina morum, (E) Volvulina compacta, (F) Platydorina caudata, (G) Yamagishiella unicocca, (H) Colemanosphaera charkowiensis, (I) Eudorina elegans, (J) Pleodorina starrii, (K) Volvox barberi, (L) Volvox ovalis, (M) Volvox gigas, (N) Volvox aureus, (O) Volvox carteri. Figure Credit for A and B: Deborah Shelton.

Fig. 1 from Herron 2016. Examples of volvocine species; D-O are in the family Volvocaceae. (A) Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, (B) Gonium pectorale, (C) Astrephomene gubernaculiferum, (D) Pandorina morum, (E) Volvulina compacta, (F) Platydorina caudata, (G) Yamagishiella unicocca, (H) Colemanosphaera charkowiensis, (I) Eudorina elegans, (J) Pleodorina starrii, (K) Volvox barberi, (L) Volvox ovalis, (M) Volvox gigas, (N) Volvox aureus, (O) Volvox carteri. Figure Credit for A and B: Deborah Shelton.

All of the members of this family have a problem: at the end of cell division, they find themselves in an awkward configuration, with their flagella on the inside. Each cell has two flagella, and the algae need them on the outside to be able to swim. They achieve this through a developmental process called inversion, essentially turning themselves completely inside-out during embryogenesis. Even the one member of the family that is not spheroidal, Platydorina (F in the figure above), undergoes inversion before flattening into a horseshoe shape. The ways in which they do this are complex and diverse (see for example “Pleodorina inversion” and “The most important time of your life“), but not the topic of this post.

The sister group to the Volvocaceae, the Goniaceae, also includes a spheroidal genus, Astrephomene (C in the figure above). Although Astrephomene looks a lot like some of the Volvocaceae, say Eudorina (I) or Pleodorina (J), it doesn’t undergo inversion!

[Read more…]

Latinization

ICZN logo by Martyn E. Y. Low. CCBY license.

ICZN logo by Martyn E. Y. Low. Licensed under CCBY 3.0.

While writing the previous post, I wanted to know if the long-standing tradition of not naming species after oneself is just a tradition or an actual rule. Rules and guidelines for this sort of thing are set by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, so I checked their website. In the section about Latinizing proper names, I found this gem:

[Read more…]

Hapalochloris nozakii

Dr. Hisayoshi Nozaki catching a quick nap during the Second International Volvox Meeting in New Brunswick.

Dr. Hisayoshi Nozaki catching a quick nap during the Second International Volvox Meeting in New Brunswick.

University of Tokyo Professor Hisayoshi Nozaki and his colleagues are responsible for describing a large portion of the known diversity of the volvocine algae (see New Volvox species). He described a new species of Astrephomene when he was in high school, leading me to ask him if ‘high school’ meant something different in Japan (it doesn’t). Ironically, since Dr. Nozaki has named numerous species after other people (e.g. Richard Starr, David and Marilyn Kirk, Patrick Ferris, Annette Coleman…), there are, to my knowledge, no species named after him!

Until now, that is: a new paper by Takashi Nakada and Masaru Tomita in the Journal of Phycology introduces Hapalochloris nozakii. This is not just a new species but a new genus, and the bonus is the abbreviated form: H. nozakii.

[Read more…]

Behe’s bait and switch: on the falsifiability of intelligent design

Michael Behe. Image from Uncommon Descent.

Michael Behe. Image from Uncommon Descent.

In a post on Evolution News and Views, Michael Behe sidesteps criticisms that intelligent design is not scientific with a bit of verbal judo. By conflating falsification of particular claims with falsification of intelligent design in general, he seems to back his critics into a rhetorical corner:

Now, one can’t have it both ways. One can’t say both that ID is unfalsifiable (or untestable) and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is therefore testable. The fact that critical reviewers advance scientific arguments against ID (whether successfully or not) shows that intelligent design is indeed falsifiable.

[Read more…]

Pleodorina inversion

Stephanie Höhn and Armin Hallmann have published a detailed study of the developmental process of inversion in Pleodorina californica. Pleodorina is one of the two genera we usually refer to as ‘partially differentiated’ (the other is Astrephomene), meaning that some of their cells are specialized for motility and never reproduce (soma) and some perform both motility and reproductive functions. P. californica is pretty big, up to about 1/3 of a millimeter, easily visible to the naked eye (though you’d need better vision than mine to make out any details).

Stephanie Höhn sampling a pond near Cambridge University during the Volvox 2015 meeting.

Stephanie Höhn sampling a pond near Cambridge University during the Volvox 2015 meeting.

Like all members of the family Volvocaceae, P. californica undergoes complete inversion during development:

After the completion of the cell division phase and before inversion, the embryos of Gonium, Pandorina, Eudorina and Pleodorina consist of a bowl-shaped cell sheet, whereas the embryonic cells of Volvox form a spherical cell sheet. With exception of the genus Astrephomene, all multicellular volvocine embryos face the same “problem”: the flagellar ends of all the cells point toward the interior of the bowl-shaped or spherical cell sheet rather than to the exterior, where they need to be later to function during locomotion. [References removed]

[Read more…]