Monogamy may have a telltale signature of gene activity
In the animal world, monogamy has some clear perks. Living in pairs can give animals some stability and certainty in the constant struggle to reproduce and protect their young—which may be why it has evolved independently in various species. Now, an analysis of gene activity within the brains of frogs, rodents, fish, and birds suggests there may be a pattern common to monogamous creatures. Despite very different brain structures and evolutionary histories, these animals all seem to have developed monogamy by turning on and off some of the same sets of genes.
"It is quite surprising," says Harvard University evolutionary biologist Hopi Hoekstra, who was not involved in the new work. "It suggests that there's a sort of genomic strategy to becoming monogamous that evolution has repeatedly tapped into."
Conserved transcriptomic profiles underpin monogamy across vertebrates (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1813775116) (DX)
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:10PM (1 child)
Productivity or harems. Which would you choose?
How much more defense spending and spreading democracy do we need before we get harems?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:34PM
Since it's almost certain that neither of us are going to be the ones with harems? Productivity. No question. I like getting laid.
The thing about harems is that only a tiny percentage of the population can have them - heck, limit harem size to a tiny 3, and you still end up with 2/3rds of men going without. And the reality is that a wealthy man can probably support dozens, if not hundreds of women in his harem (50-100 women was not uncommon for the harems of kings of old, and wealth inequality has increased substantially since then).