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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 08 2019, @12:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the if-your-parents-didn't-have-children,-then-you-probably-won't,-either dept.

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)


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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @12:48PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @12:48PM (#783628)

     

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:43PM (#783638)

      Throw them in the Army. When President Warren starts world war 3, those incels will get set Straight. Only the Blood of the enemies of America can fix incels.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:09PM (#783634)

    Maury forged the paternity tests to hide the fact that he knocked up every woman on his show.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:22PM (31 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:22PM (#783635) Homepage Journal

    There's a gene for the kind of people that will screw everything with a heartbeat.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 5, Funny) by fadrian on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:15PM (2 children)

      by fadrian (3194) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:15PM (#783647) Homepage

      My wife claims that it's the whole Y chromosome.

      --
      That is all.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:33PM (#783658)

        Did you pleasure another woman within a week of your wife whipping that one out?

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:17PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:17PM (#783803)

        Given that there are both men and women that can run around like they're in heat 24/7, and there are plenty of men that stay loyal their entire lives, I'd more likely claim it's a defective gene on the X chromosome. Women have two X's so it helps reduce the chance of the defective behavior from surfacing.

    • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:22PM (11 children)

      by inertnet (4071) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:22PM (#783649) Journal

      I read an article once that claimed that there is such a gene. Which people may have none, one or two copies of (from their parents). People who don't have this gene tend to be monogamous. People who have two copies tend to be polygamous, but are also more likely to be thrill seekers (they like extreme sports).

      Personally I'm very happy in my (hopefully) lifetime marriage and sometimes feel sorry for polygamous people, who may never experience a long lasting, meaningful relationship. But hey, they get the extreme sports thrills instead.

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:44PM (3 children)

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:44PM (#783666) Homepage Journal

        She once told me she’d been with a thousand different people. She’s also a skydiver

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:22PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:22PM (#783749)

          Does "jump into bed" and "skydive into bed" mean the same thing?

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 09 2019, @10:27AM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 09 2019, @10:27AM (#784043) Journal

            Does "jump into bed" and "skydive into bed" mean the same thing?

            Basically, yes. The minor difference is the time one gets there and the speed at impact.
            I'm sure there should be some other specific difference, but I can't remember what.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @11:45AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @11:45AM (#784070)

          Sky Diver, Inside Her [youtube.com]Megaman Dive Man remix

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:25PM (1 child)

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:25PM (#783692) Journal

        and sometimes feel sorry for polygamous people, who may never experience a long lasting, meaningful relationship.

        OTOH, they may experience more than one long lasting, meaningful relationship at a time, and feel sorry for you.

        Or perhaps some people might know better than to judge your situation by their personal preferences, eh?

        --
        Polygamy: The plural of spouse is spice.

        • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:58PM

          by inertnet (4071) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:58PM (#783772) Journal

          I wasn't trying to judge, polygamy just isn't my thing. I'm sure that polygamous people can be happy with it, that's even logical. I just have a very different frame of reference.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:21PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:21PM (#783746) Journal

        Well, there is known to be such a gene among prairie voles. IIRC those on one side of some particular river have it, and those on the other side don't. And it regulates (among other things) oxytocin. This, of course, doesn't imply that oxytocin regulation is what makes the difference, but it's grounds to study that carefully.

        So the question in my mind is "Is the genetic change they're talking about related to oxytocin regulation?". I don't know how far back that got evolved.

        P.S.: Just because prairie voles manage things that way doesn't mean that all monogamous/polygamous species do. But it would also be interesting if voles turned out to be an unusual exception.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:00PM (1 child)

        by etherscythe (937) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:00PM (#783790) Journal

        Well, there's traditional polygamy where some guy marries multiple wives, and then there's the modern reinvention of it called polyamory which is done by Millenials and some guy named Warren Buffet and old hippies nobody else cares about*. The two actually have very little to do with each other; polygamy is basically (with a few historical exceptions) a "perk" of archaic patriarchal society having to do with domestic structure and childrearing, and polyamory is that warm fuzzy idea that says you're, like, NOT automatically justified (as either a man or woman) to flip out and set your partner's car on fire just because they still get the feels for other people if you haven't discussed an exclusivity arrangement, because despite what Hollywood wants to tell you, those feels are biologically, if not culturally, normal, which sounds supported even by the article you were reading. There's some other nuance there, but the point is, the term "polygamy" gets a bad rap from all sides.

        *gross oversimplification, just to be clear

        --
        "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
        • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:22PM

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:22PM (#783829)

          When someone mentions polygamy I tend to think of places like Colorado City [wikipedia.org] which sounds like an absolute hellhole if you're not one of the chosen few.

          Or a woman.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @02:39AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @02:39AM (#783950)

        Technically, having more than 1 partner doesn't automatically imply they don't have long lasting and meaningful relationships.

      • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:17PM

        by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:17PM (#784234) Homepage

        > who may never experience a long lasting, meaningful relationship

        "Meaning" is a human construct, a self delusion. Some people find "meaning" in religion, art, or other pursuits. That you have to feel sorry for other people based on your own opinion of what should matter to other people, in my opinion, makes you more pitiful than the people you are pitying.

        --
        Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:26PM (15 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:26PM (#783650)

      my impression is that human males are naturally monogamous for a period of time long enough to raise a couple of kids to puberty, as long as the mother is still sexually available to them. and then various cultural/intellectual things happen on top of that basic drive.
      I'm not sure whether this should count as monogamy as the term applies to the animal kingdom, where it means "mate for life": several generations of kids born and raised over the lifetime of the parents.

      I do wonder what the percentage of men is, who would maintain several relationships at the same time (as long as it was socially acceptable and financially possible).
      did anyone count the various multiple wife households in the different cultures that allow them? There's the muslims and some parts of non-muslim Africa, but I'm not sure about other places.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:24PM (5 children)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:24PM (#783750) Journal

        The idea that animal monogamy is perfect is the result of wishful thinking combined with imperfect observation. Genetic studies have shown that it isn't. (So did many observational studies that people tended to ignore.)

        Perfection is not a feature of the world above the quantum level...and who knows about below it.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:10PM (4 children)

          by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:10PM (#783797)

          Therein lies the distinction between social monogamy (long-term pair-bonding, common in many species) and sexual monogamy (not practiced by any species)

          The problem occurs when an intellectual takes animal takes their bias for the former as as evidence of the desirability of the latter.

          Of course, that's rather putting the cart before the horse - sexual monogamy was never promoted because it was "natural", it was promoted because it contributed to social stability, and thus the amount of wealth that a community of a given size could generate for its masters.

          The more time young working age men spend competing to secure mating rights, the less they spend contributing to the community, and the greater the risk that a valuably productive individual will be injured or killed by a relatively useless rival.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:25PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:25PM (#783856)

            octopus

            praying mantis

            black widow

            naked mole rat

            honeybee

            • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday January 09 2019, @04:13AM (2 children)

              by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday January 09 2019, @04:13AM (#783975)

              You might want to do a little more research into those before you make such ridiculous claims...

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @05:40AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @05:40AM (#783993)

                Anglerfish?

                • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:17PM

                  by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:17PM (#784233)

                  Some species do fall pretty close to the "permanently incorporated into her body" model that a few animals practice, since the males rapidly atrophy to the point that they can't survive independently any longer. Not really monogamy though, as a single female may host several mates. (though I suppose the males are monogamous, at least so long as the female doesn't swim near other spawning females)

                  Lets make it at least a little challenging though - the "permanently fused bodies" model crops up in several places, and obviously seriously limits further mating potential. But we're talking behavioral monogamy, so lets limit the search to species where both genders maintain the physical capability of mating with a different partner.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:54PM (8 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:54PM (#783768)

        A lot of cultures allow/tolerate polygamy. Sometimes for the elites but not for the poor.
        A lot of people in cultures that don't, still practice it, without the paperwork or the permanency.
        Our closest genetic cousins the apes almost all practice polygamy (or, for the bonobos, "everything goes"), and group child-raising.

        We have assets and successions, and in the Western World have settled on rules that it's better overall to enforce monogamy and frown on polygamy.
        Even if it mostly works, I'm not convinced that's the ultimate answer.
        Some nice topic to discuss with my mistress.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:36PM (7 children)

          by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:36PM (#783809)

          The biggest problem I see with with polygamy, especially in the male-dominated societies of the last many centuries, is that formal forms tends to be unilateral - one male with several females. Which inherently means that for every such male, there are several males with *no* females - and with reproduction rights being the instinctual meaning of life, that's a MAJOR problem. A seething mass of social instability just waiting to bring things down.

          The obvious alternatives to monogamy are to either promote balanced polygamous relationships, with similar numbers of husbands and wives in a relationship (which gets complicated by exponential network effects - a 3-person marriage has 3x as many 1-on-1 individual relationships to manage, a 4 person marriage has 6x), or to promote unilateral relationships in the other direction as well - though I'm not sure that one woman with several men adequately addresses the male reproductive drive.

          Or we could just divorce the idea of marriage from sexual fidelity entirely. Get over this recent cultural delusion that sex should be restricted to the confines of marriage. Expect infidelity, rather than considering it a betrayal of an unnatural sacred trust. It wasn't so very long ago that it was assumed that love (and sex) would be found primarily outside of marriage, as expressed in many old truisms such as "The man who marries for love will have warm nights and cold days."

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:58PM (6 children)

            by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:58PM (#783822)

            > there are several males with *no* females

            That small problem has typically been solved by sending men off to do dangerous jobs, or to war.
            We've gotten soft. even good ol' human sacrifices are frowned upon, just because we don't have as many spare children and slaves as we used to.

            • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:40PM (5 children)

              by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:40PM (#783837)

              Also very suboptimal, as it means all the resources required to raise such "canon fodder" to adulthood were basically wasted. It also means throwing away a substantial fraction of your nation's potential productivity just so a few men can have harems.

              • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:46PM (2 children)

                by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:46PM (#783842)

                Not really wasted, if the cannon fodder allows both the harems and more territory for the harem owners.
                It's all a matter of perspective, really.

                • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:28PM (1 child)

                  by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:28PM (#784239)

                  Only if the harem-masters contribute more to society than all the "cannon fodder" they displaced would have. In practice that's almost certainly not the case, especially not in capitalist societies where your wealth (and ability to support a harem) has very little relationship to your actual contributions.

                  Plus, you hint on another probable problem with societies that practice unidirectional harem arrangements - they tend to involve the enslavement of women. Not always, perhaps, but often enough that the massive loss of productivity by women is worth considering, even if you don't care about the morality: slaves make for singularly non-productive labor, little better than robots. (in fact, robot comes from the Czech word "robota" meaning "forced labor")

                  Of course, I get the feeling you're just playing the line of "hur, dur, I want a harem", when statistically speaking you would almost certainly be either canon fodder, or one of the men who can only get a single wife of substantially lower quality than you might otherwise attain, since the rich men almost certainly buy (one way or another) their many wives from the top of the pool, lowering the standards for everyone else.

                  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 09 2019, @08:02PM

                    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday January 09 2019, @08:02PM (#784254)

                    Indeed, my cheek is sore from excessive tongue friction.

                    The people interested and able to procure and maintain harems are not typically hindered by considerations about their probable impact on overall societal contributions of the individuals involved.

              • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:10PM (1 child)

                by shortscreen (2252) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:10PM (#783853) Journal

                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

                  by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:34PM (#784245)

                  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).

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:03PM (3 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:03PM (#783735)

    With the exception of animals like preying manti that die after getting it on, lots of animals that appear to be monogamous are cheating on their partners. This is a useful adaptation, hedging bets that the primary partner is genetically a good combination with their own genes. And I used the term "cheating" because there's evidence that the partners attempt to deceive each other into thinking they're not getting it on with others.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:49PM (2 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:49PM (#783847)

      You're trying to apply human concepts to animals.

      They don't "appear to be" monogamous - they *are* monogamous, *socially* monogamous. Virtually no species on Earth is sexually monogamous - not even preying mantises, where contrary to popular myth, most males will survive any particular copulation. There's a species of fish where the male's body is actually permanently incorporated into the female's during mating, but that's the only sexually mongamous species that comes to mind.

      As for "cheating" - there may be some species that attempt to hide the fact that they have sex with other partners from their mate, but the vast majority do not. In fact I can't offhand think of any other than humans that do so, can you expand on that?

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:29PM (1 child)

        by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:29PM (#783858)

        Some non-human species (admittedly closely related to humans) try to hide their infidelities:
        - gelada monkeys [futurity.org]
        - baboons [cbsnews.com]

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday January 09 2019, @04:04AM

          by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday January 09 2019, @04:04AM (#783973)

          Interesting.

          Though I do wonder whether they are actually trying to hide the fact that they are dallying, rather than simply trying to avoid being interrupted in the act. A rather important distinction there I think, and in a small troupe where everybody knows each other's scent it's probably quite difficult to hide the who and when of such things. I wonder, do the dallying individuals avoid the leader (or stay downwind) more than usual until the scent would have a chance to fade?

          Also have to love the fellow talking about how it's a pity that two individuals that obviously enjoy each other's company don't have their behavior corrected by the physical abuse of the troupe leader when they are caught. As though a violently enforced harem arrangement was some sort of holy sacrament.

  • (Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Wednesday January 09 2019, @08:00PM

    by DutchUncle (5370) on Wednesday January 09 2019, @08:00PM (#784253)

    I have long wondered, thanks to various people I have met over the years, if the difference between i-was-born-a-ramblin'-man people and you-are-the-sunshine-of-my-life people is a bigger difference, and a more important difference to societal development, than that between straight and gay people.

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