Posted on Jan 28, 2020 in Biology, Climate Change, Evolution, Science
“The really surprising conclusion here is that the most intense selection pressures in the recent history of these wasps has not been dealing with climate, catching food or parasites but getting better at dealing with each other,” said Michael Sheehan, professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University about a wasp species that has evolved the unique ability to recognize individual faces among their peers—signaling an evolution in how they have learned to work together. “That’s pretty profound.”
“Our finding indicated that cognitive evolution is not necessarily incremental,” Sheehan added. “There are mutations happening that cause big shifts. This suggests the possibility that rapid adaptation of cognitive ability could have been important in other species as well, like language in humans.”
In an earlier, unrelated finding reported by New Scientist in 2012, a tiny wasp, The greenhouse whitefly parasite, just half a millimetre in length, has brain cells so small, physics predicts they shouldn’t work at all. These miniature neurons might harbor subtle modifications, or they might work in a clockwork fashion, completely differently from all other known neurons. “These neurons might have subtle modifications, or be completely different from all other known neurons”
The team led by Cornell University researchers used population genomics to study the evolution of cognition in the Northern paper wasp, Polistes fuscatus. The research suggests the wasps’ increasing intelligence provided an evolutionary advantage and sheds light on how intelligence evolves in general, which has implications for many other species—including humans.
Many vertebrate animals can recognize individual faces, at least in some circumstances, but among insects, facial recognition is quite uncommon. This study explored how and when this ability evolved by analyzing patterns of genetic variations within species.
“It’s kind of like 23 and Me, but with paper wasps,” Sheehan said.
The few species of insects that can recognize faces share one trait: communal societies with multiple queens. In communal groups with a single queen, like honeybee colonies, the roles are clear, and each individual knows its place. But paper wasps may have five or more queens in one nest and facial recognition helps these queens negotiate with one another.
While the research focused on paper wasps, the primary question Sheehan and his colleagues wanted to answer was how intelligence evolves in general.
The paper, “Evolutionary dynamics of recent selection on cognitive abilities,” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: Sara E. Miller et al, Evolutionary dynamics of recent selection on cognitive abilities, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020).
The Daily Galaxy, Andy Johnson, via Cornell University
Image credit: Velvet ant wasp Pixabay
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