JUNE 1, 2016
by Chuck Bednar
While researchers have come to
accept that cultural experiences have played a key role in human evolution,
they had never discovered evidence to suggest that any other species of living
creature underwent biological changes in order to fulfill a specific niche –
until now.
Writing in Tuesday’s edition of
the journal Nature Communications, Andrew Foote, an ecologist at
the University
of Bern, Switzerland, and his colleagues revealed that they had found
evidence indicating that such cultural experiences might shape killer whale
evolution.
As New Scientist explained, humans developed
genes for lactose tolerance after they first became dairy farmers, indicating
that their behavior had a direct influence on their genomes. Now, Foote and his
fellow researchers have found that, despite their wide distribution, individual
orca groups appear to remain in one general area and stick to a specific
predatory strategy.
For instance, some heard their
prey into bait balls, while others intentionally beach themselves in order to
attract seals or other mammals. Since these groups tend to remain stable for up
to several decades, these behaviors can be passed on from one generation to
another. The authors identified five specific niches, and set out to see if the
groups were genetically distinct from one another.
They found that the genomes of
killer whales could be categorized into five distinct groups, each of which
directly corresponded with one of the five cultural niches. Even though each of
the orca groups shared a common ancestor as recently as 200,000 years ago, the
research revealed that all of them experienced a different genetic evolution
due to this social learning.
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