Pathogens are disease-causing microorganisms whose negative effect on their host’s fitness can vary not only between host species, genotypes, and individuals but even between ecological circumstances and subpopulations (Dybdahl and Storfer, 2003). This reduction of host fitness, a highly sensitive characteristic dependent on numerous variables, is known as pathogenic virulence, and remains a topic of heated interest in health science and evolutionary biology today. What factors dictate the extent of damage a pathogen will inflict on its host? Because the long-term persistence of a pathogenic species is inextricably entwined with host survival, the answer to this question is complicated, and…
The Science Creative Quarterly
By momoprice
Momoko Price is working on her Honours degree in Evolutionary Biology at UBC. Her highest aspirations include beating out Richard Dawkins on the bestseller lists, but accepts that her student loan debts likely have a stronger hold on her destiny than her dreams do. She is currently working on a model examining non-Mendelian inheritance patterns in mutant Arabidopsis plants (those freaks).
THE CONTROVERSY OF GROUP SELECTION THEORY
Though Darwin’s original theory of evolution and natural selection stresses the role of selective forces acting on individuals of varying fitness, group-oriented ‘altruistic’ behaviours within the animal kingdom, such as worker castes in social insects and alarm cries in bird flocks, have been documented repeatedly which at a glance appear to completely contradict traditional evolutionary theory (Williams, 1971). They pose a challenge to evolutionary biologists, because the theory of natural selection in its simplest form favours selfish individual behaviours over altruistic ones: Individuals who invest the most effort into their own reproduction and survival should leave the most offspring and…
INTELLIGENT DESIGN: SINISTER CREATIONISM, COMMON SENSE OR JUST PLAIN CRAPPY SCIENCE
Intelligent Design or ID, has been getting a lot of press these days. Just this past month Time magazine (the Canadian publication) featured a cover story titled “The Evolution Wars”, pitting Darwin against, well, a bunch of people who really believe in Intelligent Design (1). Even President Bush has declared the need to “teach both sides” of the biological “debate”. In contrast, high-profile biologists such as Oxford professor Dr. Richard Dawkins, author of the bestselling book The Selfish Gene, flatly deny the mere existence of this so-called debate (1). To the average newspaper reader, Bush seems almost progressive, while the…