The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
nature.com
The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
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Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#2It sounds like they're evolving into separate species.
Indeed it's one definition of a species that it's a population that can mate within it's group. So if they can no longer breed with each other, are they same species or not?
Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#3It sounds like they're evolving into separate species. Indeed it's one definition of a species that it's a population that can mate within it's group. So if they can no longer breed with each other, are they same species or not?
Ring species are a weird and fascinating corner case of that definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#4It sounds like they're evolving into separate species. Indeed it's one definition of a species that it's a population that can mate within it's group. So if they can no longer breed with each other, are they same species or not?
They do breed with each other: a-males mate with b-females, and vice versa, where a/b is the new sex gene.
Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#5It sounds like they're evolving into separate species. Indeed it's one definition of a species that it's a population that can mate within it's group. So if they can no longer breed with each other, are they same species or not?
If I'm reading right, the two groups can only breed with each other. That is, white-striped males and tan-striped females can breed, as can white-striped females and tan-striped males. (And the offspring are about half white-striped and half tan-striped.)
So it's not speciation, any more than sexes themselves are speciation.
Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#6(2016)
Discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027132
Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#7It sounds like they're evolving into separate species. Indeed it's one definition of a species that it's a population that can mate within it's group. So if they can no longer breed with each other, are they same species or not?
Just wait until you learn about the sex life of hexaploid species... an offspring needs parents of at least 3 different sexes.
Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#8It sounds like they're evolving into separate species. Indeed it's one definition of a species that it's a population that can mate within it's group. So if they can no longer breed with each other, are they same species or not?
Ring species are a weird and fascinating corner case of that definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
Before the invention of radio this was a property of language as well. Famously you could walk from Paris to Rome and every village could speak comfortably and naturally with its neighbors, yet by the time you got to Rome they spoke a language essentially incomprehensible to Parisians.
Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#9[deleted]
Re: The sparrow with four sexes (2016)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ring species are a weird and fascinating corner case of that definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
Before the invention of radio this was a property of language as well. Famously you could walk from Paris to Rome and every village could speak comfortably and naturally with its neighbors, yet by the time you got to Rome they spoke a language essentially incomprehensible to Parisians.
30 yrs ago, I rode my bike from East Berlin to Amsterdam, hopping from tiny village to tiny village. I kept out of cities so I could sleep in the forest at night and it seemed as if the the local dialect drifted town by town from deutsch to dutch