The Mentality of Apes Revisited

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Povinelli ◽  
Jesse M. Bering
Keyword(s):  
Related Species ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Comparative Psychology ◽  
Adaptive Skills ◽  
Animal Kingdom ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Human Uniqueness

Although early comparative psychology was seriously marred by claims of our species'supremacy, the residual backlash against these archaic evolutionary views is still being felt, even though our understanding of evolutionary biology is now sufficiently advanced to grapple with possible cognitive specializations that our species does not share with closely related species. The overzealous efforts to dismantle arguments of human uniqueness have only served to show that most comparative psychologists working with apes have yet to set aside the antiquated evolutionary ”ladder.“ Instead, they have only attempted to pull chimpanzees up to the ladder's highest imaginary rung — or perhaps, to pull humans down to an equally imaginary rung at the height of the apes. A true comparative science of animal minds, however, will recognize the complex diversity of the animal kingdom, and will thus view Homo sapiens as one more species with a unique set of adaptive skills crying out to be identified and understood.

scholarly journals Aggression and discrimination among closely versus distantly related species of Drosophila

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarun Gupta ◽  
Sarah E. Howe ◽  
Marlo L. Zorman ◽  
Brent L. Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Distance ◽  
Aggressive Behavior ◽  
Future Study ◽  
Related Species ◽  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Animal Kingdom ◽  
Male Aggression ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Behavioral Bias ◽  
Heterospecific Aggression

AbstractFighting between different species is widespread in the animal kingdom, yet this phenomenon has been relatively understudied in the field of aggression research. Particularly lacking are studies that test the effect of genetic distance, or relatedness, on aggressive behavior between species. Here we characterized male-male aggression within and between species of fruit flies across the Drosophila phylogeny. We show that male Drosophila discriminate between conspecifics and heterospecifics and show a bias for the target of aggression that depends on the genetic relatedness of opponent males. Specifically, males of closely related species treated conspecifics and heterospecifics equally, whereas males of distantly related species were overwhelmingly aggressive toward conspecifics. To our knowledge, this is the first study to quantify aggression between Drosophila species and to establish a behavioral bias for aggression against conspecifics versus heterospecifics. Our results suggest that future study of heterospecific aggression behavior in Drosophila is warranted to investigate the degree to which these trends in aggression among species extend to broader behavioral, ecological, and evolutionary contexts.

scholarly journals Evolutionary Patterns in the Genus Homo

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisar A. Shar
Keyword(s):  
Related Species ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Human Intelligence ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Genus Homo ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

ABSTRACT The demographic history of Homo sapiens is complex; it involves a wide range of migrations and genetic adaptations. One of the closely related species to Homo sapiens is Neanderthals, which became extinct about 30,000 years ago. The aim of this research is to compare Homo sapiens with Neanderthals and chimpanzees to understand the patterns of inheritance and survival instincts of Homo sapiens. Results show that out of all selected groups of genes in this study, metabolism, and language genes are found to be the most evolving group of genes. This shows that these most evolving genes are contributing to the advancement of Homo sapiens. However, after comparing human intelligence genes with the primates, it is found that exonic regions are contributing more to the evolution of human intelligence hence, making Homo sapiens unique in terms of intelligence.

scholarly journals Aggression and discrimination among closely versus distantly related species of Drosophila

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 190069
Author(s):  
Tarun Gupta ◽  
Sarah E. Howe ◽  
Marlo L. Zorman ◽  
Brent L. Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Distance ◽  
Future Study ◽  
Related Species ◽  
Aggressive Behaviour ◽  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Fruit Flies ◽  
Animal Kingdom ◽  
Male Aggression ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Heterospecific Aggression

Fighting between different species is widespread in the animal kingdom, yet this phenomenon has been relatively understudied in the field of aggression research. Particularly lacking are studies that test the effect of genetic distance, or relatedness, on aggressive behaviour between species. Here we characterized male–male aggression within and between species of fruit flies across the Drosophila phylogeny. We show that male Drosophila discriminate between conspecifics and heterospecifics and show a bias for the target of aggression that depends on the genetic relatedness of opponent males. Specifically, males of closely related species treated conspecifics and heterospecifics equally, whereas males of distantly related species were overwhelmingly aggressive towards conspecifics. To our knowledge, this is the first study to quantify aggression between Drosophila species and to establish a behavioural bias for aggression against conspecifics versus heterospecifics. Our results suggest that future study of heterospecific aggression behaviour in Drosophila is warranted to investigate the degree to which these trends in aggression among species extend to broader behavioural, ecological and evolutionary contexts.

Microsatellite Marker: Importance and Implications of Cross-genome Analysis for Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn)

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 160-170
Author(s):  
Thumadath P.A. Krishna ◽  
Maharajan Theivanayagam ◽  
Gurusunathan V. Roch ◽  
Veeramuthu Duraipandiyan ◽  
Savarimuthu Ignacimuthu
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Marker ◽  
Microsatellite Markers ◽  
Ssr Markers ◽  
Genome Analysis ◽  
Related Species ◽  
Finger Millet ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Genome Amplification

Finger millet is a superior staple food for human beings. Microsatellite or Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) marker is a powerful tool for genetic mapping, diversity analysis and plant breeding. In finger millet, microsatellites show a higher level of polymorphism than other molecular marker systems. The identification and development of microsatellite markers are extremely expensive and time-consuming. Only less than 50% of SSR markers have been developed from microsatellite sequences for finger millet. Therefore, it is important to transfer SSR markers developed for related species/genus to finger millet. Cross-genome transferability is the easiest and cheapest method to develop SSR markers. Many comparative mapping studies using microsatellite markers clearly revealed the presence of synteny within the genomes of closely related species/ genus. Sufficient homology exists among several crop plant genomes in the sequences flanking the SSR loci. Thus, the SSR markers are beneficial to amplify the target regions in the finger millet genome. Many SSR markers were used for the analysis of cross-genome amplification in various plants such as Setaria italica, Pennisetum glaucum, Oryza sativa, Triticum aestivum, Zea mays and Hordeum vulgare. However, there is very little information available about cross-genome amplification of these markers in finger millet. The only limited report is available for the utilization of cross-genome amplified microsatellite markers in genetic analysis, gene mapping and other applications in finger millet. This review highlights the importance and implication of microsatellite markers such as genomic SSR (gSSR) and Expressed Sequence Tag (EST)-SSR in cross-genome analysis in finger millet. Nowadays, crop improvement has been one of the major priority areas of research in agriculture. The genome assisted breeding and genetic engineering plays a very crucial role in enhancing crop productivity. The rapid advance in molecular marker technology is helpful for crop improvement. Therefore, this review will be very helpful to the researchers for understanding the importance and implication of SSR markers in closely related species.

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