The Effects of Intergenerational Transmission on Education

Intergenerational transmission exists in parents’ and children’s educational attainment as well as in biological genetic inheritance. In fact, it impacts educational attainment transfer across generations in many ways. This article elaborates from different angles on the characteristics, disparities and causes of intergenerational education transmission, and explores the effects of intergenerational transmission inequality on education and the implications of this study.

Non-genetic inheritance of environmental exposures: a protocol for a map of systematic reviews with bibliometric analysis

Background Over the last few decades, we increasingly see examples of parental environmental experiences influencing offspring health and fitness. More recently, it has become clear that some non-genetic effects can be conferred across multiple generations. This topic has attracted research from a diversity of disciplines such as toxicology, biomedical sciences, and ecology, due to its importance for environmental and health issues, as well as ecological and evolutionary processes, with implications for environmental policies. The rapid accumulation of primary research has enabled researchers to perform systematic reviews (SRs), including meta-analyses, to investigate the generality of and sources of variation in non-genetic effects. However, different disciplines ask different questions and SRs can vary substantially in scope, quality, and terminology usage. This diversity in SRs makes it difficult to assess broad patterns of non-genetic effects across disciplines as well as determine common areas of interest and gaps in the literature. To clarify research patterns within the SR literature on non-genetic inheritance, we plan to create a map of systematic reviews as well as conduct bibliometric mapping (referred to as ‘research weaving’). We will address four key questions: first, what are the broad research patterns unifying the SR literature on non-genetic inheritance across disciplines? Second, are there discipline-specific research patterns, including terminology use, between disciplines? Third, how are authors of the SR literature connected? Fourth, what is the reliability of the SR literature? Methods We will systematically collect reviews within the SR ‘family’ that examine non-genetic inheritance arising from parental and ancestral environment by searching databases for journal articles and grey literature, as well as conducting backwards and forwards searching. Search hits will be double screened using ‘decision trees’ that represent the inclusion criteria. All relevant data elements on the review’s topic, as well as a critical appraisal of the review’s approach and reporting, will be extracted into Excel flat sheets. Bibliometric data will be directly extracted from Scopus. We will then query all relevant data elements to address our objectives and present outcomes in easily interpretable tables and figures, accompanied by a narrative description of results.

Culture is Reducing Genetic Heritability and Superseding Genetic Adaptation

Uchiyama, Spicer, and Muthukrishna reveal how group-structured cultural variation influences measurements of trait heritability. We argue that understanding culture’s influence on phenotypic heritability can clarify the impact of culture on genetic inheritance, which has implications for long-term gene-culture coevolution. Their analysis may provide guidance for testing our hypothesis that cultural adaptation is superseding genetic adaptation in the long term.

The Evolutionary Relevance of Social Learning and Transmission in Non-Social Arthropods with a Focus on Oviposition-Related Behaviors

Research on social learning has centered around vertebrates, but evidence is accumulating that small-brained, non-social arthropods also learn from others. Social learning can lead to social inheritance when socially acquired behaviors are transmitted to subsequent generations. Using oviposition site selection, a critical behavior for most arthropods, as an example, we first highlight the complementarities between social and classical genetic inheritance. We then discuss the relevance of studying social learning and transmission in non-social arthropods and document known cases in the literature, including examples of social learning from con- and hetero-specifics. We further highlight under which conditions social learning can be adaptive or not. We conclude that non-social arthropods and the study of oviposition behavior offer unparalleled opportunities to unravel the importance of social learning and inheritance for animal evolution.

A mechanism for migrating bacterial populations to non-genetically adapt to new environments

Populations of chemotactic bacteria can rapidly expand into new territory by consuming and chasing an attractant cue in the environment, increasing the population's overall growth in nutrient-rich environments. Although the migrating fronts driving this expansion contain cells of multiple swimming phenotypes, the consequences of non-genetic diversity for population expansion are unknown. Here, through theory and simulations, we predict that expanding populations non-genetically adapt their phenotype composition to migrate effectively through multiple physical environments. Swimming phenotypes in the migrating front are spatially sorted by chemotactic performance, but the mapping from phenotype to performance depends on the environment. Therefore, phenotypes that perform poorly localize to the back of the group, causing them to selectively fall behind. Over cell divisions, the group composition dynamically enriches for high-performers, enhancing migration speed and overall growth. Furthermore, non-genetic inheritance controls a trade-off between large composition shifts and slow responsiveness to new environments, enabling a diverse population to out-perform a non-diverse one in varying environments. These results demonstrate that phenotypic diversity and collective behavior can synergize to produce emergent functionalities. Non-genetic inheritance may generically enable bacterial populations to transiently adapt to new situations without mutations, emphasizing that genotype-to-phenotype mappings are dynamic and context-dependent.

Like Mother, Like Daughter: Adults’ Judgements about Genetic Inheritance

Do people think about genetic inheritance as a deterministic or probabilistic process? Do adults display systematic biases when reasoning about genetic inheritance? Knowing how adults think about genetic inheritance is valuable, both for understanding the developmental endpoint of these concepts and for identifying biases that persist even after formal education. We examined adults’ reasoning about genetic inheritance for familiar and unfamiliar animals. First, participants were presented with animals that varied in eye color and were asked to judge whether each could be the offspring of a particular set of animal parents that had either the same or different eye colors. The potential offspring had eye colors that were either identical to the parents, blended the parents’ eye colors, or differed from the parents. Next, participants predicted how six offspring of the animal parents would look. Participants judged a variety of choices as possible—not only the ones resembling the parents—suggesting that they thought genetic inheritance was a probabilistic process. Additionally, many participants thought that female offspring would look more like their mothers and male offspring would look more like their fathers. Thus, systemic biases in reasoning about inheritance persist into adulthood.

Some contributions from Neurosciences to Education: do enriched environments increase the learning capacity of our brain?

The reflection and discussion on the role of genetic specification and experience in the acquisition of a function and in the development of an individual reflects a fascinating and very current debate among those working in the area of behavior and development. Concerning the development of human behavior and the influence of biological heritage and the envitonment, conflicting and sometimes exclusive positions were established. On the one hand, adherents of genetic inheritance exclude the possibility of the influence of the environment. On the other hand, supporters of the environment exclude genetic inheritance. There is also an eclectic position, reconciling both extremes. Furthermore, within the scope of the trends themselves, differentiating nuances emerge. It is therefore, a very controversial subject to which we dedicate this work from a Neuroscience perspective. We will approach brain neuroplasticity as the ability of the nervous system to change and adapt, in response to internal and external stimuli, including structural and / or functional changes throughout life. Brain plasticity is one of the pillars of learning and memory processes. In short, the role of Neurosciences in the field of Educational Sciences is taking shape and the concept of neuroplasticity is a sine qua non condition for trying to establish a connection between education, behavior and the brain.