{"id":30714,"date":"2015-03-20T03:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T07:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=30714"},"modified":"2015-03-19T21:26:34","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T01:26:34","slug":"epigenetic-researchers-we-can-double-the-size-of-these-bugs-everyone-else-no-thanks-were-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/03\/20\/epigenetic-researchers-we-can-double-the-size-of-these-bugs-everyone-else-no-thanks-were-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Epigenetic researchers &#8211; &#8220;We can double the size of these bugs!&#8221; Everyone else &#8211; &#8220;No, thanks. We&#8217;re good.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Science can be a great source of fascinating experiments. <a href=\"http:\/\/news.sciencemag.org\/biology\/2015\/03\/researchers-nearly-double-size-worker-ants\" target=\"_blank\">Doubling the size of insects<\/a> is perhaps not the best way to advertise your particular speciality, however:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Florida-carpenter-ants.jpg\" alt=\"Florida carpenter ants\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30715\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Florida-carpenter-ants.jpg 600w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Florida-carpenter-ants-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Florida-carpenter-ants-480x360.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Researchers have changed the size of a handful of Florida ants by chemically modifying their DNA, rather than by changing its encoded information. The work is the latest advance from a field known as epigenetics and may help explain how the insects \u2014 despite their high degree of genetic similarity \u2014 grow into the different varieties of workers needed in a colony.<\/p>\n<p>This discovery \u201ctakes the field leaps and bounds forward,\u201d says entomologist Andrew Suarez of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who wasn\u2019t connected to the study. \u201cIt\u2019s providing a better understanding of how genes interact with the environment to generate diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ant nests have division of labor down pat. The queen spends her time pumping out eggs, and the workers, which are genetically similar sisters, perform all the other jobs necessary to keep the colony thriving, such as tending the young, gathering food, and excavating tunnels. Workers in many ant species specialize even further, forming so-called subcastes that look different and have different roles. In Florida carpenter ants (<em>Camponotus floridanus<\/em>), for example, workers tend to fall into two groups. Minor workers, which can be less than 6 mm long, rear the young and forage for food. Major workers, which can be almost twice as long, use their large jaws to protect the colony from predators.<\/p>\n<p>A team from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, suspected that the mechanism involves DNA methylation: the addition of a chemical to DNA. Genome sequencing and other methods suggest that these physical differences don\u2019t usually stem from genetic differences between individual ants. Instead, environmental factors help push workers to become majors or minors \u2014 specifically, the amount of food and coddling that young ants receive. But just how do these factors change the size of ants?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science can be a great source of fascinating experiments. Doubling the size of insects is perhaps not the best way to advertise your particular speciality, however: Researchers have changed the size of a handful of Florida ants by chemically modifying their DNA, rather than by changing its encoded information. The work is the latest advance [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[183,120,827,325,513],"class_list":["post-30714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-dna","tag-florida","tag-genetics","tag-montreal","tag-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7Zo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30716,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30714\/revisions\/30716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}