Today I was watching an episode of the Colbert Report on Hulu. At the end of the show there was a guest on by the name of Jon Mooallem promoting an article he wrote in New York Times Magazine called “They Gay?” Basically, the article is about recent observations of same sex activity seen in about 450 different species of animals. A few examples given are female koalas, male dolphins, and female albatrosses. The animal focused on the most in the article is the female albatross. Scientists are beginning to think that these albatrosses might be lesbians, or “albatresbians” as Colbert puts it. In the albatross's case, one or both females will have an egg (prior to having the egg the females will go off and mate but come back to the nesting site). Then both will raise the chick together. Could the albatrosses not recognize the other as being the same sex, since many monogamous pairs are hard to distinguish as being male or female? Do you believe that there is a selective advantage to this behavior? Support your answer with previously discussed material (see chapters 46 and 51). Do you hypothesize that animals exhibiting same sex activity are evolving to become hermaphrodites? Try to relate this theme to Continuity and Change, Interdependence in Nature, or maybe even Regulation.
Eric Hennings
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I don't think that the homosexual behavior comes from a lack of recognition of the other sex. As Eric said, both females will mate with a male, and then come back as a pair to raise the chicks. It isn't as if the females attempt to copulate.
ReplyDeleteIt could be that the reason for the high amount of same-sex couples is that there is a higher percentage of females in the albatross populations, and therefore, not every couple can be male-female. The need for couples arises fromt the need to care for chicks when hatched, and even if one male can mate with multiple females, he cannot be a parent to each egg that is hatched. Therefore, since there aren't enough males to go around, some females have to form couples in order to provide the most amount of care and the most advantageous environment for the chicks once they have been hatched. This, of course, is the selective advantage to this 'lesbian' behavior. The selective advantage is that every chick hatched has optimal care that can be provided by two parents, therefore ensuring or increasing their chances at survival.
I do not think that the animals with same-sex relationships are evolving to become hermaphrodites, because there is still mating between males and females, just the care of the offspring are same-sex. So the same-sex couples (in this case) are not trying to actually mate mate.
This could be related to the theme of Interdependence in Nature. The relationship between the two female albatrosses is mutually beneficial in that the chicks (of the two female albatrosses) will have two parents to care for the chicks instead of just one parent. The need for this same-sex relationship is that the male that donated his genes in the making of the egg may have been a generous donor in a population with less males than females. So if a male mated with three females, all three females will lay eggs, but the male can only help care for one egg. Therefore, it is a selective advantage for both remaining females to become a couple in order to care for the chicks.
This could be similar to the 'social' monogamy that Coyne discusses on page 159, where the two in the relationship only care for the babies together, but go to other members of the population to actually mate.
http://wild-birds.suite101.com/article.cfm/lesbian_albatross_couples_outed