Re: Miroslav Hill responds (correction)

From: Chris Taylor (chris.taylor@ebi.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 09 Dec 2005 - 10:28:59 GMT

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    Do we have any indication at all that this is the _same_ mutation? On a quick skim I couldn't see anything beyond phenotypic descriptions..? Also what is the likelihood of getting this phenotypic (genotypic?) response through some more indirect form of stress (i.e. is this resistance a side effect of something this strain was on the verge of doing anyway)? IT appears that the cell line that gave any results at all was a strange sort of beastie; perhaps this would have occurred anyway? And lastly, tell me we're not looking at statistical samples of one here?

    I also would strongly contest, as before, that this sweeping mechanism is particularly advantageous. When plants signal caterpillar attack to each other through mycorrhiza, it is a very specific signal, which elicits a very specific response. The joy of (~)distinct patches is that they allow subpopulations to wander away from a local maximum to find new maxima (through reduced Ne [effective pop. size]) with the 'insurance' that should that subpop get wiped out, other subpops will carry on. Best of both worlds (small Ne / big Ne).

    Cheers, Chris.

    Derek Gatherer wrote:
    >> The last paragraph of the last message should actually be:
    >
    >
    > To say that "the more one selects for resistance the more mutants one
    > finds" (p.214 top) is meaningless, for the above reason, unless one can
    > show that in cells never exposed to the _selection pressure_, there are
    > fewer resistant colonies. Since Hill maintains that in cells never
    > exposed to the _selection pressure_, there are actually _more_ resistant
    > colonies, this experiment is by definition control-less.
    >
    > Selection pressure, not mutagen (there is no mutagen in this experiment,
    > apart from the mutagenic effect probably visible in the serial assay)
    >
    >> To say that "the more one selects for resistance the more mutants one
    >> finds" (p.214 top) is meaningless, for the above reason, unless one
    >> can show that in cells never exposed to the mutagen, there are fewer
    >> resistant colonies. Since Hill maintains that in cells never exposed
    >> to the mutagen, there are actually _more_ resistant colonies, this
    >> experiment is by definition control-less.
    >>
    >> ===============================================================
    >> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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    >> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >
    >

    -- 
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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      http://psidev.sf.net/
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    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
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