Hmm, two individuals of a species mating obviously couldn’t compare their genomes with other representatives of the species and take the modal allele. But many species, especially plants, do carry more than two copies of each chromosome (e.g. black mulberry apparently has 44 copies of each gene). How difficult would it be to evolve a process that compared the alleles on each chromosome that the individual carried and picked the modal one for producing gametes?
Intuitively it feels to me like it’d be hard for biology to do/evolve and that it’d require something more like a computer, but I haven’t studied biology much so I don’t expect my intuition to be very predictive. That Wikipedia article for polyploidy also didn’t mention any research to have found polyploidy to have such a function.
Yeah, it would have to be at least 3 individuals mating. And there would be some weird dynamics: the individual that feels less fit than the partners would have a weaker incentive to mate, because its genes would be less likely to continue. Then the other partners would have to offer some bribe, maybe take on more parental investment. Then maybe some individuals would pretend to be less fit, to receive the bribe. It’s tricky to think about, maybe it’s already researched somewhere?
Hmm, two individuals of a species mating obviously couldn’t compare their genomes with other representatives of the species and take the modal allele. But many species, especially plants, do carry more than two copies of each chromosome (e.g. black mulberry apparently has 44 copies of each gene). How difficult would it be to evolve a process that compared the alleles on each chromosome that the individual carried and picked the modal one for producing gametes?
Intuitively it feels to me like it’d be hard for biology to do/evolve and that it’d require something more like a computer, but I haven’t studied biology much so I don’t expect my intuition to be very predictive. That Wikipedia article for polyploidy also didn’t mention any research to have found polyploidy to have such a function.
Naively extrapolating, such an allele couldn’t spread, because before it’s very common, it would delete itself!
Yeah, it would have to be at least 3 individuals mating. And there would be some weird dynamics: the individual that feels less fit than the partners would have a weaker incentive to mate, because its genes would be less likely to continue. Then the other partners would have to offer some bribe, maybe take on more parental investment. Then maybe some individuals would pretend to be less fit, to receive the bribe. It’s tricky to think about, maybe it’s already researched somewhere?