Is love at first sight
real? Geneticists offer tantalizing clues
Tuesday, April 7,
2009
Leave it to geneticists to answer a question that has perplexed
humanity since the dawn of time: does love at first sight truly
exist? According to a study published in the April 2009 issue of
the journal GENETICS, a team of scientists from the United States
and Australia discovered that at the genetic level, some males and
females are more compatible than others, and that this
compatibility plays an important role in mate selection, mating
outcomes, and future reproductive behaviors. In experiments
involving fruit flies, the researchers found that before mating,
females experience what amounts to "genetic priming," making them
more likely to mate with certain males over others.
"Our research helps to shed light on the complex biochemistry
involved in mate selection and reproduction," said Mariana Wolfner,
Professor of Developmental Biology at Cornell University and the
senior scientist involved in the study. "These findings may lead to
ways to curb unwanted insect populations by activating or
deactivating genes that play a role in female mating decisions,"
she added.
To reach their conclusions, scientists mated two different strains
of fruit fly females to males either from their own strain or to
males from the other strain. They noted the males with which
females of each strain tended to mate and then examined whether the
females showed differences in behavior soon after mating and in
reproduction-related activities, such as how many offspring were
produced and how many sperm were stored. They also examined the
females' RNA to compare the genes expressed in females mated to
males of different strains. They found that despite observed
differences in mating behaviors and reproduction activities in
females mated to different strains of males, there were only
negligible mating-dependent differences in gene expression between
the groups. This suggests that genetic changes involved in mate
choice and reproduction were in place before mating began.
"It appears that females really do care about the character of
their consorts," said Mark Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the journal
GENETICS, "but they may not have as much control over our choice of
mates as they'd like to think."
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Federation of American Societies for Experimental
Biology
Thanks to Federation of American
Societies for Experimental Biology for this article.
