I'm Kevin Esvelt, head of the Sculpting Evolution group at the MIT Media Lab and an inventor of CRISPR gene drive - AMA! Hi, my name's Kevin Esvelt and I'm a scientist working on molecular, evolutionary, and ecological engineering.
In order to test whether the rate of head shape evolution is different between groups of cichlids with distinct brooding strategies, we performed a simulation-based comparative analysis [ 22].
Within males of mouthbrooders, the rate of head shape evolution was also significantly faster in species with maternal care (n = 13, ) than in species with bi-parental care (n = 9, p = 0.03).
We found that males of maternal care species have a faster rate of head shape evolution than males in bi-parental care species, while the difference was absent within females.
Dr. Case, who champions the teaching of evolution, heads the committee writing state science standards in Kansas, a state particularly racked by challenges to Darwin.
In accordance with the functional coupling hypothesis [ 10], we predict that substrate guarding cichlids will present a faster rate of head shape evolution than mouthbrooding cichlids.
Furthermore, for species in which females were solely responsible for mouthbrooding the males had a higher rate of head morphology evolution than in those with bi-parental mouthbrooding.
We demonstrate that mouthbrooding cichlids have a slower rate of head shape evolution than substrate guarding cichlids, in line with the functional coupling hypothesis [ 10, 11].
We found that the rate of head shape evolution was significantly faster in substrate guarders (n = 9, ) than in mouthbrooders (n = 28, p = 0.003).
Therefore, we predict that males in species with maternal care will have a faster rate of head shape evolution than males in species with bi-parental care.
