Comments on: Immune snakes outrun toxic newts in evolutionary arms races

By: Guest Post: the Nature of Octopuses : The Last Word On Nothing

Guest Post: the Nature of Octopuses : The Last Word On Nothing — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:02:05 +0000

[...] variety of animals wield tetrodotoxin including several newts, frogs, worms, crabs and snails, and all of them rely on bacteria to manufacture their poisons. The [...]

By: Private Investigator

Private Investigator — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:48:32 +0000

I wonder, is this common to all newt species such as those in the UK, do they all carry toxins?

By: private investigators

private investigators — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:26:31 +0000

very interesting indeed!
The newts are going to have to act fast or they may never live long enough to evolve!

By: Daymon A Balser

Daymon A Balser — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 08:06:36 +0000

It would be extremely interesting to note what caused the GS to change their structure of their sodium channel. Very Exciting! Thanks for this.

By: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 04:57:43 +0000

Manual trackback:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2008/12/connecting-north-american-newts-and.html
“….Instead of a steady-state equilibrium, it’s more like the newts and snakes. The dolphins over-exploit their environment and either the tools or the fish disappear from accessible habitats, and then the dolphins forget the technique until it’s reinvented…..”

By: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:40:43 +0000

Good point Matt, although it harms my beautiful theory as to why there’s no race going on in British Columbia, so I’m forced to oppose it.
Could be that GS are predominant newt predators in some areas, and drive the cycle, but not others. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area – it’s easy on a rainy day hike in a forest here to see a half-dozen newts, but I’ve seen less than a dozen GS in as many years in the area, and see them mostly in sunnier, lower-elevation areas where I don’t see newts.

By: MattK

MattK — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 07:06:19 +0000

One thing to keep in mind is that there are other potential newt predators besides Garter Snakes so the toxin is likely to continue to be advantageous.
There has been a whole bunch of interesting evolutionary biology done on Garter Snakes (of several species). I vaguely recall hearing about other work, also on western Garter Snakes that involved selection for avoidance of grey slimy things as food items. Slugs are delicious and nutritious (escargots without the troublesome shell). However, some leeches, on the other hand, respond to being swallowed by slicing there way out through the body wall of the snake. In places where GS and certain leeches are sympatric GS avoid grey slimy things but then they miss out on the slugs. In places where there are no leeches the GS gorge with impunity. The food preferences are based on olfactory cues and are partially genetic. I think there was also something about introgression of the genes through hybridization so that some unfortunate snakes found themselves with slug eating genes but in places where the potentially fatal leeches were abundant. Likewise other snakes missed out on abundant slugs in places where there were no leeches. Selective forces acted against introgression and confined it to a narrow contact zone. Unfortunately a quick google search didn’t turn up the source and I’m too tired to be more thorough tonight.

By: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:10:29 +0000

Very interesting. I wonder if there’s an alternative cyle: 1. newts develop toxicity. 2. snakes develop overwhelming immunity. 3. newts completely lose their now-useless toxicity. 4. snakes completely lose their now-useless immunity, and the cycle starts over.
Instead of the British Columbia newts evolving behind the rest, they may just be at a different point in the cycle.

By: Jeb, FCD

Jeb, FCD — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:25:43 +0000

It will be interesting to see if, in a few years/decades, these garters will be able to interbred with non-resistant garters.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:12:55 +0000

From my understanding of the paper, the resistance is down to a change in the structure of the sodium channel that stops tetrodotoxin from binding to them.