Friday, July 31, 2020

The Mystery of Yellow Bull Frogs


Thank you to all for this video below on yellow bull frogs in India circulating among various chat groups




This phenomenon is nothing new. This is just a biological genotype evolution into different phenotype characteristics (from black or green frogs probably, into yellow frogs) due to several factors such as the environment the pond where the frogs first originated.


Such a biological phenomenon is very common throughout the biological world that radiates life into their biodiversity.


Coloured Fishes:


For instance in the great lakes in Africa like Lake Malawi, Victoria and Tanganyika  and in many other  tropical lakes  elsewhere there are at least 1700 species of fish called the cichlids that have evolved differently and has changed colours since 12,500 years ago during the last ice age after they were isolated from the rivers by the formation of oxbow lakes. 


In Lake Victoria for instance, there was an evolution of over 500 species of cichlids of different colours that live together without  interbreeding for a long time even though there were no physical barriers  to separate them. Sexual selection for breeding seems based on colours of the males for the females to pick and choose their partners.


However as the waters become murkier due to pollution, the cichlids are unable to distinguish male colour differentiation and began to interbreed with other species giving rise to even more different species due to hybridization.



This may have happened many times in the past in Lake Victoria causing a rise of cichlids of even more varieties and mixed colours which result in an evolutionary explosion or adaptive radiation of different species of cichlids.



We know there is an explosion of cichlids of various colours in the Great Lakes, and that are quite different in characteristics from those fish found in the rivers from which they have originated since the last ice age.



They may have originated from non‐cichlids with different colours found in nearby rivers where they were cut off over 12,500 years or so ago.

As  time went by they may have  undergone a “genetic drifts” and found their separate colonies  in the Great Lakes.


Founder's Effect:


In Evolution this is called “founder’s effect” when a set of population becomes deliberately or accidentally becomes isolated from the main population and set up their own colonies elsewhere similar to the “bottleneck effect” when a population is suddenly reduced due to some catastrophe or natural calamity, and the remaining population began to establish a “genetic drift” from the original.  



In South America too catfishes and characoids were found to exhibit the most spectacular adaptive radiations, evolving into a variety of them mainly under riverine conditions.


The degrees of evolution are shown by the presence of five endemic Haplo‐chromis cichlids in L. Nabugabo, a small lake cut off from L. Victoria 4000 years ago (Greenwood, 1965), and of eighteen cyprinids in the 10,000 year old L. Lanao in the Philippines (Myers, 1960).



Allopatric Speciation:



In Evolutionary Biology, we term this as “allopatric speciation.”



Allopatric speciation is speciation that happens when two populations of the same species become secluded from each other due to geographic alterations.


Speciation is a gradual process by which populations evolve into different species.


This may have happened to these frogs that may have been isolated from another pond or environment, and began to breed independently into different phenotype characteristics such acquiring a yellow colour like those cichlids fishes in great lakes of  Africa.



A geographic alteration splits members of a population into more than one cluster. Such changes could include the formation of a new mountain range or new waterway, or the development of new canyons, for example.



Similarly, human activities such as land development, construction, agriculture, and pollution can have an effect on livable environments and cause some members of a population to migrate and change their lifestyle and social behavior.



Different gene mutations follow and accumulate in the separate populations over time. The different variations of gene profile may lead to different features between the two populations.



The populations become so different that members of the different populations may no longer breed with each other anymore if they were to be in the same habitat simultaneously.  



When this happens allopatric speciation occurs.


I hope this explanation help to understand just a very tiny, tiny bit of what evolutionary biology is all about, and about these yellow bull frogs found in India being circulated among friends 



The Mutagenic Corona Virus:


This adaptive change may also apply to the corona virus that  have caused world-wide confusion among scientists about their  origin 


One most probably reason for this is because scientists and doctors have become  so specialized  these days in their own field that they may not realize the coronavirus virus may have originated from other viruses over many years through very gradual and subtle mutagenic  changes in their RNA, rather than a sudden emergence of a new virus.

  
What we see about this Covid-19 coronavirus may have been the same result we see among the cichlids, or the emergence of yellow frogs in the video (site above) friends have been sending me repeatedly for an explanation.


If the coronavirus keeps mutating (“speciating”) into other strains found differently in various parts of this world they will have different effects on the body resulting in varying clinical presentations and pathological outcome.


We can then expect different strains through mutation giving different response to different drugs or their treatment, thus causing confusion and disagreement among doctors all over the world.


I would coin this as an “allopratric strains phenomenon”



A million thanks to Charles Darwin who helped  us explain and understand Darwinian Medicine which doctors have never heard off.


Neither is Evolutionary Medicine being taught to doctors, nor a single chapter on this found in the medical test-books causing them world-wide confusion  

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