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01: Naughty by Nature: Sex in the Animal Kingdom ft. Dr. Anastasia Shavrova
509 Plays6 months ago
In the exciting debut episode of "The Science of Life," Dr. Raven Baxter kicks off an exhilarating journey into the heart of life sciences, intersecting with the raw truths of social sciences. This episode features a fascinating conversation with Dr. Anastasia Shavrova, a trailblazer in the study of sex evolution and sexual conflicts among animals. Dr. Anastasia shares the intriguing path that led her to uncover the mysteries of animal behaviors and the critical role that sexual reproduction plays in ensuring genetic diversity. And maybe one of the funniest people you'll ever meet!
Dive into a world where the battle of the sexes extends beyond humans, exploring phenomena like sexual cannibalism—where female spiders may devour their suitors if unimpressed—and the extreme lengths some male spiders go to survive mating. Discover the curious case of bed bugs practicing traumatic insemination and how female bed bugs cleverly manage paternity through evolved body cavities.
Dr. Anastasia sheds light on the widespread nature of homosexual behaviors across the animal kingdom, debunking myths and challenging our perceptions of normalcy. The discussion also ventures into human parallels, touching on gender expression and the societal constraints on clothing as symbols of deeper sexual conflicts.
Listeners will be captivated by tales of elaborate animal courtships, from pheromones to stunning displays, and the stark realities of sexual conflict, where behaviors beneficial to one sex may harm the other. Dr. Anastasia's insights into counter-evolution against manipulative behaviors and the reasons behind sexual cannibalism in spiders offer a glimpse into the relentless dance of adaptation and survival.
Join Dr. Raven and Dr. Anastasia for a raw, enlightening, and sometimes shocking exploration of this episode, titled Naughty by Nature: Sex in the Animal Kingdom. It's not just about the birds and the bees; it's a profound look at the complex strategies and behaviors that underpin reproduction in the natural world.
Stay Connected: Follow Dr. Anastasia Shavrova on social media with the handle @Sci_Stasia and tune into her very own podcast, "Convos with Chordates," where science meets the heart through engaging and accessible discussions on a myriad of fascinating topics.
Support The Science of Life Podcast: Join our Patreon at patreon.com/raventhesciencemaven and follow Dr. Raven @ravenscimaven on Twitter and BlueSky, and @raventhesciencemaven everywhere else! Don't forget to subscribe and rate us five stars!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:24
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Science of Life with me, Dr. Raven Baxter. Listen, it's been a long time coming. I've always wanted to do a podcast. And if you're listening right now, I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for supporting me, for following my work, checking it out, giving it a try. This is going to be so much fun.
00:00:45
Speaker
This podcast is not just for people who are in the life sciences by any means. This is your ticket to the science party. I call it the smarty party. Listen, knowledge is power. And this podcast is meant to be not only free knowledge, but free laughs, free smiles, and free game. No, but seriously, all are welcome here.
00:01:07
Speaker
Here's how I see it. Understanding science is so important to understanding not only the world around you, but yourself. This podcast doesn't just look at life sciences. It's the technical aspect of life sciences combines with the social sciences. Asking questions about science through both that hard and technical lens, but then looking at it through that flexible, soft societal lens.
00:01:35
Speaker
and understanding how those two things really intersect in such a unique way to help us understand life, not just our human lives, but animal lives, bacterial lives, plant life, and beyond. It's very complex. I'm excited to bring you on this journey with me. In this podcast, we're gonna be talking with experts from many different parts of life sciences, and also many different parts of social sciences. I'm so excited.
00:02:03
Speaker
If you ever have any questions about anything that you hear on the episode, you can reach out to me. I'm Dr. Raven the Science Maven on socials. On Twitter, I'm at RavenSciMaven. On other platforms, I'm at Raven the Science Maven. And I'm a molecular biologist and science communicator who is
00:02:22
Speaker
really hell bent on making the world's biggest science party and giving out invitations to everyone I meet and people that I have never even met before. So let's dive in. Welcome to the Science of Life with me, your host, Dr. Raven Baxter.
00:02:49
Speaker
I am super excited to talk to
Dr. Anastasia's Research and Background
00:02:52
Speaker
you. Autumn hyped you up so much. And I actually just finished watching one of your comedy shows. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. You were very funny and the crowd sucked. Okay. The jokes, they were not laughing at. They absolutely should have been rolling on the floor because I was. I'm like, you guys are not giving her props. Hilarious. And so I learned from the show, you pronounce your name Anastasia. It's just like, how foreign do I feel today?
00:03:18
Speaker
I love that for you. We love a chameleon. Do you care whether I say Anastasia or? Not at all. Not at all. Whatever your heart desires, Raven. I feel like saying Anastasia. That is a beautiful name. Your family, they were in their bag when they named you.
00:03:37
Speaker
It's the most common name in Russia. Like when I went to a nursery school, it was like 80% of the women there were called Anastasia. I'm more unique now that I'm in like the Western, like when I was in Canada and now in Australia.
00:03:58
Speaker
Okay guys, so today we're going to be talking to Dr. Anastasia Shavrova, and she's a sexual conflict researcher. We're going to get into what that is in this episode.
Extreme Mating Behaviors
00:04:11
Speaker
Absolutely fascinating, hilarious. You guys are going to want to follow her, but yeah, buckle up for this episode.
00:04:19
Speaker
A little bit of a trigger warning, we do discuss some sensitive sexual things. This isn't necessarily for kids. So if you have kids and you don't want to hear me talking about sex with a person who studies it, maybe it's a good time to pivot. We talk about it in the context of animals for the most part and it's really interesting.
00:04:45
Speaker
You have been warned. Episode starting in five, four, three, two, one. Conversation. You study the evolution of sex, which is so boss. Like I want to know all about your research. Tell me how you got into that. Like what's your educational background and how did you get into studying the evolution of sex? The reason why I even started evolution of sex
00:05:12
Speaker
is because I thought I'd be really cool at parties. For real? I was a nerdy kid in high school, so I'm like, you know, what's gonna be my thing? How are we gonna stand out at parties? Oh, tell them that I study sex. Not good in practice, good in theory sort of idea. I went to uni in Canada to do my undergraduate degree in like science, and I was going to go and be a medical doctor. It was so much memorization. There's a lot of anatomy classes, it was so much memorization. And I just wasn't having fun in those classes.
00:05:42
Speaker
I wasn't doing very well in those classes because I wasn't enjoying those classes. I took a lot of electives in biology, and one of the classes I took was called Biology of Sex. Oh, I love that. Yeah, and the prof was incredible. He was such a good lecturer. He was so enthusiastic, and it just, it clicked. I'm like, this is so interesting. The world out there isn't just as simple as
00:06:11
Speaker
find the best mate. It's just,
Mating Strategies Across Species
00:06:13
Speaker
it's actually so many gray areas in between finding the right mate and then having the best offspring and then that offspring then going on to find the best mate. And there's just so many other kind of branches out there. I ended up doing my master's project with him looking at kind of spermatogenesis, which is like how sperm get produced.
00:06:37
Speaker
and reproduction and kind of like, how is some sperm better than other sperm? Whether it's, I don't know if you've heard, this is like a common kind of biology theory where it's like live fast, die young sort of idea, and then live long and prosper, right? So for example, like a rat is an animal that mates a lot, produces lots of offspring, but doesn't live as long as say an elephant. An elephant only produces so many
00:07:02
Speaker
little baby elephants in his lifetime compared to a rat or a bunny. That was my master's. I was just like, is it really true? Is the live fast and die young sperm, is it in any way better compared to the live long and prosper sperm? And then as I was working in a fly lab, we happened to get a lot of spiders in there and I hated spiders. I was like, this is
00:07:24
Speaker
the worst animal out there. Why does it have so many legs? And why does it keep eating my laboratory species? I was very fascinated with what we call like extreme mating behaviors.
00:07:35
Speaker
So spiders, for example, undergo an actual like evolved behavior called sexual cannibalism, where they'll eat their mate from an evolutionary perspective, where you're always continuously trying to just survive. It just seems like counterintuitive. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's an evolutionary dead end. Sexual cannibalism? Yeah, it's like an evolved behavior and it continues to evolve. It continues to stay in spiders and other animals.
00:08:00
Speaker
So let's just pause right here because yes, Dr. Anastasia just said sexual cannibalism, okay? I think we need to just take a breather. But I had to look it up. Sexual cannibalism is a behavior observed in some animal species where one individual, usually the female in heterosexual encounters, kills and consumes their mate prior to, during, or after copulation.
00:08:29
Speaker
This phenomenon is most commonly associated with arachnids, spiders, and insects, like praying mantises. However, it has been documented in various other animal groups as well. It definitely raises some questions about evolutionary strategies and like sexual selection and like the cost and benefits of mating behaviors in the animal kingdom. I was like, you know what? I want to get to the bottom of this. Like why is it a behavior that even exists in spiders, like an actual behavior? And I ended up
00:08:59
Speaker
contacting a prof here in Australia because it's like, what is the best way to study spiders, if not the land of the spiders? And yeah, I ended up here studying extreme mating behaviors using arachnids, all the eight legged invertebrates or many of the eight legged invertebrates as my study species.
00:09:19
Speaker
Okay, this is all so fascinating, but I have a question, right? So if animals have sexual behavior, then do they also have dating behavior, right? Like we hear about mating, but what about dating? Is there a courtship? Oh, that's a very good question. I would say that there's actually just a few different categories, right? There's the animals that kind of are
00:09:44
Speaker
I would say, how would I say it? Just like true mating, right? Everything that they display is an, like,
00:09:51
Speaker
they're trying to exhibit exactly what they are trying to portray. So say birds, right? If a bird is super, super colorful, that's all it's trying to portray. I'm really pretty, I'm really beautiful, look at my colors. These beautiful colors means I have very good jeans, so our offspring is gonna have all these good jeans that I'm trying to show. And it's portraying the truth. So it's not cheating in any way, it's not trying to manipulate, nothing like that. It's wearing its heart on its sleeve, basically.
00:10:19
Speaker
And then there are other animals that actually take a little bit more of a manipulative approach. So they'll do things like cheat, right? They'll cheat on their partners or they'll even cheat their partners. So they'll be like, look at me. I can bring you this really nice gift. And then as soon as the female accepts the gift and then accepts a mate.
00:10:43
Speaker
like the mating, the actual like reproduction, then the male can just go and steal that gift and then try it again with another female. So it's like pretty, pretty.
00:10:54
Speaker
Manipulative behavior, right? Honestly, honestly, that's really shysty.
Courtship Manipulation Tactics
00:10:59
Speaker
Like imagine some guy trying to floss you out. He bought you a Cuban link, tennis bracelet, like VVS diamonds. He slips on your wrist and then y'all do the whoop-de-whoop and then he takes it off and then he goes and gives it to another woman. Let's absolutely trifle it. I can't.
00:11:20
Speaker
Oh my gosh, like I really want to know if animals can cuss each other out because I would. That's a lot of animals like that give gifts such like crickets will sometimes give gifts to their females. A lot of insects really will give gifts. They'll hunt and that's their gift. That their gift is this hunted whatever fly or whatever. Say if it is, I'd say spiders would do that a lot. Any ones that are more carnivorous, they'll present it to the female as a gift and then
00:11:49
Speaker
as soon as they mate because sometimes mating can take just a few seconds. They've made it and they're like, okay, see you later. Grab the gift right away. Try it again with a different female. And then there are animals that just completely try to cheat a female. For example, in salmon, there's the really big kind of, oh, they're like this alpha salmon, basically.
00:12:09
Speaker
And so the female wants to mate with the alpha salmon, but salmon have external reproduction, right? So they'll spew out all the sperm and the eggs, and then it all kind of fertilizes in the water.
00:12:19
Speaker
So as this alpha salmon is producing all the sperm with the female, there'll be a little sneaker salmon that will come in and at the same time he'll hide behind the really big, the big alpha male salmon so that the female can't see him and that the big salmon can't see him and then put out some of his sperm in there so that some of the eggs actually get fertilized by his sperm as well. And then he's, okay, see you later.
00:12:40
Speaker
I didn't even have to do anything. I didn't have to make a nest. I didn't have to impress the female. I just came in while you guys were distracted, doing the deed. And I just added a little bit of my sperm. So it's a very like cheating and manipulative world out there with some animals. It was at this point in the podcast where I was like, dang, have I ever dated a cricket or a salmon? Because this trifling behavior sounds really familiar. Look at that. Shout out to my exes. Yikes.
Evolutionary Perspectives on Reproduction
00:13:09
Speaker
Okay, we don't understand like the thought process of animals really, not all animals, but is there intention behind this or is it just innate evolved behavior? Like how, what drives this behavior? Do we even know?
00:13:27
Speaker
For a short answer, evolution. Evolution drives this behavior. The need to first survive and the need to mate, to pass on your genes, to pass on and have offspring that are in some way related to you. It's hard to say whether it's like a conscious decision when animals do such manipulative behaviors or cheating behaviors. It's not necessarily a conscious decision per se, but it's more like a desperate decision.
00:13:55
Speaker
It's, for example, in the salmon example that I gave, the salmon that do that manipulative and cheating behavior, they have no other choice because they know they're too small and no female will wanna mate with them. So that's the only way that they can mate during that breeding time. Evolutionarily, they're pushed to those kind of manipulative behaviors in a way. It's not necessarily a conscious decision either. It could have been something that they learned from watching another little salmon do
00:14:23
Speaker
or something that is in fact ingrained in their genes. Like that was such a good Christian Raven because we don't know and it depends on the animal and sometimes we haven't even teased that apart.
00:14:34
Speaker
And now I'm like, I want to go full in. Like, okay, we're talking about sex. Dude, where did sex even come from? Where did he even come from? Because there's some things that don't even need sex to reproduce. Think about how it seems like there are asexual plants and bacteria and things like that. There is asexual reproduction, but it seems like other than that, many organisms on this planet are having sex and we've all evolved this. Like, where did it come from?
00:15:04
Speaker
Ooh, that is also one of life's mystery because there are some animals that can asexually reproduce. Okay, so quick biology, asexual reproduction is not what humans do. Humans do sexual reproduction. We be having sex. Sperm, egg, each of those are called gametes, okay? Sperm is gametes that come from male humans and eggs are gametes that come from female humans and they meet
00:15:33
Speaker
combined to produce another organism. But asexual reproduction is a mode of reproduction that does not involve the fusion of gametes. In this process, offspring arise from a single organism and inherit the genes of that parent only, which actually makes them genetically identical to each other and to the parent. That's a form of reproduction that's common in many plants, bacteria, fungi, and some animals.
00:16:00
Speaker
a lot of them happen to be invertebrates, a lot of happen to be insects. For example, there's this animal in Australia called the stick insect and some of the females just asexually reproduce, like there's an entire population that just asexually reproduces, it creates more females and those females are clones of the mother. And then there's other populations of the same species that have males and
00:16:26
Speaker
There's a lab actually at my university that studies if there's any pros to being asexual or any pros to being sexual.
00:16:35
Speaker
There really isn't. So the question is then why does this species even have males? And why is it that we, as a lot of vertebrate animals, a lot of your cats, your dogs, your humans, why did we evolve to have sexual reproduction and obligate sexual reproduction? So we can't asexually reproduce. There's a few reasons for that because the mixing of genes is very good. It creates genetic diversity. It helps us survive in a changing environment. That's one of the reasons, and it's a really great reason.
00:17:04
Speaker
But for many other animals, they really can just asexually reproduce and live quite happily that way, as long as the environment doesn't drastically change.
00:17:14
Speaker
They can continue to stay in this constant environment. Let's just note how she said, as long as the environment doesn't drastically change, they can continue to stay in this constant environment. Put a pin in that, and I want you to go and look up some alarming facts about the species that we are losing due to climate change. Yikes. Let's start connecting some dots here. They don't have to adapt. They don't have to really change. They can just create clones.
00:17:44
Speaker
There's even very recently, I think it was two or maybe just one year ago.
00:17:50
Speaker
There was a crocodile that basically asexually reproduced. Reptiles do have a higher inclination to perhaps be able to asexually reproduce. It was maybe something that they used to be able to do thousands, millions of years ago, but there was this article that came out saying this crocodile is a virgin crocodile and she created an egg that was theoretically viable.
00:18:16
Speaker
However, that embryo didn't survive very long. I believe it didn't even get to hatching. But there was a little baby crocodile in there. So she was technically able to asexually reproduce. Embryo just didn't live very long. The embryo didn't survive to hatching and couldn't do that. The potential is there. And why wouldn't it come back? Like, why isn't that something that could still happen? It's yeah, it's a very good question. And it's
00:18:40
Speaker
really one of life's mystery. I like to anthropomorphize it and maybe even exaggerate it and say, why do we even need men? Listen, y'all, I love men. Okay. I love men. I love women. All right. However, as she was explaining this, I asked the same thing.
00:18:57
Speaker
Why? And that made me think about something I learned about the human Y chromosome. Most female humans have XX chromosomes and most men have XY chromosomes. And it's that Y chromosome that kind of makes men do the men things for the most part, not entirely.
The Role of Proteins in Reproduction
00:19:19
Speaker
It's very much not the whole story. We'll get into that in another episode for sure.
00:19:25
Speaker
and how over millions and millions of years it will eventually just become nothing and it's losing, I think it's, what was it? Yes, within the last 166 million years, the human Y chromosome has lost most of its 1600 genes at a rate of nearly 10 per million years.
00:19:49
Speaker
Then at this pace, the Y chromosome is expected to vanish in about 4.5 million years. Then we know males who don't have a Y chromosome are unable to produce sperm and basically reproduce. Maybe nature is asking the same question. Exactly. It could be moving in that same direction. The Y chromosome is so interesting because
00:20:13
Speaker
For very long, we thought that it was non-coding, that it was just a chromosome to basically determine the sex of that animal, whether it was going to be an XY or an XX. And slowly and surely, it's really hard to code the Y chromosome. And I'm not positive as to why. It could be because it's so small. It could be because there's so many kind of repeating genes to it, so it's hard to code.
00:20:40
Speaker
And, but very recently we've started to see that there are some coding parts to the Y chromosome, but it is more specific to sperm and sperm production and kind of things that are associated with the kind of biological factors of, of animals that have that XY chromosome or heterogametic we call it. Right. So there's homogametic, which is two of the exact same chromosomes. So in the case of humans, it's XX and then there's hetero, hetero, sorry, gametic.
00:21:10
Speaker
which is the XY, which is two different chromosomes. And yet it's those heterogamedic ones that Y like chromosome is what's coding.
00:21:20
Speaker
things like sperm and sperm productions. But yeah, of course it gets smaller because in evolution, if you don't use it, you lose it. So if there were so many parts of it that weren't really being coded for anything, then yeah, it just started to wither away. And now it's down to its bare basics. Whatever it needs, it'll keep sort of idea. But will it fully go away?
00:21:42
Speaker
I don't think so. Unless again, maybe we'll have no need for men soon. When we finally learn to wear sexually reproduced.
00:21:50
Speaker
I feel like we would have figured it out with CRISPR, how to gene manipulate by the time that comes around. But, so someone asked me, this is, okay, so you, let me back this up. Cause this is going to be something that needs some context and prefacing. Okay. Sperm, right? We have sperm. Can we talk about semen? Sure. Okay. Let's talk about semen.
00:22:20
Speaker
Now, I listen to a lot of rap music. Never heard that. I'm not gonna laugh. Never heard that statement. Wait, let's talk about semen. We're gonna have a candid conversation about semen. And guys, it's just a biological fluid. Okay, everyone is grown here.
00:22:39
Speaker
No. It's actually very fascinating fluid. Ooh. In the rap music I listen to, which tends to be the rap music that is like the bottom of the gutter. Don't play it around grandma. Go repent. That music is what I love and then thrive on. So there's a song called Throat Baby. Okay.
00:23:01
Speaker
Where is this going? You'll see. So there is a line in the song where the rapper BRS Cash, he says, she gets protein when I give her them babies.
00:23:23
Speaker
Being sperm with the sperm. He's talking about semen. He's talking about putting semen in a girl's throat and she's getting protein. And so as a scientist, scientifically, I said, how much protein? How much? Let's quantify this. If you're going to talk about this like it's a dietary supplement, we got to put some numbers to it. I got my calculator out.
00:23:48
Speaker
And I cried some numbers. Also love your calculator. Thank you. As you can tell, everything in here is shiny. And so I found a paper that described the chemical composition of semen. And the average protein concentration of semen
Pleasure and Mating in Animals
00:24:04
Speaker
is 5,040 milligrams per 100 milliliter. And so I said, since one ejaculation usually produces about five milliliters of semen,
00:24:15
Speaker
you can estimate the average ejaculation containing about 252 milligrams of protein. So then for science, I said, how much semen would you eat to reach your recommended dietary intake? Oh, God. I found.
00:24:31
Speaker
You gotta walk with me. Wait, let me have you guess first. How much semen do you think someone would need to digest for it to reach their dietary intake? Like, 475 pound person. Let's say... Oh my gosh, I'm really bad at these math guessing games. It doesn't have to be right. I'm gonna say...
00:24:53
Speaker
a leader. Wow. Is that too much? Let's, we're about to find out. Okay. So I, oh my gosh, the RDA, which is the recommended dietary allowance. Okay. So you can calculate your recommended dietary allowance for protein by multiplying your weight in pounds by 0.36.
00:25:16
Speaker
So for example, the RDA, recommended dietary allowance for a very active 45 year old man. Yep. And let's call him Joe who weighs 175 pounds is 63 grams of protein a day. And I got that from the USDA, United States Department of Agriculture. So then for science, how many ejaculations would it take to reach a recommended dietary intake for Joe? So 63 grams is equal to 63,000 milligrams.
00:25:46
Speaker
And if the average ejaculation contains around 252 milligrams of protein, then we would divide 63,000 by 252 milligrams to get 250 ejaculations. If each ejaculation is five milliliters and it takes 250 ejaculations to reach Joe, 175 pound person, his recommended dietary allowance, you multiply that by five, you get two, you get 1,250 milliliters. You were right.
00:26:15
Speaker
it's okay okay 1.25 liters you were actually almost right on the money i thought i was like exaggerating oh that's a big jug of milk yeah it's huge yeah oh god that's
00:26:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that fits somewhere in our conversation, but I learned a lot about semen. Yeah. So sperm without those proteins is actually useless. Whoa. Because that's why you need, that's why it's called semen and not just sperm, right?
00:26:46
Speaker
The semen holds the sperm and the sperm proteins all in this one great solution. Because if sperm was on its own, it's like sperm is like the stupid brother that needs to be led through life, needs to be handheld, and the proteins do all the hand-holding. The uterus is actually a very toxic environment for sperm. So the proteins not only protect the sperm,
00:27:08
Speaker
but they genuinely guide the sperm to the egg. The proteins do all the work, and yet the sperm get all the credit. Some of them have multiple functions, but many of them have one main function, whether it is to protect the sperm, to help the sperm move, to actually even increase sperm fertility before it even enters a uterus. The proteins do so much, but really get none of the credit. Everyone's like, sperm's the best, and the proteins are the best.
00:27:38
Speaker
And it was at this point in the podcast where I was giving Dr. Anastasia her props because we've talked about at this point things from ecology, evolution,
Sexual Conflict in the Animal Kingdom
00:27:49
Speaker
and now we're getting into developmental biology, we're getting into reproduction, we're getting into molecular and cellular biology. Like she is extremely well versed in her biology
00:28:01
Speaker
Let's just take a moment to appreciate the broad and deep knowledge that she has in so many areas of science. Get it, girl. Get it. If you look up accessory gland proteins, a lot of them are typically what they're called, is accessory gland proteins. I wonder. I guess when men get tested for fertility, is that one they're looking at?
00:28:30
Speaker
I think even that part of research is still in its infancy. We're still finding out a little bit more about it. You know how you have to sell your research to grants and as a researcher, Raven, you're very familiar with it. You always have to find application to your work. So when I was doing my master's in spermatogenesis, because I was specifically looking at the proteins and the more I was finding out, the more I was understanding like how important these proteins are. And so one of the ways that I was applying my work is to saying,
00:29:00
Speaker
Yes, we should be looking at the sperm and like sperm motility is very important, but perhaps we should also be looking at the proteins within the semen because that could also be contributing to the success of fertility for men. Yeah, so I'm not super familiar on the research in kind of human, in human spermatogenesis and human research, but it was definitely a push that I had in my masters. That would be the next step past animal models.
00:29:27
Speaker
I thank you for explaining that. I also want to acknowledge a very funny joke that you made in a standup comedy show that I just watched that you gave. And it was that you studied sex and I guess watching sex happen. Or what did you say? I said, if I'm watching humans have sex, I'm a pervert.
00:29:50
Speaker
If we're watching animals have sex, I'm a scientist. And that is so true. Like when you said that, I thought about my ecology professor. I took an ecology and evolution class in college and doctor redacted professor name.
00:30:07
Speaker
showed us a video of two pandas having sex and he just whips out the tape and we're watching two pandas going at it in the wild. I want to get into your research about sexual conflict and then touch on some parallels in animals versus humans. Humans are animals. I always feel weird like making that distinction that like people versus non-people, what does sexual conflict look like?
00:30:37
Speaker
So one of the reasons why so many biologists prefer to use animal models over humans is because humans, there's a psychology part to humans that it's so hard to understand and it's so hard to break it down to the basics, right? With animals, especially when it comes to model animals like flies or spiders or crickets or anything like that, we basically have them from eggs to adults and then we create more eggs and then
00:31:05
Speaker
we've standardized them in some way. You can't do that with humans, right? So that's one of the reasons why it's hard to fully extrapolate from animals to, well, from laboratory animals, let's say from animal research to human research. But then plus there's that psychology part to humans, but there are some kind of hints that we can get and like a few different, perhaps maybe anecdotes that we can extrapolate from our animal research back into humans.
00:31:33
Speaker
So the more I've studied animals, the more I'm like, oh my gosh, like humans would a hundred percent do this as well. So when it comes to sexual conflict, I call it like the arms race between males and females, right? Sex is selfish. Sex is selfish, right? Typically one of the, both parties should be gaining something from it. When it comes to animals, a lot of the times it's the females are looking for good genes for their offspring. The females are looking for a really pretty partner.
00:32:02
Speaker
The females are looking for someone that won't be, that might be a good father, like all of these things, right? And the males in the animal kingdom are looking for similar things. Like they're looking also to have really good offspring. That's like a shared thing that both males and females have, but males are also looking to spread their seed. And they can't do that with just one female. They want to find multiple females. The female doesn't want that from her partner.
00:32:29
Speaker
So that's why there's this arms race. It's like the benefits to one sex might be different, and then the benefits for the other sex are different, and sometimes even the opposite of the other sex. And so that's why the conflict arises. In humans, it's actually very similar, right? Females with uteruses, if you go through pregnancy, that's quite a big burden, right, on your body. It's a beautiful part of reproduction and human kind of life, but it is hard.
00:32:59
Speaker
Right? It is hard, it's hard on the body, it can be hard mentally, while the male doesn't really go through that. So that's why humans might want to look for a really good partner, a partner that will take care of them during that pregnancy stage, and a partner that will be a really good parent to that offspring.
00:33:17
Speaker
Animals do very similar things. There are some animals that actually have parental care. Birds, they have parental care. When a female bird is looking for a partner, she's looking for the best dad. She's looking for the dad that will help her raise those chicks. In some cases, the dad fully raises, depending on the animals. Let's take our pregnancy example. Conflict arises when the partner doesn't give as much energy to the person that's pregnant as the pregnant person is giving to their offspring.
00:33:44
Speaker
Right? This also hit home for me because I am recently divorced. One of the major reasons why I got divorced was because the person that I was with totally dropped the ball when it came to how they handled my pregnancy, how they handled my miscarriage. Like it was just bad. I was questioning when are you going to be a good dad if you can't take care of me? And then also this partnership, I'm questioning it. One thing led to another and I said, you know what? It's not going to be.
00:34:13
Speaker
So if you're not taking care of me, you're also not taking care of the offspring. And so the conflict can arise there. And it's, again, very similar in animals. There's, there's videos even of like females, female birds getting angry, the male birds, because they're being bad dads. And they'll actually, they'll fight between each other. There's, this is the funniest thing for me. This is why I think like animals, humans are animals, right? And there's so many different similarities. I was reading this one paper.
00:34:41
Speaker
And so there's this animal called a dung beetle, right? So they're beetles that typically use dung to put their offspring in. Like they'll actually lay their eggs in the dung and then that's like nutrition for their offspring and everything like that. So they want to find the biggest piece of dung and those beetles actually have parental care. So they'll find each other and they'll stay in that pair and they'll raise the offspring together.
00:35:02
Speaker
but there was this paper I was reading and it was an older paper too. So a lot of it, what you put in those papers, you could get away with quite a bit. And the scientist tells a story of how the male and female beetle were working together on this dung. And then all of a sudden the male beetle climbs up the top of the dung and starts releasing a pheromone to find another female. And so the female dung beetle
00:35:30
Speaker
starts crawling up it starts grabbing the male down by the legs and try to pull him down to be like what the hell are you doing i am right here don't you dare start looking for other ladies we are in the middle of like
00:35:45
Speaker
our life together basically and i just found it so funny yet another example of trifling behavior from males in the animal kingdom i cannot believe how dare you we just made this little dung thing together and all of a sudden you want to get up on top of this thing and try to get some other beetles you trying to get other beetle booty right here right in front of my salad
00:36:14
Speaker
It couldn't be me. If you like this episode so far, like subscribe and turn on auto downloads on your favorite podcast app. Oh, and rate us five stars too. Thank you. But it, and we can speak, right? Like people can talk, but animals, how do animals communicate their sexual desires? A lot of it is through pheromones.
00:36:41
Speaker
A lot of it's through pheromones. Animals are so fascinating because they do so much to try and impress mates. And humans can learn a lot from animals in that way. For example, we'll take birds again, right? Birds dance for each other.
00:36:56
Speaker
Birds can sing for each other. Frogs will also sing for each other. And actually a lot of insects will also sing and some will actually even dance. So there's this arachnid called a pseudoscorpion. So it's this really small little arachnid and it's missing the stinger like a scorpion would have. And that's why it's called pseudoscorpion or fake scorpion. These little animals, what they'll do is they'll grab the female and basically dance with her little tango.
00:37:24
Speaker
to try and be like, please mate with me. Look at me. I can dance. I'll be such a good father. I'll have all these good genes for our offspring. So the animal world is actually so intricate in how they try to impress their mates. And females, I say females. It's not only females who pick the partner. Males can do that as well. It depends on the animal, right? Oh, there's also some birds will build really intricate nests.
00:37:52
Speaker
There's a bird called the bowerbird in Australia. So it's this very plain looking bird for us, for our visual, for our eyesight, just a black bird.
Gender Fluidity and Roles in Animals
00:38:03
Speaker
The reason why she said for our eyesight, it's just a black bird is because birds can see some other stuff. Okay. Listen, they can see ultraviolet. So the bird that we think is just a regular black bird could very well be giving Pokemon energy. It could be giving intergalactic, you know what I mean? Okay. But that bird will build these huge intricate nests and then it'll decorate them with typically
00:38:33
Speaker
the color blue. So it will go out and it'll go out into the city and it'll go out and it'll find all of these shiny blue things and it'll decorate its nest with it. And then when a female comes along, he's out there showing off his nest. Look at how beautiful my nest is. This is where we could live together. This is what we could do. Humans can learn so much. There are so many ways to impress your date, to impress your other half.
00:38:56
Speaker
And we could learn a lot from animals. Honestly, the topic I'm about to speak on in a different episode to talk about gender expression, but I learned something from my dad. My dad is Native American and my father's side of the family is a part of a tribe in Virginia and they
00:39:15
Speaker
They're involved and they do things I'm not, but that's great. I grew up with my mother. And when I got older, I decided to embrace native culture, learn about my heritage. And so I decided to get some regalia and I wanted to go to a powwow. I wanted to dance. All of my stuff is very sparkly. I have a whole bunch of sparkly stuff. I love rhinestones. I love shiny things. So I'm looking on websites and looking at
00:39:42
Speaker
stores, small businesses, trying to find some really glitzy glam powwow regalia. And I call my dad and I'm like, dad, what's going on? I cannot find any women's clothes that are nothing other than leather with fringe, maybe some feathers, maybe some bones, maybe some cute embroidery, but it was not, but what did the men have? The men's clothes, men's clothes, beadwork, bones, feathers, embroidery.
00:40:11
Speaker
jingly, jingle bells, fringe, headdresses, all kinds of things. And I said, dad, why can't I find women's clothes? He's like Raven. That's what happens in the natural world. We pattern after the natural world and in nature, a lot of the male species are the ones that are more decorated and they're the more showy species. And so you see that in our clothing. I was dumbfounded.
00:40:39
Speaker
It's so beautiful. It is beautiful. And I honestly think about what would our society look like? Societies where we were colonized and indigenous culture was nearly wiped out. What would it look like if everyone here actually had an opportunity to embrace that natural pattern of self-expression?
00:41:00
Speaker
And I think about how I have a boyfriend and he's an artist and he's also like an astrophysicist, but he's very expressive and he does oil painting. But like when we go shopping together, the men's sections are so plain.
00:41:16
Speaker
It's giving khaki, navy, black, brown. Very rarely will you ever see, I don't know, cheetah print or see, bruh. I just wonder how much conflict we see in human society is because we don't, like, because men don't have, I guess, the natural way of expressing themselves, as we see in nature. That was a long spiel, but that's one of my deep thoughts I'm going to unpack on this podcast.
00:41:45
Speaker
I love that I've never seen it from that perspective but you are so right and a lot of indigenous cultures do in fact take from the animal world they get so inspired from the animal world and I find that in colonized society we lose a lot of that and you're very right it kind there's always the joke of oh men it's so easy for men to get ready you just put on a top and pants and you're good to go versus women are on they're putting on makeup and
00:42:14
Speaker
putting on beautiful dresses and we have so many clothes to pick from and everything like that. So of course not always the case there are some men who know how to express themselves and who express themselves so wonderfully but I feel like even then it's harder for them than it is for a female identifying person.
00:42:34
Speaker
Yeah, I really love how you put that. That was beautiful. Thank you. I think about that a lot, especially when I go shopping. I do not think it's fair that the men's sections are so limited. I do think that we can really push, at least give them more colors. Can we get an orange? Can we get a tiger print?
Conclusion and Future Discussions
00:43:04
Speaker
sexual conflict. What does that actually mean? It means behaviors of one sex that are detrimental to the other sex. It could be detrimental in very big ways or just very little ways. For example, there's things like, and maybe we should have a bit of a trigger warning. Again, I am speaking about animals.
00:43:30
Speaker
But there are some extreme cases such as like traumatic mating. For example, there's this animal called a water strider. And you'll see them typically in the springtime. You'll see them, they're all over the world. I've seen them in North America as well. There's these animals that kind of walk on the surface of the water and they look like spiders, but they don't have enough legs to be called a spider. And the way that they mate is very, just a very horrible manipulative behavior from the male.
00:43:57
Speaker
is what will happen is the male will mount the female and then he'll start vibrating the water around the female and that vibration lets the fish in the water know, oh my gosh, there's some food up there. So he's vibrating the water and he's basically telling to the female, you either mate with me or we both die because I'm calling the predators. I'm calling the predator, so let's mate or we both die. No way. So that's,
00:44:25
Speaker
Yeah. So that's like extreme sexual conflict. That's like an extreme behavior. And so what I do in my work is I try to see how can the kind of, for a lack of better word, how can the victims of these really manipulative behaviors or even sometimes genes, how can they counter-evolve against that? For example, in the case of spiders and sexual cannibalism, right?
00:44:53
Speaker
So in that case, it's the female who's being the manipulative sex, right? It's the female who's eating the male spider. First, what I researched is like, why did it evolve? So why is it even there? Why is that a behavior that's there? And there's multiple hypotheses for it. It's either females in arachnids tend to be bigger than the males. So it's like the female could just have really bad eyesight. She gets confused. Females could just be really aggressive and just like really unimpressed with the male.
00:45:20
Speaker
And then there are other hypotheses that are like, oh, maybe the male is offering some sort of nutrition when he gets swallowed by the female to try and get as much offspring, give the offspring a better, a fighting chance or whatever. And so.
00:45:33
Speaker
When I looked at it that way, I tested all of these hypotheses to see which one could be more accepted. Turns out so far from my work is that females is, it's what we call extreme mate choice. So the females were just so displeased with the male that they went, you are way better off as food.
00:45:53
Speaker
than you are as a mate. So they just eat him before he even gets, like he could be in the middle of dancing or in the middle of strumming the web, really trying to impress the female, you know, being the best guitarist that he can be. And bam, she eats him because she's so unimpressed. So that's the most likely hypothesis. But again, it depends on the species. But the counter evolution is what was really interesting to me.
00:46:17
Speaker
So in some species, the male spiders have counter evolved where if they get swallowed by the female, they do in fact give some nutrition, but not particularly. They'll mate and then they're like, okay, time to jump into the jaws of death. They'll jump in and then because of this wonderful sacrifice that the male has done, the female will fertilize more eggs with his sperm than she would with any other male.
00:46:46
Speaker
because she's, thank you for your sacrifice. So that was like a counter-revolution that happened. That was just like, this is a great way to try and gain back some sort of advantage for the male. Listen, of all the things that you've heard in this episode, if that didn't blow your mind, I don't know what will, girl. I don't know what will. There are also males, for example, spiders have a lot of legs. Some male spiders have evolved a longer third pair of legs.
00:47:16
Speaker
And what they'll do is when they mate with the female, they'll actually take her jaws and hold her jaws open with that third pair of legs while they're mating to avoid her from eating him. And then as soon as he's finished mating, he lets go and he just jumps out of it. There's literally like videos of him like just using her to jump off as far away from her as possible.
00:47:39
Speaker
So he definitely can't be skipping leg day if he wants to survive that mating. So yeah, there's all these different counter evolutions that animals can make against such manipulative or harmful behaviors. I don't know. I was literally speechless. What would you say are some of the most surprising things that you've learned in what you research?
00:48:09
Speaker
Ooh, that's a great question. So some of those counter evolution methods that I learn about are really interesting to me there because you wouldn't have even thought of some of them. For example, one of them is.
00:48:26
Speaker
in bedbugs. Do you know anything about bedbug mating? What? No! So, bedbugs suck. Bedbugs are, for me, they are the worst animal on the planet as bedbugs. Like, even mosquitoes suck, yeah, but bedbugs are like, just the scum of the earth, okay? And their mating behaviors will probably make you hate them even more. Trigger warning, we're about to talk about traumatic insemination. And it is pretty much as bad as it sounds, so...
00:48:56
Speaker
Okay. Five, four, three, two, one. So what the males have evolved is again, like similar to those water striders is traumatic insemination. So the males in bed bugs don't even use a uterus anymore. They have evolved to have such strong appendages. I don't want to say penis because that is a bit more of an anthropomorphic
00:49:25
Speaker
They have evolved these appendages that they literally go up to a female and pierce her body and just release sperm right into her body cavity. That is how horrible bed bugs are. I know. That is probably one of the worst science facts I've ever learned. However, what Dr. Anastasia teaches me next was really fascinating. So just hang in there with me.
00:49:55
Speaker
But the females have evolved this incredible physical trait. What the females have done is they basically have this cavity in their body that basically goes nowhere. It's just like an empty space in their body that doesn't go to any eggs, doesn't go to any uterus, doesn't go to any reproduction. It's just like an empty space in her body. So when she sees a male coming up to her,
00:50:21
Speaker
and she knows she's about to be dramatically inseminated. She makes sure to position herself so that the male, when he does pierce her body, he ends up putting all of his sperm into that cavity of no man's land, like his sperm's going nowhere. And so that's a way that she was able to gain back some sort of advantage, gain back an advantage of who gets to father her offspring. And I know it might seem like it's not
00:50:47
Speaker
It wasn't the best counter evolution, but for these animals, this was the best case scenario. And it does, in fact,
00:50:55
Speaker
Because the idea of sexual selection is to make sure that your offspring get the best chance, your offspring get the best genes. And so that way that counter evolution does give that choice back to the female to be like, when there, whenever there is a male that I do want to father my offspring, I'm going to show him on my body where my reproductive organs are so that when he does pierce my body, because now that is just how they may, they don't even have a uterus opening anymore.
00:51:22
Speaker
I will show him where to pierce my body to make sure that he does actually father my offspring, as opposed to this other guy who just went wherever. So for me, learning about that was probably like a bit traumatic, I'm not gonna lie. Like I already hate bed bugs and that definitely didn't aid in their kind of PR story or anything. I think they're doing this literally in your bed. I know, how disgusting.
00:51:50
Speaker
Like they are just such horrible little creatures. I already, I feel like we're definitely gonna have you on again because I have a million questions. Oh my gosh. I would love that. Cause I love what I study, obviously. I feel like every Raven, I feel like you can echo this. You couldn't have done a PhD if you weren't passionate about it. So I do love what I study, but it can be a little bit shocking.
00:52:19
Speaker
to find out some things that animals do. Yeah. Do you think that there are any animals that make love versus just have sex? Yes. I don't know about make love per se, but there are animals that have sex specifically for pleasure. And there are animals that masturbate as well. So a lot of primates actually masturbate and a lot of primates do tend to will masturbate each other and will have sex for pleasure. Some marine animals like dolphins,
00:52:49
Speaker
will also masturbate and have sex for a bit. Tell me right now, how dolphins masturbate. I actually don't know how, I'm so sorry. I don't know how specifically does. This is like a game of popcorn. Every episode we have a new person like say, Tag, you're it. You get to tell us how dolphins masturbate. I'm writing this now. Okay. How do dolphins masturbate?
00:53:17
Speaker
I do know how primates masturbate, but I guess that's not as exciting. I was assuming it's just like how we would do it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Very similar for male masturbation in primates, obviously very kind of common sense for females will actually use phallic shaped objects like sticks and twigs and stuff to masturbate. Yeah.
00:53:42
Speaker
Oh my god. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And so do you have you ever dived into like, homosexual conflict? So homosexuality is rampant across the animal kingdom.
00:53:58
Speaker
There are so many animals that are basically only have sex with the opposite sex, specifically for breeding. And then all the rest of the year, they're just having homosexual sex, which is then for pleasure. Like that's them having sex for pleasure. Still have lots of homosexual sex. Yeah. It's like homosexuality is actually very common in the animal kingdom. Yeah.
00:54:24
Speaker
I haven't dove in into so much of it. I can't say that I've researched it to its full extent. I'm no expert.
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah, just like animals love having sex and they do not care if you're male or female. They're just doing it. That's so interesting. I watched a nature documentary about, maybe was it birds mating? It was like animals mating and they never talked about homosexuality. It was very much all about male and the female. I can't recall a single sentence in that documentary where they talked about homosexuality.
00:54:59
Speaker
How do you feel about that? Do you feel like the full story is not being told? Yeah, because I guess it depends because if the nature documentary is talking about, say, from an evolutionary perspective, then, yeah, the act of the reproduction that's occurring between the male and the female is specifically like there's a purpose to it. So maybe that's why they're only mentioning that in the documentary. But if we look at the entire life of that animal, we could be finding out that
00:55:28
Speaker
They're just having lots of homosexual sex for pleasure. A lot of animals tend to hang out with the same sex. Like a lot of animals, so there, of course there are animals that kind of hang out with multiple different sexes and everything like that. But for example, birds, there's many birds that kind of just hang out as just a group of males for a good chunk of the year and a group of females for a good chunk of the year and literally just meet at one point, breed, and then go back to hanging out with just the boys and just the gals.
00:55:57
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it's like they were trying to hide anything. I just don't know if it would have, it might've confused people if they added that in because it's not necessarily a part of breeding per se. And it's just like the life cycle of the animal, just what the animal does in its spare time, which they just mentioned. So what animals engage in homosexuality? What does that look like? A lot of primates engage in homosexuality. And again, a lot of more mammals do that.
00:56:27
Speaker
So it's hard, that's, so one of the things, one of the caveats I should add is that sometimes it's hard to decipher whether they're having homosexual sex for pleasure or whether they're doing it to assert dominance. So have you ever noticed that like dogs, like a male dog and another male dog may try to hump each other? So that's not necessarily them trying to gain any pleasure from the interaction. Sometimes it is a dominant effect.
00:56:54
Speaker
One is trying to dominate the other. And in some cases, in some animals, that is the case. However, the only ones that I know are it's primates. And specifically, I think it, I want to say bonobos are just like the most sexually freeing primates that I've ever come across in my research. They aren't just like humping each other to say hello. Like they are just so sexually free and they do not care.
00:57:23
Speaker
who they're having sexual intercourse with. It just brings me back to the thought of, in being Indigenous, really looking at nature through a different lens. Even when you're not thinking of sex, in my perspective, it is freeing to just look at the natural world and embrace it for what it is. Yeah. Even in Indigenous cultures, not only do your typical sex roles get reversed, like we talked about before, but there's so much gender fluidity.
00:57:52
Speaker
which also happens in the animal kingdom, right? There are genuinely, there are animals that can go from male to female, right? They can transition themselves or from female to male. 100% agree. And I think we can close soon, but I wanted to touch on that. Is it true that in Finding Nemo, when the mom died, the dad was supposed to become a woman clownfish or a female clownfish? That is correct. So in clownfish, it's the females that are the highest of the hierarchy.
00:58:21
Speaker
There's typically one female and multiple males for a group of clownfish.
00:58:25
Speaker
And that's exactly right. As soon as the female died, Marvin should have became Marvina. And there you have it. They should remake it and make it scientifically accurate. Finding Nemo is such a good movie because so much of it, like so much of the marine science is so accurate, right? Like the currents and so much of it, it's 99% there. But the biggest point for when the mama clownfish dies and Marvin, I think it's Marvin or Marlin or something.
00:58:52
Speaker
doesn't turn into a female because also I think that would have been such a beautiful part to have in the movie. I honestly I want to know if the ichthyology community was in an uproar when that movie came out because it's arguably the biggest point in the movie like the the early moment of despair that ultimately changes the entire film and it's wrong. I thought it would have been
00:59:18
Speaker
a really cool thing to add into the movie. Just a really cool science fact that you as an adult and kids could be like, did you know that clownfish could do this? Yeah, it would have been super cool. Especially since after that movie came out, it seemed like all you saw were clownfish at the pet store. Oh, yeah, clownfish. And what kind of fish is Dory? Let's look that up really quick. Dory fish. Finding Nemo. It's a fictional blue tank. Paracanthurus hepitus.
00:59:47
Speaker
Huh, the more you know. Where can people find you? We're going to talk again. This is not going to be our final, our final moment together. You can find me anywhere on socials with the hashtag Cy SCI underscore Stacia, S-T-A-S-I-A.
01:00:12
Speaker
and that's like everywhere. And I also run a podcast. However, it's not a very scientific podcast. It's called Convos with chordates. You'll find it on Spotify or iTunes. And our hash, not our hashtag, but our slogan is where two scientists talk to people on scientifically, because we just talk about anything and everything. And we go a little bit off the tracks of times and go on tangents. And we try to make science
01:00:37
Speaker
We try to humanize science and make science more accessible. We touch on everything. And then sometimes it's random. Our most recent episode was just combos and traveling. It's just a mishmash of everything. Dr. Anastasia, thank you so much for coming on. I learned so much and I just know they're going to be begging me to have you back. Guys, thank you so much for listening.
01:00:56
Speaker
If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure you rate it five stars on your listening app. The ratings help us so much. And if you want to sponsor us or be a guest on the podcast, make sure you reach out to podcast at the science Maven.com visit the science of life.com. Consider joining our Patreon where for a couple books a month, you can participate in some really fun behind the scenes activities.