Scientists Discover The First Known Algae Species With Three Distinct Sexes

www.sciencealert.com ^ | 13 JULY 2021 | JACINTA BOWLER

[Red Badger]

(Kohei Takahashi)

Although we might think of ourselves as far removed from blobby green algae, we're not really that different.

An algae explosion a few hundred million years ago is thought to have been what allowed all human and animal life to evolve, and all told there's only about one and a half billion years between us in terms of evolution.

Plus, according to a Japanese team of researchers, algae could actually help us to understand how different sex systems - like male and female - evolved in the first place.

Researchers from the University of Tokyo and a number of other Japanese universities have discovered that a type of green algae called Pleodorina starrii has three distinct sexes – 'male', 'female', and a third sex that the team have called 'bisexual'. This is the first time any species of algae has been discovered with three sexes.

"It seems very uncommon to find a species with three sexes, but in natural conditions, I think it may not be so rare," said one of the researchers, University of Tokyo biologist Hisayoshi Nozaki.

Algae isn't a very specific scientific classification. It's an informal term for a huge collection of different eukaryotic creatures that use photosynthesis to get energy. They're not plants, as they lack many plant features; they're not bacteria (despite cyanobacteria sometimes being called blue-green algae); and they're not fungi.

Everything from many-celled giant kelp species, all the way down to cute single-celled dinoflagellates can be classed as algae.

Because algae are such a big, diverse group, there's lots of variation in the way that they get it on, but generally algae are able to reproduce asexually (by cloning themselves) or sexually (with a partner), depending on the life cycle stage they're in. This can be either haploid (with a single set of chromosomes), or diploid (with two sets).

There's also hermaphroditic algae that can change depending on the gene expression of the organism. Having three sexes, including hermaphrodites, is called 'trioecy'.

But the volvocine green algae P. starrii is different from this again. The bisexual form of this haploid algae has both male and female reproductive cells. The team describe it as a "new haploid mating system" completely unique to algae.

P. starrii form either 32 or 64 same-sex celled vegetative colonies and have small mobile (male) and large immobile (female) sex cells similar to humans. The male sex cells are sent out in the world in sperm packets to find a female colony to attach to.

Bisexual P. starrii have both, can form either male or female colonies, and therefore can mate with either a male, a female, or another bisexual.

(Kohei Takahashi)

Above: Sexually induced male colony of algae (left). Female colony with male sperm packet (center). Female colony with dissociated male gametes (right).

The researchers are particularly excited because other closely related algae have different sex systems, meaning the discovery might be able to tell us more about how these sexual changes evolve.

"Mixed mating systems such as trioecy may represent intermediate states of evolutionary transitions between dioecious (with male and female) and monoecious (with only hermaphrodites) mating systems in diploid organisms," the team write in their new paper.

"However, haploid mating systems with three sex phenotypes within a single biological species have not been previously reported."

For 30 years, Nozaki had been collecting algae samples from the Sagami River outside of Tokyo. Samples that were taken from lakes along that river in 2007 and 2013 were used by the team for the new finding.

The team separated the algal colonies and induced them to reproduce sexually by depriving them of nutrients, discovering that the bisexual algae had a 'bisexual factor' gene that was separate to previously discovered male and female specific genes.

The bisexual cells had the male gene as well, but can produce either male or female offspring.

"Co-existence of three sex phenotypes in a single biological species may not be an unusual phenomenon in wild populations," the researchers conclude.

"The continued field-collection studies may reveal further existence of three sex phenotypes in other volvocine species."

The research has been published in Evolution.

[Quality_Not_Quantity]

“See!?!?1 More than two genders is natural, BIGOT!”

I’ve said it before: if we’re going to point to the animal kingdom as justification for our behavior, then you won’t mind if I start flinging feces around, will you?

Antifa does it....................

---

The defense rests, your honor.

[Ezekiel]

An algae explosion a few hundred million years ago is thought to have been what allowed all human and animal life to evolve.

The Luck of the Irish strikes again! What's old is new and all of that.

The word comes from ‘luc,’ a shortening of ‘gheluc,’ meaning “happiness, good fortune.” The word was probably introduced into the English language in the 15th century as a gambling term.

Chondrus crispus— commonly called Irish moss or carrageen moss (Irish carraigín, "little rock")—is a species of red algae which grows abundantly along the rocky parts of the Atlantic coast of Europe and North America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondrus_crispus

At the top of that page is says

"Sea moss" redirects here.

Sea moss? Must have been a little Gaelic humor.

Speaking of the name Jacob, remember why and where he was dubbed "Israel". He named the place Puniel because he saw the face of God and survived to tell the tale.

Loaned into English in the 15th century (probably as a gambling term) from Middle Dutch luc, a shortened form of gheluc (“good fortune”), whence Modern Dutch geluk. Middle Dutch luc, gheluc is paralleled by Middle High German lücke, gelücke (modern German Glück). The word occurs only from the 12th century, apparently first in Rhine Frankish. Perhaps from a Frankish *galukki. The word enters standard Middle High German during the 13th century, and spreads to English and Scandinavian in the Late Middle Ages. Its origin seems to have been regional or dialectal, and there were competing German words such as gevelle or schick, or the Latinate fortune from Latin fortuna. Its etymology is unknown, although there are numerous proposals as to its derivations from a number of roots.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/luck

And of course there was the time when Paul lamented that people would not endure sound doctrine:

2 Timothy 4:11 Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

And get this,

The term deadpan first emerged as an adjective or adverb in the 1920s, as a compound word combining "dead" and "pan" (a slang term for the face).

Slang?

פְּנוּאֵל Pᵉnûwʼêl, pen-oo-ale'; or (more properly,) פְּנִיאֵל Pᵉnîyʼêl; from H6437 and H410; face of God; Penuel or Peniel...

Wise men say that the more you know, the more you don't know...

But then Elvis ("The King") said that wise men say only fools rush in.

And Ricky Nelson informed that fools rush in where wise men never go, but wise men never all in love so how are they to know.

If only people hadn't killed the prophets (defined them out of existence), or stoned those who were sent to them.

That's because last thing they wanted to hear was:

I'm so glad we made it, So glad we made it.
You've gotta gimme some lovin'...

[G Larry]

News Flash!

Algae don't have mental disorders and haven't been molested.

[G Larry]

So, we've been pronouncing it wrong all this time?

Algae = 'Al-gay'

[left that other site]

Scientists in Massachusetts have long known about this. In fact, just north of Boston, there is an entire COUNTY named after the sex in the middle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex_County,_Massachusetts

Oh...it was named after someplace in ENGLAND?

Never mind. :-)

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

So, they really have “proven” that those claiming to be the third sex are really the scum of the earth!

[Paal Gulli]

Note the use of the correct noun, sex.

Sex is a biological distinction.
Gender is a grammatical distinction that has absolutely Sweet Fanny Adams to do with sex.

[ALASKA]

So Lysol if will get rid of algae, then....

[grey_whiskers]

An algae explosion a few hundred million years ago is thought to have been what allowed all human and animal life to evolve, and all told there's only about one and a half billion years between us in terms of evolution.

So, like, an average trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

[Vaduz]

Sounds like some scientists in the lab have been playing with the blender again.

[californian by choice]

now it turns out that there are transsexual algae, I wonder if they were rainbow color

[BroJoeK]

Tell It Right: "Meanwhile the Christian geeks always point to the Cambrian Explosion, an event about 500 million years ago in which 50% to 80% of all known phyla suddenly sprang up in the archaeological record within a brief million years (brief if the expectation is that such speciation would take billions of years)."

First of all, we're talking about animal phyla, which make up about 2/3 of all phyla including plants, fungi & other non-animals.

Second:

"Since most animal species are soft-bodied, they decay before they can become fossilised.
As a result, although 30-plus phyla of living animals are known, two-thirds have never been found as fossils.[21]"

In other words: it's impossible to say from the fossil record when those 2/3 of phyla first appeared.

Third, the "Cambrian Explosion" is poorly defined and can include up to 100 million years -- from 600 mya to 500 mya:

"The “Cambrian explosion” is a poorly-defined term that refers to a period of time some 600–500 million years ago (“Geon 5” [Hofmann, 1990]) during which the biosphere, as reflected in the eukaryotic fossil record, underwent a great expansion.
Most popularly, the appearance in the fossil record of the first undoubted animals has, especially since the critical studies of Preston Cloud (e.g., 1968), been regarded as truly documenting the evolutionary origins of the animals.
Nevertheless, this straightforward view has rightly been regarded skeptically, for several reasons.
The first of these is that the apparent very rapid appearance of taxa in the record must inevitably imply a period of cryptic evolution before this point (Dawkins, 1998; Cooper and Fortey, 1998).
Secondly, high-profile “molecular clock” estimates of the timing of splits between the various phyla have suggested that animal lineages actually diverged up to 800 Ma or more before their appearance in the fossil record (e.g.,Runnegar, 1982; Wray et al., 1996; see review in Fortey et al., 2002).
This sort of discrepancy clearly demands resolution."

Another report says this:

"In the Cambrian explosion, larger animals with hard parts (i.e. animals which are more readily fossilized) became incredibly diverse but much of their success is due to the evolution of their basic body plan in animals of the Precambrian."

Here is one visualization of the appearances of different body plans pre-Cambrian, Cambrian and post-Cambrian:

Bottom line: "Cambrian Explosion" refers only to animals' fossilized hard body parts appearing in geological strata covering many tens of millions of years.
It says nothing about evolution of soft-bodied animals in the eons preceding or following the Cambrian Explosion.

[Flaming Conservative]

Pond scum?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Red Badger. Al-Gay?

[Red Badger]

It ain’t easy being GREEN.......................

[Salamander]

Yet you can still only buy shirts in male or female sizes.

[rdl6989]

I just knew this would be a fun thread.

[NetAddicted]

Thanks. That is what I’ve been saying since gender was used to replace the word sex. The only use of gender I had seen prior was in NY high school French classes.
I say gender is an example of Newspeak, from Orwell’s 1984.

[Rebelbase]

Bisexual isn’t good enough anymore. Now you have to be trisexual.