The domestication of rice increases the divergence between cultivated rice and its wild progenitor because of artificial selection. However, it remains unknown whether highly diverged loci in rice can be explained by neutral demographic scenarios alone. In this study, we genotyped 45 InDels (insertion/deletion) in two subspecies of Asian cultivated rice (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica and Oryza sativa ssp. indica) and their wild progenitor (O. rufipogon/O. nivara). Among them, 17 loci are highly diverged (FST > 0.4) between rice cultivars and their ancestor. We performed coalescent-based simulations on neutral demographic scenarios and found that neutral demography alone could explain the polymorphic profiles on those highly diverged loci between cultivated and wild rice. Therefore, more signatures of selection should be considered when detecting artificial selection in rice.

Model parasite species, whose entire life cycle can be completed in the laboratory and maintained for multiple generations, have played a fundamental role in our understanding of host–parasite interactions. Yet, keeping parasites in laboratory conditions may expose them to unnatural evolutionary pressures, and using laboratory cultures for research is therefore not without limitations. Using 2 widely-used model helminth species, the cestode Hymenolepis diminuta and the nematode Heligmosomoides polygyrus, I illustrate the caution needed when interpreting experimental results on model species. I first review more than 1200 experimental studies published on these species in the past 4 decades, to determine which research areas they have contributed to. This is followed by an examination of the institutional laboratory cultures that have provided the parasites used in these studies. Some of these have persisted for decades and accounted for a substantial proportion of published studies, whereas others have been short-lived. Using information provided by the curators of active cultures, I summarize data on their origins and maintenance conditions. Finally, I discuss how laboratory cultures may have been subject to the influence of evolutionary genetic processes, such as founder effects, genetic drift and inbreeding. I also address the possibility that serial passage through laboratory hosts across multiple generations has exerted artificial selection on several parasite traits, resulting in genetic and phenotypic divergence among laboratory cultures, and between these cultures and natural parasite populations. I conclude with recommendations for the continued usage of laboratory helminth cultures aimed at maximizing their important contribution to parasitological research.

Fructose (C6H12O6) is acutely obesogenic and is a risk factor for hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. However, the possible long-lasting effects of early-life fructose consumption have not been studied. We tested for effects of early-life fructose and/or wheel access (voluntary exercise) in a line of selectively bred High Runner (HR) mice and a non-selected Control (C) line. Exposures began at weaning and continued for 3 weeks to sexual maturity, followed by a 23-week "washout" period (equivalent to ∼17 human years). Fructose increased total caloric intake, body mass, and body fat during juvenile exposure, but had no effect on juvenile wheel running and no important lasting effects on adult physical activity or body weight/composition. Interestingly, adult maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max) was reduced in mice that had early-life fructose and wheel access. Consistent with previous studies, early-life exercise promoted adult wheel running. In a 3-way interaction, C mice that had early-life fructose and no wheel access gained body mass in response to 2 weeks of adult wheel access, while all other groups lost mass. Overall, we found some long-lasting positive effects of early-life exercise, but minimal effects of early-life fructose, regardless of the mouse line.

In Descent of Man, Charles Darwin noted the impact of political institutions on natural selection. He thought that institutions such as asylums or hospitals may deter natural selection; however, he did not reach a decisive answer. Questions remain as to whether the selective impacts of political institutions, which in Darwin’s terms may be referred to as “artificial selection,” are compatible with natural selection, and if so, to what extent. This essay argues that currently there appears to be an essential mismatch between nature and political institutions. Unfitted institutions put exogenous and disproportionate pressures on living beings. This creates consequences for what is postulated as the condition of basic equivalence, which allows species and individuals to enjoy similar chances of survival under natural circumstances. Thus, contrary to Darwin’s expectations, it is sustained that assumed natural selection is not discouraged but becomes exacerbated by political institutions. In such conditions, selection becomes primarily artificial and perhaps mainly political, with consequences for species’ evolutionary future.

The uses of natural selection argument in politics have been constant since Charles Darwin’s times. They have also been varied. The readings of Darwin’s theory range from the most radically individualist views, as in orthodox socio-Darwinism, to the most communitarian, as in Peter Kropotkin’s and other socialist perspectives. This essay argues that such diverse, contradictory, and sometimes even outrageous political derivations from Darwin’s theory may be partially explained by some incompleteness and ambivalences underlying Darwin’s concepts. “Natural selection,” “struggle for existence,” and “survival of the fittest” are open concepts and may suggest some hierarchical and segregationist interpretations. Circumstantially, Darwin accepted social “checks,” such as discouraging marriage of “lower” individuals to prevent them from reproducing, in a vein of Malthusian politics. This makes Darwin’s theory of selection by struggle collide with his theory of social instincts, by which he explains the origins of morality. It also favors reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species or The Descent of Man from opposite, mostly ideological perspectives. Darwin’s position is ambivalent, although hardly unreasonable. The recognition he makes of social instincts, as well as the use of the concept of artificial selection, entails accepting the role of human consciousness, by which social evolution cannot be reduced to natural evolution, as socio-Darwinians did next and as some neo-Darwinists seem to repeat. On these grounds, this essay argues the inadequacy of the conventional model of natural selection for understanding politics. If we want to describe politics in Darwin’s language, artificial rather than natural selection would be the concept that performs better for explaining the courses of politics in real society.

This paper argues that the processes of evolutionary selection are becoming increasingly artificial, a trend that goes against the belief in a purely natural selection process claimed by Darwin's natural selection theory. Artificial selection is mentioned by Darwin, but it was ignored by Social Darwinists, and it is all but absent in neo-Darwinian thinking. This omission results in an underestimation of probable impacts of artificial selection upon assumed evolutionary processes, and has implications for the ideological uses of Darwin's language, particularly in relation to poverty and other social inequalities. The influence of artificial selection on genotypic and phenotypic adaptations arguably represents a substantial shift in the presumed path of evolution, a shift laden with both biological and political implications.

Geographically separated populations of Plantago major L. differ in ozone resistance, and this is correlated with the exposure to ozone at the location of each population. In addition, two populations of P. major have been demonstrated to show an increase in ozone resistance after summers when ozone concentrations were high. However, if evolution of ozone resistance has occurred in the field there must be appropriate heritable genetic variation and this must be demonstrated.

In the present study, artificial selection for ozone resistance and sensitivity was imposed on a resistant (‘Lullington Heath’) and sensitive (‘Bush’) population of P. major. Artificial selection is an efficient means of demonstrating additive genetic variance for a character. Selection was based on 2 wk growth in ozone (70 nl O3 l−1 for 7 h d−1), and selected lines were tested for ozone resistance under both short and long term ozone exposures. Changes in ozone resistance were demonstrated for each population. On the basis of a 2-wk screening test, selection from the initially sensitive Bush population led to a line that was significantly more resistant to ozone, but it was not possible to select a line with greater sensitivity than the original population. Conversely, selection from the initially resistant Lullington Heath population led to a line with increased sensitivity but not to a line with increased resistance. Differences in ozone resistance between the selected lines were maintained over the long term and were reflected in growth and seed production at the final harvest. Net assimilation rate, stomatal conductance and leaf pigments were measured. In both populations the lines selected for sensitivity showed a greater effect of ozone on net assimilation rate. Ozone had a minor effect on chlorophyll content in the Lullington Heath sensitive line but tended to increase carotenoid concentrations. However, this effect on carotenoids was not related to ozone resistance.

The experiment demonstrated that ozone resistance in P. major is heritable. The response to selection reported here supports previous evidence from field collections of a rapid evolution of ozone resistance.