Talk:Red Queen hypothesis

Exceptions To This Rule

"Obviously there are species which are exceptions to this rule, such as humans, seahorses, and penguins, amongst others" - Where is the evidence for this?

Anon - 13:31GMT 07/10/2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.145.198.172 (talk) 12:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The article, especially that section, is badly written; the rule being referred to is "males ... generally contribute little to the survival of offspring". Humans, seahorses, and penguins obviously don't fit that rule. But the "rule" is nonsensical, because in most species, including all asexual species, neither parent contributes anything to the survival of the offspring. Also nonsensical is "males ... bear no offspring directly" -- so what? That's like saying that the existence of cuckoos is a paradox because they don't build the nest. If there were any "paradox", it would be why females allow themselves to be parasitized by the male's spawn. But all of this illogic is swept away by taking a gene's eye view of evolution, which is the only view that makes sense since it is genes, not organisms, which survive (with modification). -- 71.102.136.107 03:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Polar bear

The Polar Bear example has been disproven, recently. Although the white fur would be good for camouflage, they don't use it. It turns out they prefer to sneak up on sleeping Seals and pounce on them. I can't think of a better replacement example though.

What is the source? I think the non-sleeping seals would startle the sleeping seals if they caught a glimpse of a black or brown polar bear sneaking toward them. -- Kevin 07:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this a joke? Camouflage obviously confers a fitness advantage, regardless of what polar bears "prefer". Do you suppose that they are just white by coincidence? -- Jibal 05:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Playing card

>Isn't the Red Queen a playing card?

No, the Red Queen would denote a single card. There are two red queens in a normal deck, the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Diamonds. Red queen in this case refers to the character from Alice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_through_the_Looking_Glass

The Red Queen in the story is a chess piece, but neither that, nor the fact that a red queen is also a playing card, is relevant to this article. And please sign your posts so folks can know who authored what silliness. -- Jibal 05:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge from Red Queen Hypothesis - non-Darwinian view

I have added a tag suggesting that Red Queen Hypothesis - non-Darwinian view be merged into this article. I'd also suggest that any POV material be removed from that article. Any discussion on the issue? Thanks, delldot | talk 04:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge i'd say --Lord Snoeckx 10:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Sex doesn't require two genders

From the article, the hypotesis doen't take hemafrodites in consideration. Is that right? It is in fact about sex or about the 2 genders?

A hermaphroditic species (aren't many earthworms this?) still has two sexes, it's just that all organisms can function as both sexes at once. (A strange sort of middle ground regarding the "paradox of males," though probably better suited for low-evolutionary-pressure environments with little urgent need for evolutionary selection. Rabbits or foxes, for example, would be much less well-served to adopt this strategy... but I'm getting really far into OR here.) ExOttoyuhr (talk) 18:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

A hermaphroditic species only really has one gender since all organisms have the same sexual characteristics. They are not asexual, but they are not any specific sex either. Herr Gruber (talk) 05:58, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

So... What is Red Queen?

Maybe it is just me, perhaps I have been misled as to what the Red Queen effect actually is, but I do not see any actual description of the effect in the article at all.

Right now there is a brief history of terms and then talk about evolution and sex. There are a few comparisons to arms races, which is how I tend to see Red Queen, but no actual description of the hypothesis or why Van Valen used the analogy of Red Queen.

Either that, or I am way off my nut. Simply put, I see the Red Queen effect as the principle behind the arms races (evolutionary or otherwise): an infinite chasm of one-uppence so that no one has the advantage for long which reduces the problem to the original problem and all of the work is akin to "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place". An external link that I believe has an excellent description: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REDQUEEN.html MrHen

Assessment

I've given the article a B. It's slightly short, but well referenced and understandable. I've rated it mid importance as it's a slightly advanced topic, but still one you'll hear about fairly soon if you study biology. Richard001 00:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The Book is worth a read

This article far to short to do the book, The Red Queen, justice.

Copyright?

a paragraph of the aticle ([...]where the only way predators can compensate for a better defense by the prey (e.g. rabbits running faster) is by developing a better offense (e.g. foxes running faster). In this case we might consider the relative improvements (running faster) to be also absolute improvements in fitness.) it's on The Red Queen Principle, F. Heylighen. who copy who?190.21.205.169 (talk) 03:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The paradox of sex: The "cost" of males

This contains a number of errors or at least things that are semantically misleading.

For example:

"positing that the role of sex is to preserve genes that are currently disadvantageous, but that will become advantageous against the background of a likely future population of parasites."

This is an inherently group selectionist description. There is no direct advantage to the individual to "preserve genes that are currently disadvantageous". The real benefit stems from the fact that there is a benefit in the way of increased survival of progeny for your offspring to be genetically different in genes relating to parasite resistance, specifically because parasite generation time tends to be shorter than that of the host. In effect, the parasite has more time to "learn to pick the locks" so each generation the host must "change the locks" through sexual reproduction.

Additionally:

"although this could be viewed as a manifestation of Richard Dawkins' so-called selfish gene, whose 'goal' is to reproduce itself, which may as a consequence suppress the reproduction of other genes"

This is semantically misleading, because there is not one selfish gene, it's a principal.

The parenthetical in question, if it is to exist at all, should read "this can be viewed as an example of Richard Dawkins' "Selfish Gene" principle, which dictates that because selective pressure acts directly on genes, the "goal" (anthropomorphized) of a gene is reproduction, and the male's genes benefit by killing the young because it brings the females back into fertility, as well as giving him fewer unrelated young to care for."

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.151.85.126 (talk) 15:42, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Re-assessed

I find this a confused and somewhat confusing article. It pays too little attention to Van Velen's original idea, and far too much to the none-too-well-justified extension to the evolution of sex, which has a perfectly good article elsewhere. Its rating as B is unjustified. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:57, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Red Queen Effect in other domains

I think this article should talk about the general phenomenon, not just biological evolution. Within the management literature, there is a lot of discussion of the Red Queen effect in terms of innovation. There is a reference to this in the article on the Hype Cycle. See also my blog Demanding Change: The Red Queen Effect for more examples and several onward references. --RichardVeryard (talk) 10:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Absolute improvement?

"In this case we might consider the relative improvements (running faster) to be also absolute improvements in fitness. (From Heylighen, 2000)"

This seems to be at odds with the rest of the article and evolution in general. In the example used here, running faster, I would think that the added cost in metabolism and energy requirements would keep the improvement from being absolute. It just seems a little unclear given the context of trade offs, but since I haven't read the quoted text I can't tell if there are any reasons for using "absolute"? CrashDogma (talk) 05:15, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

"Microevolutionary" vs "Macroevolutionary"

The introduction references two examples of this effect - one being labelled "microevolutionary" and the other "macroevolutionary". From what I've heard, no evolutionary biologists accepts this demarcation or finds it useful. It should be removed from the article. Canadianism (talk) 21:44, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Moved page here from "Red Queen"

Similar to the page for "Red King", I've moved the material originally at Red Queen to "Red Queen's Hypothesis" and put the disambiguation page in it's place. --AzureCitizen (talk) 23:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Where is the explanation of the name

Article needs to include a reference to why this is called the Red Queens hypothesis. The name comes from Alice in Wonderland...putting the name in context would make it more meaningfull.

I agree, I think that there needs to be more of a context of where the name Red Queen Hypothesis is derived from. I know within the page it discusses Lewis Carrol's origin,but maybe a sentence or more will help bring initial context to the piece. Mckinney.264 (talk) 04:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

146.226.75.34 (talk) 14:59, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

a bit POV

A few bits of this article, especially "the connection of the Red Queen to this debate arises from the fact that the traditionally accepted theory (Vicar of Bray) only showed adaptive benefit at the level of the species or group, not at the level of the gene", show a bias toward a gene-centered view of evolution. There is little reason to believe that major transitions like asexual => sexual happened on the level of the gene; especially as the importance of many evolutionary mechanisms above the level of the gene (hybrid speciation, polyploidy and paleopolyploid events (though the subsequent diploidization DOES occur at the gene level, polyploidy itself is on the whole-genome level by definition), endosymbiosis) are now being recognized.

In general, this article presents the Red Queen hypothesis as a bit more firmly accepted, strongly based, than it really is. 165.91.175.24 (talk) 12:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, that was me, forgot to log in Vultur (talk) 13:00, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Title of the article

I think this article needs to be renamed. The hypothesis is called "Red Queen" not "Red Queen's." Compare in the literature: [1] vs [2]. Thoughts? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:42, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done In most places it seems to be "Red Queen hypothesis", so I've renamed it to that and fixed the text to match. — Hex (❝?!❞) 11:09, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I think we should reassess this point. Van Valen was very clear in his original formulation to call it the Red Queen's Hypothesis, as it was meant to be hers. He consistently used "Red Queen's" rather than "Red Queen." I think primacy trumps popularity in this instance. Pixelation (talk) 17:24, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The opening sentence

"The Red Queen Effect, is an evolutionary hypothesis which proposes that organisms must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate not merely to gain reproductive advantage, but also simply to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing organisms in an ever-changing environment."

I'm find this a confusing way to introduce the topic because it implies that organisms change through agency rather than selection. I'm sure the author knows this, but I think the first sentence could be a bit more rigorous just to be clearer. Would it be more accurate to say words to the effect of: "Organisms which constantly adapt, evolve and proliferate survive better in an ever-changing environment than those who don't." ?

Also, isn't "gain reproductive advantage" and "simply to survive" essentially the same thing, in that those organisms which survived only did so because of a reproductive advantage over those which have not survived?

I am a complete novice on this topic so apologies if this is nonsense! However I think the clarity could be improved in this article as it felt a bit impenetrable on first reading for a beginner. David --213.105.73.234 (talk) 11:36, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

New Historical Studies

There has been countless research completed by evolutionary biologists in this field of evolutionary biology. Would it be possible for in the Historical Studies section that there be more research explained on studies looking at the results? Mckinney.264 (talk) 04:22, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Addition of graphics

In this article I feel that adding graphics of data graphs or pictures of species that demonstrate examples of the Red Queen Hypothesis would add to the reader's comprehension of this evolutionary biological hypothesis. Mckinney.264 (talk) 04:26, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Copyedit needed

This sentence needs to be rewritten. I have a relevant science degree (anthropology) and am pretty intelligent, but I'm having difficulty parsing this as actually meaning anything in English: * A number of predator/prey couple where the weapon involved is the running speed. After reading it ten or so times in context, I think it's trying to say something like "A number of predator–prey relationships form when the "weapon" in the arms race is the speed of evolutionary change." But I'm really not sure. It looks like bad machine translation of someone's poetry. But even if that's what it was intended to say, it still doesn't confer anything actually meaningful, and would appear to contradict the entire thesis of the section, which is that evolutionary change rate is (at least in part) a factor of there being such a paired, mutually antagonistic relationship. An effect is not its own cause.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:56, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to retitle this page as "Red Queen evolutionary hypothesis"?

The current title of "Red Queen hypothesis" is oddly generic to me. It's a very specific type of hypothesis that we are discussing here, but the "Red Queen's Race" from Lewis Carroll comes into play in several disciplines. Yes, there is a disambiguation page, but I think including the domain in the title would improve this page. Is there some principle of Wikipedia that would be violated or sustained by changing it to "Red Queen evolutionary hypothesis"? AristosM (talk) 10:21, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

• I don't really have a problem with this but it "RQh" is the most common name for it, given that it's only used within evo. As such it would have to remain as a redirect (which you aren't arguing against). Hoowwwwever, since "RQh" is the most common usage I'd suggest Red Queen hypothesis (evolution) would be better. It would keep the phrasing exactly the same as the real world usage, but adds the ending to get us away from the other Lewis Carroll allusions you're talking about. I think I've seen this kind of [[... (which one are we talking about)]] thing on WP a lot. Invasive Spices (talk) 20:21, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Too technical

The article is too technical, in my opinion. The opening section especially, but also the two following sections, should be more accessible to non biologists. Setreset (talk) 14:33, 19 April 2024 (UTC)