Instinctive Survival Strategy

Flour beetles, a sort of beetle with a odd look, a
research in England shows this insect what is usually described as a "major pest in grain stores worldwide" also has the unfamiliar behavior. In additional, even if looking like a low-level living being, the insect perhaps gives some inspirations for human action.

According to "Scientists might have explained promiscuous behaviour" on the BBC News website, the researchers in the University of East Anglia suspect that promiscuous females are avoiding the ill affects of inbreeding by exposing themselves to a larger pool of sperm. They put the flour beetles in the brink of extinction, and then allowed their numbers to recover from a few individuals. Compare with those female who had not been forced to face a extinctive situation, that females in these inbred populations were more eager to mate. Future study showed that inbred females left twice as many descendents as those that mated with just one male. Lead researcher Matthew Gage, of University of East Anglia, said :"when a population is inbred, the risk of mating with a genetically similar male is heightened, and so hedging your bets and mating with more suitors is a sensible strategy."(¶,12)

This is a very interesting research on the biological behavior. Today the present organisms on Earth are all the survival after a long time struggle in harsh environments. To cope with various difficulties, organisms usually have got some very incredible and efficient ways for living. I have read a book, and it introduces a kind of tadpole, a South American tadpole. When there are plenty of food in rain season, they eat waterweed, so that almost all of the tadpoles can be successfully grown up . When confronted with the dry season, the lack of aquatic plants, they change their diet from plant to the other smaller tadpoles. According to the result of the strategy, it ensures at least a part of tadpoles have opportunity to grow up before the pond is dry. Which sounds a bit cruel, that is a very smart strategy, but I guarantee that these tadpoles have never studied mathematics, They just do as their instincts. We often think that humans are the intelligent and rational creatures. But how many behaviors that are already determined by instinct as the low-level living being do we have? By the way, we could find a suitable excuse for our betrayal of love.

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References

(2011, September 23). Scientists might have explained promiscuous behaviour
. BBC News. Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15002277