Why being different can help you survive longer

Marla Sokolowski, a biologist at the University of Toronto and her team have identified the benefit of rarity in populations of fruit flies with two different versions of the foraging gene.The foraging gene can also be found in many organisms, including humans.

Washington, May 10 : Marla Sokolowski, a biologist at the University of Toronto and her team have identified the benefit of rarity in populations of fruit flies with two different versions of the foraging gene.The foraging gene can also be found in many organisms, including humans.

"There's considerable genetic variation in nature and we haven't been able to explain why it persists, since natural selection ensures that only the best survive," Nature quoted Sokolowski, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Genetics, as saying.

"In some cases, individuals with characteristics that differ from the rest of the population are more likely to survive since their rarity makes them less conspicuous to predators. However, to date we haven't understood this type of survival advantage at the level of the gene," she added.

The researchers found that when the fruit fly larvae were fighting for food, the files that did the best had a version of the gene that was rarest in a particular population.

"If you're a rover surrounded by many sitters, then the sitters are going to use up that patch and you're going to do better by moving out into a new patch," says Sokolowski.

"So you'll have an advantage because you're not competing with the sitters who stay close to the initial resource. On the other hand, if you're a sitter and you're mostly with rovers, the rovers are going to move out and you'll be left on the patch to feed without competition," she added.

Doctoral student Mark Fitzpatrick said that the study can help find out why such genetic variants are common in nature

"In the case of fruit flies, one variant encourages the survival of the other. In essence, there is not one best type of fly," he says. If this process is common in nature, it may offer one explanation for why individuals, in general, vary so much from one to another in almost all specie," Fitzpatrick.said.

The researchers' next step is to show that the foraging gene can be found in many animals, even honeybees, mice and humans.

They are also analysing how differences in the human foraging gene can be associated with food-related disorders.

The study is published in May 10 issue of Nature.

ANI