{"id":25929,"date":"2019-09-09T09:11:09","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T14:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=25929"},"modified":"2019-09-09T09:11:09","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T14:11:09","slug":"social-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2019\/09\/09\/social-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I must admit I found this <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/d-brief\/2019\/07\/04\/elephants-now-gang-up-in-human-dominated-areas\/?utm_source=Yesmail&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=News0_DSC_190711_000000_SL-Ver.B-rendered#.XXWnA1CYWV5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report<\/a> of changes in elephant behavior by Bill Andrews on <em><strong>D-brief<\/strong><\/em> fascinating:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Elephants might be\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/d-brief\/2018\/10\/02\/elephant-skin-get-cracks-new-research-answer\/#.XR0X63t7mV4\">popular<\/a>\u00a0in zoos and older\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0156200\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">kids\u2019<\/a>\u00a0TV\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0086800\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">shows<\/a>, but they\u2019re not doing so great in the wild. Asian elephants are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldwildlife.org\/magazine\/issues\/winter-2018\/articles\/the-status-of-asian-elephants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">classified as endangered<\/a>, thanks in large part to human activity. But the big beasts are brainy, and they\u2019re trying apparently trying new things in the face of these changing conditions to survive and even thrive.<\/p>\n<p>At least, that\u2019s what a team of Indian researchers describes in a\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-019-45130-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Scientific Reports paper<\/a><\/em>\u00a0today. They observed groups of adolescent male elephants \u2014 which typically live in mixed-sex communities while young, and wander off to lead solitary lives as adults \u2014 form and stay in groups to help face the increased risks of modern life. This new behavior was most common in the most dangerous areas, and actually helped the grouped elephants grow into stronger, fitter adults. The authors say it\u2019s just one more way animals are adapting to a changing world \u2013 not (solely) with genetics and evolution, but simply by altering their activity.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, it makes sense. While once, adolescent males could just wander off on their own and expect a relatively low-risk environment, nowadays \u201cmovement into unknown habitats in search of food, water and other elephants, may become maladaptive,\u201d the authors write. All the more so in human-dominated areas such as farms and cropland.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t really have anything to say, except that it appears that elephants are finding ways to prolong what appears to be their inevitable extinction. And it&#8217;s electrifying to see evolution in action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I must admit I found this report of changes in elephant behavior by Bill Andrews on D-brief fascinating: Elephants might be\u00a0popular\u00a0in zoos and older\u00a0kids\u2019\u00a0TV\u00a0shows, but they\u2019re not doing so great in the wild. Asian elephants are\u00a0classified as endangered, thanks in large part to human activity. But the big beasts are \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2019\/09\/09\/social-evolution\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25929"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25931,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25929\/revisions\/25931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}