Overcoming genetics

It is curious to consider when certain traits in species become fixed in their genetics and inherited as more or less obligatory and when these traits are the result of local/temporal adaptations that have not been embedded in the genetics, that are often profitable precisely due to their plasticity and that are acquired experientially and/or socially.

It has made me wonder how behaviours and traits become fixed into the fundamental constitution of populations, subspecies and species (through survival and reproduction) but it has also made me wonder what it takes to overcome the genetic imperative once a trait has been fixed.

Is it truly that only through giving birth and dying genetic traits are fixed and dismissed?

Are there any quicker mechanisms (apart from mutations) that allow for individuals to acquire new genetic traits or to ditch old genetic traits during their own lifetime and are there alternative mechanisms of transforming the genetic material other than the slow transformation through generations.

For example, are there any conditions that would allow the individual to overcome some of their genetic constitution?

We know that we are more driven by inherent responses when we have less control, when swifter reactions are needed than our conscious processing capacity can provide.

Thus, for example, if we walk along a path and we hit our toe against a rock but we have to move on, we might exclaim ‘ouch!’ unwittingly, register the event of pain, not very awarely assess the damage and proceed on our way.

That is how most humans (our species) would react to similar situations.

On the other hand, if we are at relative leisure (no hurry, time to consider the situation, low stress level, focus on the present circumstances), we might (if we still fail to notice the rock), exclaim ‘Ouch!’, examine the damage more closely, inspect the rock and perhaps contemplate taking action, e.g., removing the rock from the path in order to reduce the risk for ourselves on repeated journeys along the trail or to reduce the risk for others who might stroll down that path.

One might argue that the possible actions following the contemplation might be also genetically ‘commanded’ and not flexibly adaptive.

Surely, it is difficult to say what constitutes flexibility in the first place and what constitutes some degree of genetic ‘programming’.

We mostly believe, e.g., that there are things that we choose to do and there are things that are not possible.

We would like to assign individual initiative to our acts of goodwill even if they are repetitive of what many others might do in similar situations.

Meanwhile, the majority of us believes that there is a limit to how we can react; for example, we cannot decide to, from then on, alter our molecular structure so that we could pass through rocks.

Thus, the baseline already is rather difficult to establish although, in biology, oftentimes it can be stated when some traits belong with ecotypes and not with genotypes and when these traits do not become fixed into the obligatory genetic make-up (although they must be genetically possible, they must arise out of some genetic potential) because those individuals are more successful who sometimes apply these traits and sometimes do not according to the gain or loss resulting from where they live, what the circumstance is and so on.

Still, I wonder what happens in those instances, for example, when there are some genes controlling us rather strongly but not to the extent that we cannot ‘overcome’ their influence.

If there is an allowance that enables us to combine some genetic potentialities thereby creating a new response or to choose between some ‘either-or’ traits, or to dismiss a response and perhaps simply not do anything at all etc., what determines our ability to act in a different way and/or to make the decision?

Could it be our state of fitness (our health, our stress level)? Could it be a need to avoid death or injury (in circumstances where, for example, the genetic response, for some reason, has become ineffective or dangerous)? Could it be strong motivation (e.g., if we are, at the same time, pulled in two directions with some traits commanding us to pursue some goals and with other traits – other goals, we might have the freedom at least to choose between which goals we pursue based on our individuality or based on the urgency)?

For example, would a population that has poorer resource abundance, higher density pressures etc. become less capable of evolving because they can rarely make adaptive responses due to their low levels of energy and the need to conserve as much of their strength as possible rather than investing in new behaviours or challenges to one’s own ‘defaults’ and customs?

For example, recently I watched a YouTube video posted by Explore.org in which the relationship between to adult female bear sisters (who were also mothers to cubs) 909 and 910 had been captured near the Katmai Falls, Alaska where bears congregate to catch salmon.

Female bears typically raise cubs alone and they can be aggressive toward other females and, especially so, toward males.

Separation between mother and offspring as well as between siblings normally occurs prior to reproductive maturity (before the females give birth to their cubs).

Thus, the situation is rather unique.

However, closely related female bears (mothers-daughters, sisters, grandmothers-granddaughters etc.) are more tolerant toward one another and due to philopatry (a tendency for daughters to stay close to their mother ranges rather than to disperse far), female kin clusters are formed in specific areas whereby the nearest ‘neighbours’ (not implying territoriality but implying segregation in behaviour and foraging patches) are often close family (Støen, O.-G., 2005; Olerjarz, A. et al., 2022).

Thereby, tolerance toward a sister would be made possible through the overall greater tolerance toward related females.

More so, the Katmai Falls present an atypical situation of prey (salmon) overabundance resulting in bear densities not observed outside of such circumstances and, during times of plentiful salmon, even in tolerance between bears and playful interactions.

However, near the Katmai Falls sisters fishing together and raising their cubs together are not a frequent phenomenon, nevertheless.

Thus, it could be inquired whether the abundance of food and the social/genetic inclination to tolerate close kin (it is also worth asking whether it is a social trait or a genetic trait as well as to ask whether social traits might be embedded as strongly as genetic traits) enabled these sisters to demonstrate unusual behaviour.

And was this behaviour the result of some inherent ‘deviance’ in the females or a choice made possible, a choice that perhaps many other females might like to make but they cannot (and if so, why can’t they?).

Associating with other adult bears can lead to risks such as reduced amount of food/attention for one’s own cubs or some other type of endangerment (can the female trust the other female around her cubs)?

It is not easy to pursue uncustomary behaviour (either by genetic or social or environmental standards) because it involves peril.

Thus, it might be true that individuals can overcome these constraints if they are stress-tolerant, if they have superior cognitive capabilities to process the risk factors and to prognosticate the outcomes (as well as the energy to invest in this cognitive processing), if they have prior experience of such ‘new things working out’ (e.g., gained during their own juvenile stage), if they are very reliant on themselves through experience obtained throughout their mature life etc.

But what about the other type of conditions whereby following the genetically-set (and/or learned) behaviour can actually lead to death or lower fitness?

For example, many ungulate species (/populations) are migratory (elk, white-tailed deer, caribou, moose) and it has been observed that at times the landscape (or the climate) has changed and the migratory behaviour is no longer beneficial but perhaps leads to either similar wintering/summering habitats or even to worse habitats (with many treacherous obstacles that have sprung up on the way).

The migratory behaviour seems to be socially/culturally learned (e.g., moose tend to migrate or not migrate in accordance with whether their mother used to migrate or did not use to migrate; Ball, J.P. et al., 2001) although it must have genetic underlying mechanisms.

Sometimes such cultural tradition can result in great energy expenditure for no good reason or even lower individual/population fitness and increased mortality.

Thereby, it cannot really be assumed that a species would dismiss some behaviours simply because they have become non-effective or dangerous and this could be due to inability to see the pattern if the danger is not immediate and direct.

While ungulates are often long-lived, I would suspect that shorter-lived species have an even harder time choosing new behaviours on the grounds that the old ones are no longer viable because they do not have the experience of many years to compare and to process.

Perhaps larger and long-lived species are more cognitively active and adaptive (flexible) because they can make greater use of processing information rather than reacting to immediate circumstances.

On the other hand, long-lived species probably also have the inherent knowledge that things change and they change again.

That is to say, there might be a ‘trap’ in the minds of such species because they are cautious to adjust their behaviours to changes that occur, e.g., over a decade because the following decade could bring about the former conditions or entirely changed circumstances once again.

It makes little sense to throw out one’s winter boots if it has not been snowing only for two years out of 70 – 90 years a human can live.

It makes even less sense to ‘throw out’ adaptations that might not be applicable for several years if they have been applicable for centuries and millennia and if they could applicable after some years or during the lifetime of one’s offspring.

This is an interesting perspective – would a species tolerate hardship due to incompatibility between their genetic make-up and the current environmental/social situation only because this incompatibility might be temporary and because they offspring might suffer if the ancestors gave up crucial traits that would, once more, become vital in the ages to come?

Do animals plan ahead for their progeny?

Finally, there is also some beauty regarding the ‘obstinance’ of genetic commandeering of one’s will.

For example, as I was following the story of Imnaha Pack that produced at least 4 individuals who ended up in California (from NE Oregon) and whose kin (and kin of their kin) was generally set on travelling SW, I wondered if this behaviour was determined also by some genetic inclination to either go into that direction and/or to travel where wolves are scarce rather than abundant.

If there were some genetic predetermination regarding the direction or some other aspects guiding the wolf on its way, would the wolf rather seek to follow this inclination even if it was very difficult or impossible?

For example, some wolves have crossed mountain ranges, swum across huge rivers etc. while they did not necessarily have to.

Was it done out of some type of freedom or some type of ancient will?

If there was, indeed, a wolf set on travelling south as commanded by their genetics, and if there was a mountain range to the south (not a sea which cannot be swum over but a range which can claim the wolf’s life although it could also be conquered by the wolf), would the wolf still make the strongest attempt to cross or circumvent the mountains?

If the wolf did so, it would attest to the deep, innocent, powerful trust that an animal has in its history which is only read through the animal’s own body, its perceptions, its emotions, its wishes, its cautions.

The respect for the makings of us derived through the efforts by our predecessors, recognized in ourselves as a calling, as a promise, as a guardianship, as a beauty of our potential and as our obligation toward those who would or would not inherit the same traits – it is why it might be worth to bargain our lives in order to find out whether the part we play in the history is a part of triumph of our inheritance or it is a part of sacrifice (whereby we fail in order for those after us not to fail).

Genes are sometimes considered as something that an individual wishes to pass on because they want to survive in the form of those living after them.

Often genetics is spoken of on an individual level and significantly so because it is one of the few tools that allow us to securely identify individuals and to trace their individual histories.

But genes are, truly, something of blessings formed by generations, passed on through generations, adapted for the needs of the new generations.

The individual passing on the genes, is just an intermediary between their ancestors (their hopes, efforts, daring and, after all, history) and their successors.

Genes are somewhat like words in an epic that is being told with major plotlines and almost unnoted sidestories, and they tell your tale within the legend of your species – in fact, on some deterministic level, they have already told it but one should think we can alter the narrative because would otherwise animals evolve flexibility and seek to process anything at all unless they divined they could alter these fortunes?

But it is dangerous and it is not taken lightly to alter one’s narrative, to alter the story so carefully crafted by many who were great and who were loving; without foreseeing the other stories that any new words introduced could form and what moods they might bring and what encounters.

It would not be easy to disentangle the effects on behaviour and traditions set by genetics, social learning and environmental pressures/opportunities.

Moreover, there are interactions between such factors.

For example, if ungulates migrate to specific wintering/summer areas and this migration is, at least in some species, culturally learned, it is probably also augmented by some genetic mechanisms (especially, if migration has occurred regularly between the same areas for generations upon generations) such as telltale signals indicating that it is time to migrate or assisting navigation in the landscape.

However, it would still be most interesting to attempt to learn what constitutes a true decision and whether our decisions are based on trade-offs between different influences or whether there are some open windows to do something that nobody in the species has done before (but that is physiologically possible for the species).

Despite that genetic legacy is largely made through selection by dying and by reproduction (i.e., those genes survive that become ‘reborn’ in the offspring and those genes disappear that have not ensured the survival of their hosts), I wonder if there can be other mechanisms through which our traits can become altered during our lifetime, and permanently.

Also, are there mechanisms that allow to inherit traits without being the offspring to their possessors?

In this respect, I am inclined to contemplate the role of gods (or other heroes, demigods, also animals – especially, in Native American cultures etc.) and wizards.

There have been beings, creatures etc. who supposedly did something for the very first time and then brought this experience (as a set of tools or skills) to humans so that humans could use them from then on.

While, at first, it might appear that these are external gifts, the skills and tools have been first used by the ‘originator’ and sometimes to even self-imperilous effect.

Prometheus, too, had to suffer torture for bringing fire to humans, and perhaps this torture was not as much punishment for his benevolence as it was the consequence of introducing a powerful set of potential behaviours and traits into a species which had not evolved the respective adaptations over prolonged period of time – through the selective cycles of deaths and births that eventually lead to the progress.

It is dangerous to acquire such new powers all at once, and we, as humans, should know it because we introduce new tools and skills into our societies every day to a confusing, uncontrollable and, ultimately, devastating effect to ourselves and others.

In a Cherokee myth, bears were annoyed with humans over the many grievances humans caused to them and to other animals, and bears thought to wage war with the humans by using the weapons yielded by humans.

However, it was discovered soon that the bears could not use a bow unless they cut their sharp claws short and bears decided it was not worth it.

It was not worth, in their eyes, to adapt to this new tool of death in order to avenge and to mass-destroy humans because it meant to lose their own ancient way of life, their form, their identity.

Similarly, it is interesting to contemplate some of the fairy tales or fantasy novels in which sorcerers, witches, wizards etc. turn princesses into frogs or rats into chalices or trees into warriors etc.

Those, at first, appear to be ‘silly stories’ but, in fact, if someone possessed the power to, for a while, shift someone’s body or mind into something else, this might result in an entirely novel experience that the organism, upon returning to its prior state, unless forgotten, could remember and perhaps yearn to pursue (although most such old stories did not introduce a very desirable change and it was implied that the magic changed the organism not into something that was better but into something that was worse and shameful, inferior etc.).

However, if magic existed and it was, indeed, possible to give someone an insight into the existence of an entirely another type and if this insight was experiential, the body and the mind of the ‘transformee’ might come by this potential path to pursue.

But, apart from human societies and tales of magic, are such sudden developments even possible and if they are, how?

For example, education is said to be a transformative tool that allows us ‘not to repeat the mistakes of the past’.

However, as educated as we are, is it really true that we are not repeating the mistakes of the past or are we repeating them albeit within another system of doing things?

The transformations of the society – have they truly occurred on the abstract level (someone realized the wrongness of something and made it apparent to others whence everyone stopped doing that) or have they occurred slowly, invisibly, through trial and error, through the same genetic purging, until the direction that the evolution was taking simply became revealed to some ‘prophet’ (usually, an artist) who did not put humans on a new path but who revealed the path they were already on.

For example, in the Christian tradition, Jesus approached people who were ill or otherwise chronically suffering and He supposedly erased this condition from the individual’s life.

Additionally, He frequently accompanied these healings with a behest to never sin again.

But if sins were viewed as disadvantageous traits or behaviours integrated within larger contexts, they are almost addictions that can only be overcome through battling genetics, social influences, environmental settings etc.

Did Jesus possess a power to alter these effects on a human life that result in a disease and that are, in truth, rooted in everything that we do and have ever done?

If so, Jesus, on some level, could speed up evolution.

Regardless of whether we believe in Jesus, Harry Potter or Prometheus, we probably want to believe that living beings possess a creative power which can overcome the need to be a small part to grand processes that take millions of years (also, at times, being that part which has to perish, whose contribution is lack of contribution).

Personally, I believe that one of such methods to set ourselves on new paths and to achieve them is that of imagination combined with what could be described as acting (role-play, play).

And I believe that species such as wolves (and other species that play in order to, for example, advance the wellbeing of their societies) are already applying this method.

I believe that empathy (and, ultimately, empathy also for beings who are vastly different from us) is the key to this miracle.

Imagination allows us to experience what is actually not happening as if it were happening.

Professional actors can imagine themselves into the situations presented to their character to the point that they experience physical and emotional sensations.

Thusly, we might be able to condition our body, our psyche and our mind to become something else (rather like magic) to a greater or smaller degree.

Some people attest to having role models (the same old ‘What would Jesus do?’ question) whom they imagine to be in their place when some resolution is needed seemingly outside of the scope of the individual or uncharacteristic to the individual.

If we actively experience something for long enough, it might alter our structure.

If we actively experience it through imagination, we can perhaps choose how we alter our structure.

When I watch wolves play or other animals interact, I frequently think that they are not ‘for real’ but, at the same time, they are ‘for real’.

Namely, I believe that they play pretend in order to experience situations in a game environment and so that these situations could be avoided in reality or so that this experience served to instill traits and behaviours that could be more easily expressed also when within real-life context.

Everyone who has read Rick McIntyre’s book about wolf 21 will know the stories of this famous alpha who often pretended to become conquered by his children or other packmates despite being large, strong and pretty much undefeatable.

It is easy to understand how this play experience might have contributed to the psychology (but also, of course, physical prowess) of 21’s playmates.

And we would not argue that by imagining themselves victors, wolf 21’s playmates probably learned to become victors in real life situations.

Wolf 21 even spent time with a pup that was sickly (without playing as the pup probably had mobility problems) and the pup experienced what it meant to be included (formerly he had been excluded from many of the pack’s interactions because he found it difficult to get to the rest of the pack and to engage).

After these experiences, the pup actually started making its way to the rest of the group and to recover (after a while, the pup likely travelled a large distance between the den site and the rendevouz site on its own previously feeble feet).

It is possible that the pup had been to young to imagine how fantastic it felt to be close to others and hang out with them.

And wolf 21, by simply spending time with the pup, gave this experience which probably stayed as a memory from which the pup could recall and project this recollection on an imagining of how nice it might be to again have this experience.

Imagination might be a very powerful tool but but I think that it is not enough to simply imagine.

One must believe or at least half-believe that what is happening is real, that therein lies a real possibility.

For example, in order to enforce order within the group without actual aggressive conflicts, dominant individuals have to enact aggression without becoming aggressive but it only works if the subordinates believe that the aggression could be real.

I believe that the success in wolves lies with the fact that wolves can imagine and believe also that they are vulnerable.

They might not always be but they have to pretend, at times, also that they are the underdog in order to learn what is needed.

I wonder about wolf 21 and his games with his packmates and pups.

Wolves are excellent at determining the physical condition of others and I find it hard to assume that wolf 21’s playmates could easily believe they had a chance at defeating wolf 21.

However, after these conquests, they acted with the joy and pride and confidence as if they had believed it truly happened that the pushed the friendly giant to the ground and stood over him in actual triumph.

What if wolf 21 also had the ability to believe that he could be defeated? What if his part in the game was not pretense but believing (in the way human actors do) that he was vulnerable, that he could be brought down, that he could be lesser to the other wolf?

And through his ability to believe and to act (but not to pretend because his playmates would have suspected pretense), he made his ‘adversary’ believe, as well.

Faith is also the stronghold of the Christian religion and Jesus’ power may have been the power of a belief that is so strong that it loans some to those who have spent perhaps their whole life never once experiencing health, freedom and joy.

I think that education is strongly tied to imagination + belief + acting on a professional level because, as actors also would know, being informed of the character allows the actor to better carry out the role.

Education allows us to understand what it is we could be imagining and how to imagine it (what the circumstance is like, on a detailed level).

Art acts similarly by giving us a very fine sensory, emotional, intellectual experience of someone else’s fine experience.

But, in such respect, those are parents and creators of powerful imaginings or actors of thereof who shape the future.

Perhaps it is those species who have to understand others (subjects or objects), who come by the greatest ability to imagine for themselves new prospects because they are not limited to the experience and memory of their own species.

Therefore, the ability to understand the other might enhance flexibility in one’s own behavioural responses and the unpredictability of the evolutionary path of one’s species.

Such species might assist other species through provoking them in novel ways so that they acquired the experience of new responses and so that they learned more of their potential.

However, it might also become frightful to rely on a world which is more instantaneous and less rooted in the ‘givens’, in the embodiment of memories that we have become.

Memory itself might be another path to call for novel approaches, especially, if memory can be backtracked beyond one’s lifetime and the experiences of the evolutionary history in one’s own body.

If the memory is read beyond that has become fixed.

For example, I wonder if closely related species who had chosen very divergent paths (such as otters and stoats/weasels who, respectively, have water and underground/snow as their kingdoms) recognize a certain similarity in the other and perhaps vaguely recall what life used to be like before the turn in the road.

Would it be easier for species to imagine the makings and the attitudes of another species if they have a common evolutionary past?

Is it possible to remember a past more distant and to travel back to it, to some extent, through strengthening this memory in the form of an act?

Where the local habitat would foster and favour these trips into future and past imagine, would a species attempt to fix the new trait or behaviour through repeating it, for example, during play in order to set it… not in stone… but in daily life.

However, can such acts of practising change genetics themselves?

Perhaps it is possible where the genes already allow for transformations and it is the matter of which genes are switched on or off through daily application.

But would it be possible to create entirely new genetic sequences, to alter the code itself?

To walk through that rock or to fly over it…

That is a curious question which I cannot answer today.

References

Ball, J.P., Nordengren, C. and Wallin, K. (2001), Partial migration by large ungulates: characteristics of seasonal moose Alces alces ranges in northern Sweden. Wildlife Biology, 7: 39-47. https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.2001.007

McIntyre, R., & Bekoff, M. (2020). The reign of Wolf 21: the saga of Yellowstone’s legendary druid pack . Greystone Books.

Olejarz, Astrid, Jouni Aspi, Ilpo Kojola, Vesa Nivala, Alina K. Niskanen, and Jenni Harmoinen. 2022. “Ain’t Nothing like Family—Female Brown Bears Share Their Home Range with Relatives” Diversity 14, no. 1: 41. https://doi.org/10.3390/d14010041

Støen, Ole-Gunnar & Bellemain, Eva & Sæbø, Solve & Swenson, Jon. (2005). Kin-related spatial structure in brown bears Ursus arctos. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 59. 191-197. 10.1007/s00265-005-0024-9.