Vererbung erzwungener Fortpflanzungsanpassungen. III. Mitteilung: Die Nachkommen der nicht brutpfle endenAlytes obstetricans

Kammerer, Paul

doi:10.1007/bf01730007

Cited by 9 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…Four publications report on Kammerer's experimental work with Alytes (Kammerer 1906(Kammerer , 1909(Kammerer , 1911(Kammerer and 1919. The data that inspired Vargas (2009) and Vargas et al (2016) to suggest an epigenetic explanation for the experiments are described in the 1909 and 1911 publications, that we here summarize.…”

Section: Kammerer's Alytes Experiments: Design and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(1) Behavioural changes. Males exposed to temperatures between 25 and 30 °C gave up parental care of the embryos, the sexes paired in the water instead of on land (Kammerer, 1909), in subsequent reproductive cycles even without the stimulus provided by a higher temperature (Kammerer, 1919). (2) Changes in egg size and egg number.…”

Section: Kammerer's Alytes Experiments: Design and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The adaptive value of male parental care on land in Alytes (Figure 1) is that it reduces egg mortality and predation risk. The in-crease in fecundity of water-breeding midwife toads reported by Kammerer (1909) would not have been enough to compensate for the increased mortality and natural selection would have acted against the preservation of the switching mechanism.…”

Section: Natural Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, when he set out to show that the land-breeding midwife toads can acquire adaptations to breed in water, he had to show that they develop all the adaptive features that water-breeding toads and frogs have, and that they would develop these adaptations gradually. Kammerer (1909) predicted that adaptations to a new environment would slowly disappear when the animals were returned to their original environment. This seems perfectly logic: when animals adapt to a new environment by acquiring new characters, they should as easily adapt again to their former environment.…”

Section: Kammerer's Views On Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The case of the midwife toad revisited

Alphen

Arntzen

2017

CTOZ

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In a recent paper it was suggested that results published by Kammerer (1911) on the midwife toad could be explained by epigenetics (Vargas et al., 2016). We show that data thought to be fitting are based on untested assumptions about the underlying genetic mechanisms. We cite recent studies on the genetics of life history traits, in particular egg-size and number, to show that these assumptions are not realistic. We review aspects of Kammerer’s experimental results on the midwife toad for which there are no plausible mechanisms, i.e. toads switching from land-breeding to water-breeding in response to an increase in temperature, eggs becoming resistant to moulds within a few generations, the gradual development of nuptial pads, heterochronous changes in the development of water-born larvae, and conclude that Kammerer cannot have obtained the results he claims. We argue that natural selection would not have favoured a change in reproductive mode and the loss of parental care and that an epigenetic master switch, affecting many different traits simultaneously, would have either eroded during more than 15 million years of land-breeding and/or would have disappeared by natural selection against it. Finally, we show that Kammerer's data are remarkably close to the invoked Mendelian ratio and too good to be genuine. We conclude that Kammerer’s data are fictitious and that Vargas et al. (2016) have used non-existing data in search of support for a role of epigenetics in neo-Lamarckian evolution.

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Section: Kammerer's Alytes Experiments: Design and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Kammerer's Alytes Experiments: Design and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Natural Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Kammerer's Views On Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The case of the midwife toad revisited

Alphen

Arntzen

2017

CTOZ

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“…Kammerer's claim in 1909 that male midwife toads pass on acquired nuptial pads to the fourth generation of their progeny has made him a hero to armchair generals in the nature/nurture wars (8). His career was first resurrected by a great writer, Arthur Koestler, who pleaded Kammerer's innocence in “The Case of The Midwife Toad” (9).…”

Section: The Origin Of the Speciousmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Midwife Toad and Alma Mahler: Epigenetics or a Matter of Deception?

Weissmann¹

2010

FASEB j.

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Controlling and culturing diversity: Experimental zoology before World War II and Vienna's Biologische Versuchsanstalt

Logan

Brauckmann

2015

J. Exp. Zool.

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Founded in Vienna in 1903, the Institute for Experimental Biology pioneered the application of experimental methods to living organisms maintained for sustained periods in captivity. Its Director, the zoologist Hans Przibram, oversaw until 1938, the attempt to integrate ontogeny with studies of inheritance using precise and controlled measurements of the impact of environmental influences on the emergence of form and function. In the early years, these efforts paralleled and even fostered the emergence of experimental biology in America. But fate intervened. Though the Institute served an international community, most of its resident scientists and staff were of Jewish ancestry. Well before the Nazis entered Austria in 1938, these men and women were being fired and driven out; some, including Przibram, were eventually killed. We describe the unprecedented facilities built and the topics addressed by the several departments that made up this Institute, stressing those most relevant to the establishment and success of the Journal of Experimental Zoology, which was founded just a year later. The Institute's diaspora left an important legacy in North America, perhaps best embodied by the career of the developmental neuroscientist Paul Weiss.

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Vererbung erzwungener Fortpflanzungsanpassungen. III. Mitteilung: Die Nachkommen der nicht brutpfle endenAlytes obstetricans

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

The case of the midwife toad revisited

The case of the midwife toad revisited

The Midwife Toad and Alma Mahler: Epigenetics or a Matter of Deception?

Controlling and culturing diversity: Experimental zoology before World War II and Vienna's Biologische Versuchsanstalt

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