Random ideas

This is an open space to share my random thoughts and ideas. Maybe in the parallel universe, another version of me would have unlimited funding to investigate them all (if they were not yet resolved). You are welcome to get in touch if any of the ideas attracts you as well, and we can start a conversation!

• Why are females sometimes less social? Could some females avoid social contact because being social increases the risk of catching infections that might harm their babies? Comparing species with different parenting styles (mother-only care vs. shared care) and individuals varying across reproductive states (pregnant vs. non-reproductive females) could reveal to what extent disease risk helps shape social behavior.

• Do changing environments help maintain genetic diversity within species? Monnet et al. 2025 shows that plants establish species barriers faster than animals. Maybe it’s because the more plastic/changing environment that animals live in so that they can bear more potential cost of variable allele than plants.

• When social contact changes the microbiome? When animals interact socially, how often do they pick up new microbial taxa that actually dominate their microbiome? – if that’s the case, we may see decreased alpha diversity from microbiome exposure.

• What are different evolutionary trajectories of pathogens in hosts with different levels of resistance? Despite many theoretical studies, no common rule found across empirical observations.

• Parasite diversity accelerates host evolution, and rapid evolution within host populations leads to accelerated divergence. Whether and when would this lead to speciation?

• Is a stable microbiome always better than a changing one? Some studies (eg. in coral and their microbiomes) suggest not. Under what circumstances that microbiome stability vs. flexibility are beneficial for hosts? Apparently we can’t just regard high microbiome alpha diversity as “good” or beneficial.

• What happens when social “hubs” disappear? If the most socially connected people or animals disappear, how does the group change? For example, in my department, if interactions between everyone being tracked and recorded, a social network with individual person as nodes will be drawn. Individuals with the most links would be central or key hubs, and they can be the department head or administrative staff, or an unexpected colleague who turns out to be a social butterfly. If one of the central hubs is absent (eg. people on leave), how would the social network change?

• In the west, there is an old saying: Take a third, leave a third, and share a third. This number “1/3” may be from the observation that harvesting around one-third often allows populations to replenish themselves. Interestingly, in Chinese traditional culture, 《道德经》里有“道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物。” 应用到生态管理上，可以形成 “天、地、人”三才和谐共生的最高原则。上面的英文俗语，可以理解为：take a third：人类取用一份；leave a third：留一份归地（土地自我修复、物种延续）；share a third：与天享一份（风调雨顺、自然循环）。What an interesting coincidence!

• Did morality evolve because we need each other? Did morality arise to help people cooperate, and would it disappear if cooperation weren’t needed? Many moral rules help build trust and prevent cheating. Would human stop pursuing morality in a world without social living?

• In human history, how often do leadership help or cause harm? What about in animal world?

• To be continued…