[OT] Nature adapts



Cancer forces Tasmanian devils to breed earlier
Jul 14 05:44 PM US/Eastern
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
AP Science Writer






WASHINGTON (AP) - The little devils just can't wait. Faced
with an epidemic of cancer that cuts their lives short, Tasmanian devils
have begun breeding at younger ages, according to researchers at the
University of Tasmania in Australia.

"We could be seeing evolution occurring before our eyes. Watch this space!"
says zoologist Menna Jones of the university.

Tasmanian devils live on the island of Tasmania, south of Australia. They
weigh 20 to 30 pounds and were named devils by early European settlers
because the furry black marsupials produce a fierce screech and can be
bad-tempered.

Since 1996 a contagious form of cancer called devil facial tumor disease has
been infecting these animals and is invariably fatal, causing death between
the ages of 2 and 3.

In the past devils would live five to six years, breeding at ages two, three
and four, but with the new disease, even females who breed at two may not
live long enough to rear their first litter.

Jones, who has been studying the animals' life cycles since before the
disease outbreak, noted that there has been a 16-fold increase in breeding
at age one. She reports her findings in this week's edition of Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.

"What we are suggesting in this paper is that there is likely to be strong
selection for rapid evolution" toward early maturity, Jones said in an
interview via e-mail.

"It was an exciting discovery," she added.

The disease could cause the devils to become extinct in 25 years or so, she
said, but this change to younger breeding may slow population decline and
reduce the chance of them disappearing.

"To our knowledge, this is the first known case of infectious disease
leading to increased early reproduction in a mammal," Jones and her
colleagues report.

Meantime, the search for a vaccine continues.

The research was funded by the Australian Research Council, the Australian
National University and the Tasmanian Government Save the Tasmanian Devil
Program.

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