Department of Biosciences, College of Science, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK.
Toxins (Basel). 2018 Dec 5;10(12):518. doi: 10.3390/toxins10120518.
The literature on chemical weaponry of organisms is vast and provides a rich understanding of the composition and mechanisms of the toxins and other components involved. However, an ecological or evolutionary perspective has often been lacking and is largely limited to (1) molecular evolutionary studies of particular toxins (lacking an ecological view); (2) comparisons across different species that ignore phylogenetic relatedness (lacking an evolutionary view); or (3) descriptive studies of venom composition and toxicology that contain post hoc and untested ecological or evolutionary interpretations (a common event but essentially uninformative speculation). Conveniently, comparative biologists have prolifically been developing and using a wide range of phylogenetic comparative methods that allow us to explicitly address many ecological and evolutionary questions relating to venoms and poisons. Nevertheless, these analytical tools and approaches are rarely used and poorly known by biological toxinologists and toxicologists. In this review I aim to (1) introduce phylogenetic comparative methods to the latter audience; (2) highlight the range of questions that can be addressed using them; and (3) encourage biological toxinologists and toxicologists to either seek out adequate training in comparative biology or seek collaboration with comparative biologists to reap the fruits of a powerful interdisciplinary approach to the field.
关于生物体的化学武器的文献非常丰富，为我们提供了对毒素和其他相关成分的组成和机制的深入理解。然而，通常缺乏生态学或进化的观点，而且这种观点在很大程度上仅限于：(1)对特定毒素的分子进化研究（缺乏生态观点）；(2)忽略系统发育关系的不同物种之间的比较（缺乏进化观点）；或(3)毒液组成和毒理学的描述性研究，其中包含事后且未经检验的生态或进化解释（这是常见的事件，但基本上是没有信息的推测）。方便的是，比较生物学家一直在大量开发和使用广泛的系统发育比较方法，这些方法使我们能够明确解决与毒液和毒物有关的许多生态和进化问题。然而，这些分析工具和方法很少被生物毒素学家和毒理学家使用和了解。在这篇综述中，我的目标是：(1)向后者介绍系统发育比较方法；(2)强调可以使用这些方法解决的问题范围；(3)鼓励生物毒素学家和毒理学家寻求在比较生物学方面的充分培训，或寻求与比较生物学家的合作，以获得这一强大的跨学科方法在该领域的成果。
