Daphnia and Apollo: An Epigenetic Fable

Environmental epigenetics is a field of molecular biology that studies how signals from the environment (e.g., food, toxicants, and even our social milieu) affect gene expression. Although, for some, environmental epigenetics promises a new and dynamic account of the relationship between organisms and their environments, current research using model organisms often relies on stereotypical assumptions about gender, race, class, and sexuality in humans (Kenney and Müller 2017). In this article, rather than simply critiquing dominant narratives, I tell a different story—a feminist fable about small crustaceans called Daphnia, who display remarkable epigenetic responses to their environments. For example, many species of Daphnia are made up of clonal females who reproduce asexually, but when resources are scarce they produce males and practice sexual reproduction. In the presence of predators, they grow helmets and neckteeth, passing these adaptations along to their clonal daughters—a potentially epigenetic inheritance. Working within the metaphoric tissue of technoscience, I bring recent research on Daphnia epigenetics together with the story of Daphne and Apollo from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in order to activate new possibilities for understanding the relations between humans and animals, organisms and their environments.