Genetic Diversity

Nigel Hurneyman (NHurneyman@softwar1.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 11 Dec 1996 12:54:45 -0000

The scientists can't fool me - I've seen the episode where Science Officer
Spock takes temporary charge of the USS Enterprise.

The major thrust of the legitimate conservation agencies is towards
preserving biodiversity. One of the biggest problems for a hobbyist like
myself is preserving genetic diversity - in some cases I have resurrected
a species of pygmy Drosera within my collection using the gemmae from
just one plant, which strikes me as very dangerous.

Assuming two equal sized populations of a particular species in identical
growing conditions, one containing a natural pool of genetic diversity
and the other being a single clone, how many generations would it take
for the two to exhibit a similar diversity of genetic material? Has anyone
conducted any studies in this area? Obviously there are a lot of factors
influencing the answer, for example the ratio of sexual to asexual
reproduction, but even an educated guess of say a million generations
would enable some sort of scope to be put on the problem.

Regards, Nigel Hurneyman