Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:57:25 -0700 From: ricell@juno.com To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg384$foo@default> Subject: Re: VFT pollination
Mellard, David writes:
>Generally, inbreeding (breeding closely related animals
>of the same species) is not a problem.
This is something that animal breeders will argue bitterly over and
certainly does not need to be settled here, however, I wanted to throw in
my two cents regarding differences and similarities in plant and animal
breeding.
Anytime you breed two closely related living things you have a greater
chance of bringing out recessive traits. This would be considered
desirable if the trait that you wish to preserve is a normally recessive
trait as your offspring will have an excellent chance of showing the
recessive phenotype. If, however, the trait is undesirable then the
offspring will be at a disadvantage (which I believe the original poster
was alluding to).
One key difference between many plants and animals, however, is that
plants can produce hundreds to thousands of potential offspring (seeds)
annually while most mammals will produce only a few. This can have a
dramatic effect on the genetics of a population. Plants that readily
self fertilize have a very high chance of being homozygous for recessive
traits and offspring with undesirable recessive traits will be removed
from the population by natural selection. Animals, are much more likely
to be carriers of harmful recessive traits. This is of course a broad
over generalization but hopefully you get the idea.
I have heard that a typical human may have 40 potentially lethal
recessive traits. Consequently an inbred human has an excellent chance
of not surviving or having severe deformities. I suspect that most D.
capensis and D. spathulata (plants that readily self fertilize) have
very few.
Richard Ellis "ricell@juno.com"
Boulder, CO
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