Inbreeding certainly increases the odds that a newly discovered mutation ("morph" will be reproduced. You'd likely have to breed a new morph to 1,000's of unrelated snakes to find one that carried the same genetic mutation (if you could EVER find another carrier). It's simple genetics and the basics can be found numerous places on-line. A good place to start would be Vinny Lynch's website: Natural Selection Reptiles.



As for the deleterious effects of inbreeding...



You're likely thinking of the outcome of human inbreeding and projecting it to reptiles. While at first glance this seems logical, it takes a closer look to reveal what's going on. Humans are one of least genetically diverse species on the planet - we're VERY similar to one another. This is a result of what's known as a bottleneck effect by population geneticists, in which the entire population of a species is reduced to a very small number of breeding individuals. That means that "bad" genes can be relatively concentrated in the population and show up frequently when the population begins to rebound in size. The breeding of two closely related individuals increases the liklihood that "bad" genes will be present in both parents and be matched up in their offspring.



Snakes, unlike people, are very diverse genetically. Two clutchmates from a milksnake breeding are likely to have more differences between them than any two people. This equates to a genetic resilience that works in the favor of reptiles. It's a cool concept to think about. I've over-simplified parts of this, but it should give you an idea of why more symptoms of inbreeding depression aren't seen in captive reptiles. I'm not saying that the effects aren't visible (they ARE in some cases: leucistic texas ratsnakes, etc.), just not as prevalent as in people.



Hope this helps,

-Cole



Carbon Co., MT L.t.multistrata

[ Show Entire Thread ]