Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was just bringing this subject back to the top of the board. It also must be understood...there are many genes in organisms that are never expressed or active for that matter. Through line breeding and crossing over these genes may pop up...giving possible bad combinations or possible good combos.
-----
Michael Enriquez

As Kevin stated below, at first morphs needed to be inbred to establish the original breeding stock! Fine and dandy, outcrossing should be done as soon as possible to keep these mutations as diverse as possible.

The point I was trying to make, in a society where material and monetary gain are of upmost importance ; My car is bigger then your car; my house is bigger then your house.

The short term return on investment is the primary goal! Not in the best interest of these snakes I would think.

Thank god for the annual inondation of wild types with fresh bloodlines and the hets they create helping the much needed outbreeding.

My two pence worth anyways.

I tried to refrain from replying to thise post as it has come up 2x per year for the last 5 years on this very forum, LOL!

Inbreeding. Boo-frickin'-hoo. How much does a BP migrate in the wild to its mating grounds? Ummmmm....try 2 feet. If that. Snakes don't really breed much outside the metapopulations in which they live. Inbreeding coefficients are HIGH in natural snake populations. All inbreeding does is increase the lining up of like alleles. Therefore, if there's a deleterious recessive allele, then yeah, it'll get expressed eventually and that's bad. But these snake populations have been doin' this for THOUSANDS of years. What does that mean? Well, it means that there isn't very many lethal alleles floating around in the gene pool.

Not to mention, in terms of how a REAL biologist thinks, its a 100,000x greater crime to breed a snake from one sub-population with another snake from a different sub-population, than it is to line breed the same snakes for 5 generations.

People need to actually think before they spout of rhetoric about inbreeding and what they think MIGHT happen. Because the biology and the science doesn't support it.

Also, you want GREED? Try talking about the guys who bring in 300,000 baby Balls in the bottom of oil drums raped from Africa. Yeah, there's your precious new blood. Sweet.

"Not to mention, in terms of how a REAL biologist thinks, its a 100,000x greater crime to breed a snake from one sub-population with another snake from a different sub-population, than it is to line breed the same snakes for 5 generations."

Why is that?

Chris
-----
"Wild balls suck...period...buy American." --jyohe

Because animals is different sub-populations are in the midst of speciation. They are separated by pre-zygotic or post-zygotic factors that prevent them from swapping genes (breeding). This is NOT artificial and is there for whatever reason nature has come up with. So to take an animal that is slowly speciating from a different population and breed it and mix genes with an animal that it normally wouldn't renders those animal's offspring a hazard to BOTH population. This is why 99.99999% of all captive herps will never be able to be used for re-introduction to the wild.

Snakes don't migrate but they most certainly live in pockets of sub-populations in the wild. Even though they may be the same species, different populations do not mix together. Although they may sympatrically mix, eventually a third population will probably arise from the INTRAgrades.

Food for thought. But this is covered a couple times every year here when the inbreeding coo-koos spread there banter and try to say that breeders are "greedy" for inbreeding their recessive morphs.

Cheers.

speciation...pre-zygotic...post-zygotic...sympatrically...INTRAgrades...

That's fancy science talk for what???

Chris
-----
"Wild balls suck...period...buy American." --jyohe

Dude! Every "biologist" will agree that genetic diversity and increasing genetic diversity by the interbreeding of different populations is a great thing. Genetic diversity 99% of the time results in a healthier more adaptable oraganism. Different populations of Ball Pythons may exist (although you have not given any evidence of this, nor is there any evidence to give), but they are not undergoing speciation. They are the same species!

The majority of evidence for breeding in 99.9999% of sexually reproducing animals (herps included) supports that animals seek out genetically different mates preferentially. Sure they will mate with their mother if that is all you give them, but that is not their preference, it is yours.

Just shows your intelligence.

I studied snake populations in university. With people that dedicated their whole lives to snake population dynamics.

Nice try. Time to go crawl back under the rock from whence you came.

That is cool, would you mind sharing with us the paper you wrote on the subject? We are all curious, and would like to know more about your expertise on the subject.

Rob Reiding.

No offence, but I don't believe you, you seem semi educated at best. You make an argument that sounds good to most people, but upon closer examination it just doesn't make sense

I didn't crawl out from under a rock, more like Illinois State University 1997-2001 BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and University of Illinois PhD 2001-2005 in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.

But hey speaking of personal attacks....that was a good one.

Check out this website for realistic information that completely refutes Jeff's rant.

http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/Genetics/Inbreeding.html

I totally AGREE with you JEFF, at least we are in agreement on somethings...See ya later DAVID
-----
1.0 Pied(04)(RDR)
1.0 Albino(04)(RDR)
0.1 Spider(04)(RDR)
3.2 Pastels(03's)(04's)(ASF,Graziani,Bell lines)
0.1 Yellow belly(unproven)(04)
1.3 Yellow belly(unproven)(02,03,04's)
2.0 100% HET CLOWN(04's)(MHMR)
3.3 100% het albinos(03's)(high contrast bell line)
0.1 poss Het Albino(03's)
2.0 100% het pieds(03's)(Vin Russo,CRE)
0.2 100% het pieds(03's)(04's)(RDR,TWL)
1.2 Poss het pieds(03's)(PETE KAHL)
2.1 Poss het pieds(00's)(01's) hoping to get PIEDS this year(Vin Russo, Pete Kahl)
25 Normal adult females
60 04 females
15 normal mixed 03's
20 Assorted weird ball pythons 04's

No law states that we have to argue about everything, right Dave? LOL!

Cheers.

I agree and disagree with you Jeff. A ball Python is a Ball Python. If some disease should come over these animals in the wild and wipe out the population...they could if the governments wanted to reintroduce CB balls to the wild form just about any captive population. Maybe you have read something I have not...but I do not think speciation is the potential probelm...it is mentioned more often than notm the fear of introducing pathogens from Captive populations into the wild populations that do not exist in the wild populations and causing massive die offs...similiar to what happened to the American and South American Indians when the original settlers came over.
-----
Michael Enriquez

that does not mean we should line breed our captives for 20 generations.

There are NO ball pythons anywhere that have been line bred for 20 generations. It was actually quite rare to even breed ball pythons at all before the morph craze. Why? because there is NO MONEY to be made breeding a snake that is SO much cheaper to get as an import. Before morphs, it simply didn't pay to breed them, so it didn't happen very often. Most ball python breeding didn't even happen until the mid to late 90's

>>that does not mean we should line breed our captives for 20 generations.

he made about segregaded pools of inbreeding in the wild!

doesn't mean we should inbreed our captives for 20 generations...

Coming from a real "biologist" your wrong on all accounts

inbreeding is universally avoided in nature (yes even in arkansas). Any textbook on ecology, or an study on breeding in nature will tell you that.

You have absolutely no evidence of your claims, you are just talking out your A ss.

" How much does a BP migrate in the wild to its mating grounds? Ummmmm....try 2 feet. If that. Snakes don't really breed much outside the metapopulations in which they live. Inbreeding coefficients are HIGH in natural snake populations. All inbreeding does is increase the lining up of like alleles."

Alleles always line up regardless of inbreeding...that is the definition of alleles.
Inbreeding does not line up alleles, that occurs normally in every cell for every gene. Inbreeding narrows genetic diversity and can concentrate specific recessive genes (good or bad). The problem is the bad outweighs the good more often than not. I mean the good in the case of albinos and pieds is pretty good, but the bad in terms of deaths deformities and succeptibility to disease is bad enough to encourage outbreeding wherever possible.

Metapopulation would mean a population that is not really a population...not sure what you mean with that one.
Do you have any evidence that inbreeding is high in natural snake populations besides speculation.

"But these snake populations have been doin' this for THOUSANDS of years."

Who do you know that has been studying snakes for thousands of years? and thousands of years is almost no time evolutionarily so that would mean there has been some recent influence that forced these populations to do this (like human presence in their habitat).

"What does that mean? Well, it means that there isn't very many lethal alleles floating around in the gene pool."

Is this true...I guess you have never had a single egg go bad in all your years breeding balls...or I guess that single egg must have been in a different incubator than the rest?

"Not to mention, in terms of how a REAL biologist thinks, its a 100,000x greater crime to breed a snake from one sub-population with another snake from a different sub-population, than it is to line breed the same snakes for 5 generations."

I don't think that, and I am a "real biologist". Maybe you meant "ignorant breeder", not "real biologist"

"People need to actually think before they spout of rhetoric about inbreeding and what they think MIGHT happen. Because the biology and the science doesn't support it."

People need to think before they go using words they don't really understand

In support of this I'd like to say the following. I can't help myself so please forgive me for saying this: There is a trailer park down the road from here and nobody new has moved in for about a hundred years. They are all very nice people, but they sure look and act funny! They say that's Just "nature running its natural course"...
This is not meant to offend anybody but just to illustrate a point without any use of terminology.

Rob Reiding.