# The Dark Side of New Species Discovery



## skylsdale

An article from March 2011, but still good to be aware of: The dark side of new species discovery

"Scientists and the public usually rejoice when a new species is discovered. But biologist Bryan Stuart has learned the hard way that the discovery of new species, especially when that species is commercially valuable, has a dark side-one that could potentially wipe out the new species before protections can be put in place."


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## Woodsman

Thanks for this Ron. 

Just more proof that, as of now, the dart frog hobby is a net loss for wild species. Since many of the species we are interested in collecting can come from captive bred/sustainable sources, perhaps it is time for us to advocate closing our borders to imported, wild-collected species.

Take care, Richard.


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## Julio

Amazinly sad... Been learning a lot about how big the illegal frog trade is especially plants


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## mantisdragon91

There are some valid points in the article but I found it somewhat hypocritical that his feature species( The Laos Newt) was only discovered because a preserved specimen used for medical purposes came into his possesion. I don't see him anywhere in the article speaking out about the harvesting of these animals for medicinal purposes and in Asia at least collection for medicinal purposes far outstrips collection for the pet trade.


*Then, in 1999, one of my Lao colleagues found the first examples of a salamander up in the northern part of the country. The actual discovery was rather unusual. He had gone home to a rural part of northern Laos for a wedding, and when he returned to the capital city, he brought back with him a few examples of a salamander that had been put into the local alcohol for medicinal purposes. The idea was you put this animal that has very toxic skin secretions into the alcohol, and then you drink the alcohol at a party, such as this wedding, and there's some perceived health benefits from doing so. In any case, it is really this sort of unusual circumstance where his attendance at this wedding resulted in bringing these salamanders to my attention. *

Read more: The dark side of new species discovery


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## elblando

mantisdragon91 said:


> There are some valid points in the article but I found it somewhat hypocritical that his feature species( The Laos Newt) was only discovered because a preserved specimen used for medical purposes came into his possesion. I don't see him anywhere in the article speaking out about the harvesting of these animals for medicinal purposes and in Asia at least collection for medicinal purposes far outstrips collection for the pet trade.
> 
> 
> *Then, in 1999, one of my Lao colleagues found the first examples of a salamander up in the northern part of the country. The actual discovery was rather unusual. He had gone home to a rural part of northern Laos for a wedding, and when he returned to the capital city, he brought back with him a few examples of a salamander that had been put into the local alcohol for medicinal purposes. The idea was you put this animal that has very toxic skin secretions into the alcohol, and then you drink the alcohol at a party, such as this wedding, and there's some perceived health benefits from doing so. In any case, it is really this sort of unusual circumstance where his attendance at this wedding resulted in bringing these salamanders to my attention. *
> 
> Read more: The dark side of new species discovery


I think you missed the point that despite local collection for who knows how long the salamanders could still be found in a number of locations in healthy numbers and it wasn't until it was collected for the pet trade that its population was desimated in a very short period. Its likely that the salamenders population was unaffected by the locals harvesting cause it was done on a small sustainable scale for decades, if not centuries. The problem for this animal was purely the pet trade.


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## mantisdragon91

elblando said:


> I think you missed the point that despite local collection for who knows how long the salamanders could still be found in a number of locations in healthy numbers and it wasn't until it was collected for the pet trade that its population was desimated in a very short period. Its likely that the salamenders population was unaffected by the locals harvesting cause it was done on a small sustainable scale for decades, if not centuries. The problem for this animal was purely the pet trade.


That is only if you believe that the current small range of the species had nothing to do with collection for medicinal purposes. The counter argument could be made that the reason the population was so limited to begin with was due to collection pressure by the natives and that the commercial collectors just added to this pressure.

Historicly as can be seen by the decimation of the turtle population in SE Asia many more species have been wiped out for medicine/food trade than have ever been impacted by commercial collectors its hypocritical and foolish to claim otherwise.


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## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> There are some valid points in the article but I found it somewhat hypocritical that his feature species( The Laos Newt) was only discovered because a preserved specimen used for medical purposes came into his possesion.


Where did you get that information? It isn't mentioned in the description of the animals (see http://www.bryanlstuart.com/site/Publications_files/Stuart & Papenfuss 2002.pdf ). Typically if a species is first located in the food market, the hint is documented in the literature. 

Paramesotrition isn't typically chosen as a medicinal newt due to the high toxicity of the species. Typically it is cynops that are the preferred species in asian medicine. That is based on a pesonal conversation with some of the researchers who have done surveys in the food markets. 

Ed


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## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Historicly as can be seen by the decimation of the turtle population in SE Asia many more species have been wiped out for medicine/food trade than have ever been impacted by commercial collectors its hypocritical and foolish to claim otherwise.


 
When did collecting for the pet trade stop being a commercial enterprise? 

If you review the data, the species listed were not taken for food or medicine, they were small localized populations that were decimated for the pet trade by collectors specifically targeting that species from the published literature... Local collection for subsistence use, tend to not impact the species since the impact isn't targeted and precise on small populations... There has been a long history of documentatiion of this behavior starting with the Kauffield's books (Snakes and Snake Hunting, and the Keeper and the Kept) where people used those to target the populations he discussed in great detail resulting in a decline of the snakes in those populations and destruction of the habitat by people ripping things up to look for the animals. 

The message I got from your last post is that the hobby should be allowed to get them as pets because they are being decimated for other uses (even when demand from the hobby caused the extinction)..... So it is okay for the hobby to be the straw that broke the camels' back because people want them in cages... Removing the animals from the wild to be eaten or used in folk medicine is the same as removing the animal for the pet trade. The wild population is pushed towards extinction... 

Ed


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## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> *Where did you get that information? It isn't mentioned in the description of the animals (see http://www.bryanlstuart.com/site/Publications_files/Stuart & Papenfuss 2002.pdf ). Typically if a species is first located in the food market, the hint is documented in the literature. *
> Paramesotrition isn't typically chosen as a medicinal newt due to the high toxicity of the species. Typically it is cynops that are the preferred species in asian medicine. That is based on a pesonal conversation with some of the researchers who have done surveys in the food markets.
> 
> Ed


Oh I don't know Ed... It only says so in the link for the original post. The only reason he became aware of the species is that his collegue brought back a couple of specimens that were preserved in alcohol for medicinal purposes.


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## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> When did collecting for the pet trade stop being a commercial enterprise?
> 
> If you review the data, the species listed were not taken for food or medicine, they were small localized populations that were decimated for the pet trade by collectors specifically targeting that species from the published literature... Local collection for subsistence use, tend to not impact the species since the impact isn't targeted and precise on small populations... There has been a long history of documentatiion of this behavior starting with the Kauffield's books (Snakes and Snake Hunting, and the Keeper and the Kept) where people used those to target the populations he discussed in great detail resulting in a decline of the snakes in those populations and destruction of the habitat by people ripping things up to look for the animals.
> 
> The message I got from your last post is that the hobby should be allowed to get them as pets because they are being decimated for other uses (even when demand from the hobby caused the extinction)..... So it is okay for the hobby to be the straw that broke the camels' back because people want them in cages... Removing the animals from the wild to be eaten or used in folk medicine is the same as removing the animal for the pet trade. The wild population is pushed towards extinction...
> 
> Ed


Not all. But in SE Asia, collection for the pet trade is the least of most species worries and stating otherwise is hypocritical at best and being an apologist at worst. Don't know about you but I would rather see live specimens brought out and perhaps bred in public and private collections as opposed to the local soaking them in alcohol and drinking the alcohol at weddings and other parties.


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## Micro

mantisdragon91 said:


> Not all. But in SE Asia, collection for the pet trade is the least of most species worries and stating otherwise is hypocritical at best and being an apologist at worst. Don't know about you but I would rather see live specimens brought out and perhaps bred in public and private collections as opposed to the local soaking them in alcohol and drinking the alcohol at weddings and other parties.


You are supposing then that the people who have them as pets will treat them as endangered species and use proper techniques to breed them in the most natural way to support the growth of the species so that we do not see an extinction. 

The number one goal of all true biologists and nature lovers should be to keep a species in its natural environment. There needs to be regulations protecting these species(as pointed out in the article) from the pet trade and/or the local medicinal use of them if, in fact, not doing so would lead to the extinction of that species. 
Now there also needs to be a line drawn between pet trade and professional breeding programs that are created to support a species natural growth and reincorporation into the wild. If you take a species out of the wild in order to breed them and it is done for commercial purposes then you will most likely see what has happened to many species in the pet trade as well as what has come up about line breeding PDF's recently. Breeding for reincorporation purposes and breeding for commercial use are not the same thing.


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## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Not all. But in SE Asia, collection for the pet trade is the least of most species worries and stating otherwise is hypocritical at best and being an apologist at worst. Don't know about you but I would rather see live specimens brought out and perhaps bred in public and private collections as opposed to the local soaking them in alcohol and drinking the alcohol at weddings and other parties.


In other words, regardless of the impact on the population, the rarer an animal becomes, the more you think it is appropriate that it end up in a hobbyists collection.... This is exactly what drives collection of those rarer animals and has actually been documented to cause extinction events... 

The problem is that in these cases captive breeding does not equate to conservation.... If you wanted the animals to remain around then you would start, help or engage in sustainable captive breeding.... Did you read the following thread? http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-2.html#post576511 

Ed


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## Ed

Micro said:


> The number one goal of all true biologists and nature lovers should be to keep a species in its natural environment. There needs to be regulations protecting these species(as pointed out in the article) from the pet trade and/or the local medicinal use of them if, in fact, not doing so would lead to the extinction of that species.


See this thread starting with this post http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-2.html#post576511




Micro said:


> Now there also needs to be a line drawn between pet trade and professional breeding programs that are created to support a species natural growth and reincorporation into the wild. If you take a species out of the wild in order to breed them and it is done for commercial purposes then you will most likely see what has happened to many species in the pet trade as well as what has come up about line breeding PDF's recently. Breeding for reincorporation purposes and breeding for commercial use are not the same thing.


They don't have to be mutually exclusive. See for example Amphibian Steward Network | Tree Walkers International 

Ed


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## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> *In other words, regardless of the impact on the population, the rarer an animal becomes, the more you think it is appropriate that it end up in a hobbyists collection...*. This is exactly what drives collection of those rarer animals and has actually been documented to cause extinction events...
> 
> The problem is that in these cases captive breeding does not equate to conservation.... If you wanted the animals to remain around then you would start, help or engage in sustainable captive breeding.... Did you read the following thread? http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-2.html#post576511
> 
> Ed


*No.* But I call bullshit when I see it. The only way the species was discovered was because it was found preserved in alcohol for some native wedding drink concoction. Who knows how much of the species native range was wiped out by native collectors... However all the blame is only placed on the pet trade. If this had occured in Iran( Kaiser Newts) I would have agreed with the assesment 100 %, but in SE Asia if it flies, crawls or swims it is either eaten or used for medicinal purposes, so I have no reason to believe that its only the collectors that are driving this species to extinction as the author strongly alleges. Hence my original post responce.


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## mantisdragon91

Micro said:


> *You are supposing then that the people who have them as pets will treat them as endangered species and use proper techniques to breed them in the most natural way to support the growth of the species so that we do not see an extinction. *
> The number one goal of all true biologists and nature lovers should be to keep a species in its natural environment. There needs to be regulations protecting these species(as pointed out in the article) from the pet trade and/or the local medicinal use of them if, in fact, not doing so would lead to the extinction of that species.
> Now there also needs to be a line drawn between pet trade and professional breeding programs that are created to support a species natural growth and reincorporation into the wild. If you take a species out of the wild in order to breed them and it is done for commercial purposes then you will most likely see what has happened to many species in the pet trade as well as what has come up about line breeding PDF's recently. Breeding for reincorporation purposes and breeding for commercial use are not the same thing.


Actually I'm just basing this on the simple logic that at least a live newt has a chance of survival, while a newt pickled in alcohol(often while still alive) does not. I think if the newts were sentient and had a say in the matter we know what option they would vote for


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## Micro

mantisdragon91 said:


> Actually I'm just basing this on the simple logic that at least a live newt has a chance of survival, while a newt pickled in alcohol(often while still alive) does not. I think if the newts were sentient and had a say in the matter we know what option they would vote for


I think you are missing the point Ed has made here. We understand that the local use of these newts has hurt the newt populations BUT the species is still around even after these practices of newts being put into alcohol by locals for who knows how long. So now with the added pressure of the Pet trade want for these Newts they could possibly become extinct in the wild.
So even though it wasnt the pet trade who cause the extinction by themselves but it could definitely be the last push. Why then would that be a justification for having them as pets? Why not work to put regulations on the export of the newts as proposed in the article? This doesnt mean that all export is to be halted but that it should be regulated.


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## mantisdragon91

Micro said:


> I think you are missing the point Ed has made here. We understand that the local use of these newts has hurt the newt populations BUT the species is still around even after these practices of newts being put into alcohol by locals for who knows how long. So now with the added pressure of the Pet trade want for these Newts they could possibly become extinct in the wild.
> So even though it wasnt the pet trade who cause the extinction by themselves but it could definitely be the last push. Why then would that be a justification for having them as pets? Why not work to put regulations on the export of the newts as proposed in the article? This doesnt mean that all export is to be halted but that it should be regulated.


And I think Ed missed the point of my original post. It never said anything about allowing collection of the newts for the pet trade. It merely pointed out the hypocrisy of the author who discovered the species in what for all practical purposes amounted to a "fancy native cocktail", exclusively blaming the pet trade for the species slide towards extinction while at no time mentioning the much more damaging affects of the "Medicinal" trade which has driven many more species towards extinction in that part of the world than the pet trade ever will.


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## Micro

mantisdragon91 said:


> And I think Ed missed the point of my original post. It never said anything about allowing collection of the newts for the pet trade. It merely pointed out the hypocrisy of the author who discovered the species in what for all practical purposes amounted to a "fancy native cocktail", exclusively blaming the pet trade for the species slide towards extinction while at no time mentioning the much more damaging affects of the "Medicinal" trade which has driven many more species towards extinction in that part of the world than the pet trade ever will.


This is a good point, but there are some things that can be regulated easier than others and in this case it would be much easier to regulate export for the pet trade than it would be to get support for regulations on traditional use by the local people. So although i cant speak for the author, i do think that he is simply trying to do what he feels that he can do at the moment by controlling the export for the pet trade. Sometimes you have to take care of the small things before you try and take on the big problems.


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## edwardsatc

"She learned that local people have historically for a very, very long time collected the animals in very small numbers for in some cases food, in other cases medicinal purposes, such as the wedding alcohol example I gave earlier, but that there was no real significant commercial trade in the species, until just a few years ago when foreign commercial collectors for the pet trade visited Laos and set up these trade networks to collect it, illegally export it, and sell it in Japan and the West for profit for the pet trade. And since those activities started, there is now a very large network for the species, and it is very heavily harvested."

The dark side of new species discovery


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## mantisdragon91

edwardsatc said:


> "She learned that local people have historically for a very, very long time collected the animals in very small numbers for in some cases food, in other cases medicinal purposes, such as the wedding alcohol example I gave earlier, but that there was no real significant commercial trade in the species, until just a few years ago when foreign commercial collectors for the pet trade visited Laos and set up these trade networks to collect it, illegally export it, and sell it in Japan and the West for profit for the pet trade. And since those activities started, there is now a very large network for the species, and it is very heavily harvested."
> 
> The dark side of new species discovery


This may well be true Donn. However now that this species is discovered and known about you don't see a scenario where the same people in China and other parts of the Far East who pay crazy money for bear paws tiger livers and rhino horn, not wanting to try a genuine "Laos Newt Wedding Cocktail"?

Hippopotamus on menu at Beijing zoo | Environment | guardian.co.uk

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/world/asia/15smuggling.html


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## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> And I think Ed missed the point of my original post. It never said anything about allowing collection of the newts for the pet trade. It merely pointed out the hypocrisy of the author who discovered the species in what for all practical purposes amounted to a "fancy native cocktail", exclusively blaming the pet trade for the species slide towards extinction while at no time mentioning the much more damaging affects of the "Medicinal" trade which has driven many more species towards extinction in that part of the world than the pet trade ever will.


I didn't miss your interpretation of what you thought was hypocrisy.. The actual hypocrisy is that you think it is better to have them extinct in the wild regardless of the cause as long as they can be housed in a hobbyists cage.... You have emphasized that point several times now in this thread yet do not make the connection about the disjunction in that position.. 

The fact that once the population is extinct in the wild, means that there are no more of that animal unless there is a managed breeding program to ensure the genetics and to ensure no exposure to novel pathogens. As we have seen in multiple taxa ranging from mammals to insects, unmanaged genetics can rapidly result in adaptation to captivity that prevents the captive population from being able to be released, exposure to foriegn pathogens due to non-sympatric species during the chain towards the hobbyist and further exposure in hobbyists mixed species collections further put the nail in the coffin of the species in captivity. We have seen this mentality cause multiple extinctions (both local and of a species) for quite a long time. One can look at the end of the great auk which was pushed into extinction at the end by collectors... and see the same trend with the desire to stick species into a cage today... 

Ed


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## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> I* didn't miss your interpretation of what you thought was hypocrisy.. The actual hypocrisy is that you think it is better to have them extinct in the wild regardless of the cause as long as they can be housed in a hobbyists cage.... You have emphasized that point several times now in this thread yet do not make the connection about the disjunction in that position.. *
> The fact that once the population is extinct in the wild, means that there are no more of that animal unless there is a managed breeding program to ensure the genetics and to ensure no exposure to novel pathogens. As we have seen in multiple taxa ranging from mammals to insects, unmanaged genetics can rapidly result in adaptation to captivity that prevents the captive population from being able to be released, exposure to foriegn pathogens due to non-sympatric species during the chain towards the hobbyist and further exposure in hobbyists mixed species collections further put the nail in the coffin of the species in captivity. We have seen this mentality cause multiple extinctions (both local and of a species) for quite a long time. One can look at the end of the great auk which was pushed into extinction at the end by collectors... and see the same trend with the desire to stick species into a cage today...
> 
> Ed


Sorry but I call Bull Shit on that. Can you point out once where I said I would be okay with a species becoming extinct in the wild for the benefit of the pet trade?


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## Brotherly Monkey

mantisdragon91 said:


> This may well be true Donn. However now that this species is discovered and known about you don't see a scenario where the same people in China and other parts of the Far East who pay crazy money for bear paws tiger livers and rhino horn, not wanting to try a genuine "Laos Newt Wedding Cocktail"?
> 
> Hippopotamus on menu at Beijing zoo | Environment | guardian.co.uk
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/world/asia/15smuggling.html


So instead of admitting you were wrong you invent some scenario to justify your earlier baseless criticism?

Also, regardless if it was under pressure from other forces, it would not change the fact that it was also put under pressure from the pet trade.

One set of pressure doesn't justify, or excuse, the other.


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## jkooiman

Laotriton article - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum

Laotriton laoensis - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum

Laotriton laoensis F2 - after 4 years! - Page 2 - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum

Just some reading material for those not familiar with the animal etc. A lot more can be found on caudata.org JVK


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## mantisdragon91

Brotherly Monkey said:


> So instead of admitting you were wrong you invent some scenario to justify your earlier baseless criticism?
> 
> Also, regardless if it was under pressure from other forces, it would not change the fact that it was also put under pressure from the pet trade.
> 
> One set of pressure doesn't justify, or excuse, the other.


Wrong how? That I pointed out that in SE Asia it's not the pet trade that is the primary culprit when it comes to species extinction? Or that I mentioned that now that the species has come to public attention how long before people with more money than sense pay to sample the cocktail in question?


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## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Sorry but I call Bull Shit on that. Can you point out once where I said I would be okay with a species becoming extinct in the wild for the benefit of the pet trade?


Call BS all you want, I stated what I took from your position , you took that position and put it out here as shown here, 



mantisdragon91 said:


> Not all. But in SE Asia, collection for the pet trade is the least of most species worries and stating otherwise is hypocritical at best and being an apologist at worst. Don't know about you but I would rather see live specimens brought out and perhaps bred in public and private collections as opposed to the local soaking them in alcohol and drinking the alcohol at weddings and other parties.


You mean where you stated above that it is better to see them alive in someone's tank than being used as a folkmedicine? You made it quite clear that you thought removal from the wild regardless of impact on the wild population was just fine, and equated the demand for folkmedicine with the pet trade. Nothing in your responses to me have indicated any interest in them remaining in the wild. In the following quote



mantisdragon91 said:


> *No.* But I call bullshit when I see it. The only way the species was discovered was because it was found preserved in alcohol for some native wedding drink concoction. Who knows how much of the species native range was wiped out by native collectors... However all the blame is only placed on the pet trade. If this had occured in Iran( Kaiser Newts) I would have agreed with the assesment 100 %, but in SE Asia if it flies, crawls or swims it is either eaten or used for medicinal purposes, so I have no reason to believe that its only the collectors that are driving this species to extinction as the author strongly alleges. Hence my original post responce.


You start off by saying no, and then move towards the position that collection for the pet trade is acceptable. 
You claim that the impact of the pet trade is negligble for this species while claiming the greatest risk for this species is from the folkmedicine usages without any supporting data. On what basis do you have proof that it had a wider range that has been wiped out by locals' collecting the newts? 
And you again, refuse to accept any of the data that demonstrates extinctions by collectors even though there is a history documenting it for more than 200 years while wildly speculating on the impact of the locals...... 

I think you have provided abundent proof that 
1) you don't have a problem with collecting rare species for the pet trade even if it means local extinctions 
2) you are ignoring the large amount of data on the risk posed to small populations by collectors for the pet trade... 

Ed


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## mantisdragon91

Don't hurt yourself jumping to conclusions Ed. Nowhere in the thread do I say the newts should be collected for the pet trade. I simply took offense at the fact that the author focused on the "evils" of the pet trade while seemingly giving the medicinal market a clear pass. I did say that I would rather see the newts collected for the pet trade than killed to make "Wedding Cocktails" and don't see that as an unreasonable statement. And I am still waiting for you to point out the example I requested below:

*Can you point out once where I said I would be okay with a species becoming extinct in the wild for the benefit of the pet trade.*

Just because you choose to interpet things in a certain way doesn't mean that they are


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## mattolsen

I just want to shed light on one aspect of this conversation. In spite of all of the negative effects that the pet trade and exotic animal hobbyists have caused, either directly or indirectly, their is a positive action that results from all of this. So, the newly discovered, or highly prized specimen in question will end up in some hobbyists hand's at some point. If this specimen is not legally being exported then it drives up both the price and the desire for it. Being that these specimens are generally endemic to poor countries, the indigenous people that live on very little will be sanctioned by smugglers to help find and collect the animals. They will make their way to the U.S. or Europe and be sold. They may not completely decimate a population, but they still take and do not replenish. On the other hand, if you allow the countries government to regulate the exportation of the animals, within reason, or allow groups to sustainably breed/export these animals then the government is happy, a captive population is established in the hobby, and the desire/value of the animals goes down with time. Thus, there is little reason for smugglers to smuggle. Because who would rather have a wild caught frog over a captive bred one? Their rates of survival are better, their probability of having parasites is lower, and you did the right thing by buying captive. 

Not saying it's all good but I think that since the demand is inevitable then it's better to regulate it than the alternative. I hope not to get jumped on as this is just my opinion, and I'm open minded.


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## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Don't hurt yourself jumping to conclusions Ed. Nowhere in the thread do I say the newts should be collected for the pet trade. I simply took offense at the fact that the author focused on the "evils" of the pet trade while seemingly giving the medicinal market a clear pass. I did say that I would rather see the newts collected for the pet trade than killed to make "Wedding Cocktails" and don't see that as an unreasonable statement. And I am still waiting for you to point out the example I requested below:
> 
> *Can you point out once where I said I would be okay with a species becoming extinct in the wild for the benefit of the pet trade.*
> 
> Just because you choose to interpet things in a certain way doesn't mean that they are


No hurdles.. So your going with the Bill Clinton it isn't perjury defense??... I easily and clearly demonstrated what you said and meant regardless if you explicity said it or not.. Right Bill? 

Ed


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## Ed

mattolsen said:


> I just want to shed light on one aspect of this conversation. In spite of all of the negative effects that the pet trade and exotic animal hobbyists have caused, either directly or indirectly, their is a positive action that results from all of this. So, the newly discovered, or highly prized specimen in question will end up in some hobbyists hand's at some point. If this specimen is not legally being exported then it drives up both the price and the desire for it. Being that these specimens are generally endemic to poor countries, the indigenous people that live on very little will be sanctioned by smugglers to help find and collect the animals. They will make their way to the U.S. or Europe and be sold. They may not completely decimate a population, but they still take and do not replenish. On the other hand, if you allow the countries government to regulate the exportation of the animals, within reason, or allow groups to sustainably breed/export these animals then the government is happy, a captive population is established in the hobby, and the desire/value of the animals goes down with time. Thus, there is little reason for smugglers to smuggle. Because who would rather have a wild caught frog over a captive bred one? Their rates of survival are better, their probability of having parasites is lower, and you did the right thing by buying captive.
> 
> Not saying it's all good but I think that since the demand is inevitable then it's better to regulate it than the alternative. I hope not to get jumped on as this is just my opinion, and I'm open minded.


Getting the locals involved and letting them earn a living from the animals generally is one of the ways to get a sustainable harvesting of the animals and protection of the ecosystem. I broke a lot of this down in this thread (I had to make three posts to cover all of the important points) http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-2.html#post576511 

Ed


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## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> *Where did you get that information? It isn't mentioned in the description of the animals (see http://www.bryanlstuart.com/site/Publications_files/Stuart & Papenfuss 2002.pdf ). Typically if a species is first located in the food market, the hint is documented in the literature.*
> 
> *Paramesotrition isn't typically chosen as a medicinal newt due to the high toxicity of the species. Typically it is cynops that are the preferred species in asian medicine. That is based on a pesonal conversation with some of the researchers who have done surveys in the food markets. *
> Ed



You are clearly either delusional or high on meds to be jumping to conclusions like you are. This is kind of like your post above where you practicly accuse me of fabricating the method of the species discovery, when it was clearly described in the original poster's link. Care to tell me again how Paramesotrition aren't used for medicinal purposes like you did in your first post? I let it slide the first time, I won't this time. Come of your throne and join the rest of us mortals, and admit you jumped to conclusions based on some preconcieved notions or past grudges you may still be carrying.


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## thedude

mantisdragon91 said:


> Come of your throne and join the rest of us mortals, and admit you jumped to conclusions based on some preconcieved notions or past grudges you may still be carrying.


You seem to be the one with preconceived notions here. Maybe you should take a look at your signature.


----------



## Roadrunner

Does anyone even know that all these newts were collected for pets or if the Japanese wanted then for for folk medicine? It seems that there is another unknown here. I know Japanese buy lots of matsutake's collected here for asian wedding rituals.


----------



## Ed

frogfarm said:


> Does anyone even know that all these newts were collected for pets or if the Japanese wanted then for for folk medicine? It seems that there is another unknown here. I know Japanese buy lots of matsutake's collected here for asian wedding rituals.


Hi Aaron,

They were being collected for the pet trade. See for example http://downloads.ircf.org/wwdigitalmembers/Iguana_13-4web.pdf#page=50 

Ed


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> You are clearly either delusional or high on meds to be jumping to conclusions like you are. This is kind of like your post above where you practicly accuse me of fabricating the method of the species discovery, when it was clearly described in the original poster's link. Care to tell me again how Paramesotrition aren't used for medicinal purposes like you did in your first post? I let it slide the first time, I won't this time. Come of your throne and join the rest of us mortals, and admit you jumped to conclusions based on some preconcieved notions or past grudges you may still be carrying.


Roman,

You are again attacking when you have been caught out in making wild theories to justify your position. I referenced my source and noted that typically when species are discovered in the food trade or pet trade, that link is documented in the literature. We can see this with the description of several of the Pachytriton species discovered by Thiesmeir ( See for example Thiesmeier, B. and C. Hornberg . 1997. Paarung, Fortpflanzung and Larvalentwicklung von Pachytriton sp. (Pachytriton A) nebst Bemerkungen zur Taxonomie der Gattung. Salamandra 33:97–110)... This has been seen in fish particularly marine species, and turtles to provide two other taxa as examples. The scientist who described Laotriton (Pachytriton) laoensis didn't include that in the paper where he cited it.. So I'm not sure how you can equate that to your arguments since I cited a reference a peer reviewed reference for my point (and I have again backed it up here...). 

I did not engage in the Bill Clinton perjury defence.. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Roman,
> 
> You are again attacking when you have been caught out in making wild theories to justify your position. I referenced my source and noted that typically when species are discovered in the food trade or pet trade, that link is documented in the literature. We can see this with the description of several of the Pachytriton species discovered by Thiesmeir ( See for example Thiesmeier, B. and C. Hornberg . 1997. Paarung, Fortpflanzung and Larvalentwicklung von Pachytriton sp. (Pachytriton A) nebst Bemerkungen zur Taxonomie der Gattung. Salamandra 33:97–110)... This has been seen in fish particularly marine species, and turtles to provide two other taxa as examples. The scientist who described Laotriton (Pachytriton) laoensis didn't include that in the paper where he cited it.. So I'm not sure how you can equate that to your arguments since I cited a reference a peer reviewed reference for my point (and I have again backed it up here...).
> 
> I did not engage in the Bill Clinton perjury defence..
> 
> Ed


I'm simply asking you to reread my posts and point out where I said it is okay for the newts to be collected for commercial purposes? I did say that I would rather see the newts collected for the pet trade than killed for medicinal purposes, but the ideal situation would be for neither to happen.

And if I am engaging in the Bill Clinton perjury defence, then you are surely engaging in the Newt Gingritch perjury prosecution... and we all know what a hypocritical, loud mouthed windbag he turned out to be


----------



## mantisdragon91

frogfarm said:


> Does anyone even know that all these newts were collected for pets or if the Japanese wanted then for for folk medicine? It seems that there is another unknown here. I know Japanese buy lots of matsutake's collected here for asian wedding rituals.


They are also collected by "sack fulls" by the natives for food:

In Phonesavanh, Lao PDR, a trip was planned to see wild Lao Newts in
an effort to gather information on trade from locals. According to a
source, around Phonesavanh newts were sometimes kept as pets.
Occasionally, some were also sent to Vientiane for export to Japan and
Europe. Local guides from a small village ~2 hours drive from
Phonesavanh brought the author to a nearby stream where the newts
were found (Figure 6, 7). Apparently, the newts had been protected for
about one year making it illegal to collect them. One of the guides also
said he was paid USD100 by an NGO to conserve them although
sometimes Europeans did come to buy them paying USD120 a pair.
This, however, did not happen very often. *According to the guides
locals also eat these newts and, prior to being protected, they could
collect “sack full’s” from a nearby stream where they are abundant.
The newts are prepared by gutting and sun-drying them before being
crushed and added to food (Figure 7).* Although the guides stated that the newts were protected, the driver later told the researcher that it would be possible to buy some as pets and that the normal asking price of USD60 per animal could be negotiated.

http://www.zoodirektoren.de/pics/medien/1_1310565840/Shepherd_Trade_in_Indochinese_Newts.pdf


----------



## Woodsman

Trotting out the same old, tired arguments that we have had here for years doesn't do one damn thing to actually protect wild amphibians from extinction. The time has come to occupy the truth about the negative impacts that trade in wild-stolen amphibians is having on wild populations and DO something about it.

I'm making this my one and only New year's resolution/revolution.

Take care, Richard.


----------



## Ed

Roman, did you really read that link through to the end? 

First off, your quotation documents the past tense, prior to the animals being protected.. and if you had read through the link further you would have run into the following quotation 



> *The pet trade is listed as the primary threat to the Lao Newt and as a major threat to both the Tam Dao Newt and **Himalayan Knobby Newt (Van Dijk, 2004a; Van Dijk, 2004b; Van Dijk and Stuart, 2004).* The Lao Newt was first described in 2002 and subsequently became popular in the international pet trade appearing for sale in Germany and​
> Japan in 2006 (Stuart and Papenfuss, 2002; Chang, 2006; Stuart
> _et al_., 2006). In Japan, a journalist investigating trade there found that a single dealer had imported around 100 Lao Newts and began selling them around the country (Masumitsu, 2006). Surveys of Japanese websites at the time found the newts on sale for around USD170 each (Chang, 2006; B. Stuart, pers. comm.). Today, these newts are apparently selling for USD400 per animal most likely being transported to Japan via China (Nishikawa, pers.comm.). ​



Furthermore, your citation doesn't indicate or prove that they were being collected to be to shipped overseas to Japan as a traditional medicine or food..... 

Ed ​
​


----------



## Michael Shrom

frogfarm said:


> Does anyone even know that all these newts were collected for pets or if the Japanese wanted then for for folk medicine? It seems that there is another unknown here. I know Japanese buy lots of matsutake's collected here for asian wedding rituals.


The story I got on the U.S. imports were they were collected for the food trade but sidetracked to the hobby trade. I have no way of knowing if this is true or not. I do know the wild caught Laotriton that came in had USFW paperwork with them and most went to zoos, museums, and serious hobbyists. 

They are being bred in the U.S. now. They are large animals and take several years to reach sexual maturity. I'm not sure captive breeding will remove the incentive to import wild caught. 

The rare salamander hobby is just as fuzzy as the rare frog hobby. The argument could be made that just by keeping any endangered animal you could be contributing to the species extirpation from the wild. Even promoting captive bred animals can result in collection pressure on wild populations.


----------



## Ed

Roman,

You are continuing to attempt to drag me into a flame war by insulting me. You have made insulting implications and now directly comparing me to Gingrich. I have to agree with Brotherly Monkey with his assessment. I read your posts critically the first time around. I pointed out the issues with your argument and you descended into insults and name calling to attempt to draw the attention away from your position. I made the links to your position clear and you have not been able to prove my position false. *Even when you cite a reference, you fail to read it critically or you wouldn't have missed the point that the pet trade is the primary threat to Laotriton (Pachytriton) laoensis not the medicine or food trade.* You missed the point, when I made the comparision to the great auk. The great auk (as with L. laoensis) was harvested for a long time for local use (with the auk, some references claim 100,000 years) but once it became rare, it was the collectors that pushed it over the edge. This is the same as the newt. *The hypocrisy that you attempted to point out, was hypocritical in and of itself.* I have adequately demonstrated this with your own words. Your attempt to use the Clinton defense, is apt since you are claiming that you didn't say it explicitly while saying it implicitly. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

*Stop putting words in my mouth Ed.* Nowhere did I say that the natives are collecting the newts to send to Japan for food. However they were and possible still are collecting the newts by the "sackfull" for food. How many newts do you think fit in a sack? And this is one village by one stream. How many newts do you think were being taken by natives through out the species range on an annual basis? I suspect it's many more than were even taken by the pet trade.

My point all along which for some reason you have chosen to misinterpet is that it is hypocrictical to stricly blame the pet trade, for population loss in a species that is being used for food and medicine by the local population. Nowhere in my posts have I said that the newts should be available for the commercial pet trade.


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Roman,
> 
> You are continuing to attempt to drag me into a flame war by insulting me. You have made insulting implications and now directly comparing me to Gingrich.
> Ed


Hold on just a second there Ed.... You compare me to Clinton and perjury and then take offence when I take the logical next step by comparing you to Gingrich? Really..... No one is trying to drag you into a flame war. You have chosen to deliberately misinterpet my original point and make claims of me saying things that are found nowhere in the thread and yet you seem surprised when I respond to your false statements?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> *Stop putting words in my mouth Ed.* Nowhere did I say that the natives are collecting the newts to send to Japan for food.


That was the response you gave Aaron when he asked 


frogfarm said:


> Does anyone even know that all these newts were collected for pets or if the Japanese wanted then for for folk medicine? It seems that there is another unknown here. I know Japanese buy lots of matsutake's collected here for asian wedding rituals.


you responded with http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...-side-new-species-discovery-4.html#post684012 where you bring up the locals collecting them in the past and provide the implication that they are being shipped to Japan as a food item.... If you weren't attempting to imply that they were being sent to Japan as a food item then why would you reply to Aaron in that manner? My comment was to correct the implication you made here. 




mantisdragon91 said:


> However they were and possible still are collecting the newts by the "sackfull" for food. How many newts do you think fit in a sack? And this is one village by one stream. How many newts do you think were being taken by natives through out the species range on an annual basis? I suspect it's many more than were even taken by the pet trade.


Again, you have not provided the information that proves that the local TM collection is the threat. In fact your own reference above puts the lie to that where they specifically state that the primary threat is collection for the pet trade. Your own reference puts that into the ground. 



mantisdragon91 said:


> My point all along which for some reason you have chosen to misinterpet is that it is hypocrictical to stricly blame the pet trade, for population loss in a species that is being used for food and medicine by the local population. Nowhere in my posts have I said that the newts should be available for the commercial pet trade.


See http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...-side-new-species-discovery-3.html#post683925 ..

Except when you said you would prefer to see them alive in collections than drank at a wedding and again stated that the greatest risk to these newts was traditional medicine and collection for food (which your own reference disproves).... 

I'm not putting any words into your mouth. You put them there yourself. 

Ed


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Hold on just a second there Ed.... You compare me to Clinton and perjury and then take offence when I take the logical next step by comparing you to Gingrich? Really..... No one is trying to drag you into a flame war. You have chosen to deliberately misinterpet my original point and make claims of me saying things that are found nowhere in the thread and yet you seem surprised when I respond to your false statements?


Yes you are attempting to drag me into a flame war. I made the comparision to the Clinton defense against perjury since that is exactly what you are doing. You keep saying where did I explictly say X and since I didn't explicity say it, I'm innocent, while ignoring the whole implicit meaning to the statements. You are the one who has started the insults quite aways back in this thread which when put to the gun, you've done repeatedly with me and others on this forum. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Michael Shrom said:


> *The story I got on the U.S. imports were they were collected for the food trade but sidetracked to the hobby trade. *I have no way of knowing if this is true or not. I do know the wild caught Laotriton that came in had USFW paperwork with them and most went to zoos, museums, and serious hobbyists.
> QUOTE]
> 
> I heard the same story from multiple sources. As I have said on a number of occassions in this thread, if this is indeed true and I have seen no evidence to prove otherwise these animals were dead as far as the wild populations are concerned. If they are to be removed from the wild, which it seems like they would have been regardless of the pet trade market,I would rather see them bred and maintained in a sustainable manner in captivity as opposed to them ending up as the fecal matter of some native. The offense I took was in the author's pointing the finger strictly at the pet trade while at no point mentioning that these animals are also harvested in large number for food and medicine.


----------



## Micro

The problem is that your evidence is heresay while Ed is providing peer reviewed scholarly papers. You can hear something a thousand times but it doesnt prove anything about it actually being true unless it has been studied and proven so.


----------



## mantisdragon91

Micro said:


> The problem is that your evidence is heresay while Ed is providing peer reviewed scholarly papers. You can here something a thousand times but it doesnt prove anything about it actually being true unless it has been studied and proven so.


So why didn't the author include the true method of the species discovery in the peer review, only mentioning it afterwards in an interview?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> . The offense I took was in the author's pointing the finger strictly at the pet trade while at no point mentioning that these animals are also harvested in large number for food and medicine.


Roman, 

your own reference proves that this is untrue. I have pointed that out multiple times now. 

The reason they came into the US with legal paperwork is because they hadn't had time to get them protected.... 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Roman,
> 
> your own reference proves that this is untrue. I have pointed that out multiple times now.
> 
> The reason they came into the US with legal paperwork is because they hadn't had time to get them protected....
> 
> Ed


The natives admit to collecting this species by the "sack full" for food. Where is the untruth in that? The type specimens were found preserved in alcohol at a native wedding ritual something the author conveniently forgot to include in the peer review describing the species.


----------



## Woodsman

Attempts to obfuscate the truth only results in diminishing us all.


----------



## jacobi

I'm sick of arguments overtaking and overshadowing the original post.


----------



## skylsdale

Actually, I simply wanted to bring the possible issues from the article to light and see what sort of discussion would evolve, so no worries from me (the OP). I'm actually glad it's being discussed rather than quietly disappearing to page 16 of the forum...


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> The natives admit to collecting this species by the "sack full" for food. Where is the untruth in that? The type specimens were found preserved in alcohol at a native wedding ritual something the author conveniently forgot to include in the peer review describing the species.


Roman, 

Your own reference as listed above in this post http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...-side-new-species-discovery-4.html#post684012 demonstrates that to be in the past, and brands the idea of it being the major threat as incorrect. You attempted to cherry pick the bit about "sacks" and ignore the rest of the reference where it contradicts you explicitly. The reference you provided and as I quoted your reference here http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...-side-new-species-discovery-4.html#post684045 brands your position as incorrect at best. I am surprised that you are still attempting to defend it well after the point where your own reference documented it as incorrect. Are you going to discredit your own reference now? 

Attempting to brand the information that the pet trade is the greatest threat in this case as hypocrisy is startlingly hypocritical particularly when you are citing references that document that the pet trade is the greatest threat. 

The lack of including the food trade in the original description has nothing to do with this discussion except as a red herring to get the pressure off your position. It is immaterial at this point and no bearing on the current argument. 

You took the position that the it was hypocrisy that they were blaming the pet trade for the decimation of L. (Paramesotrition) laoensis and when it was demonstrated by your own reference you have consistently and dogmatically gone back to your claim about sacks.. totally ignoring your own information source. 
As I clearly pointed out with the great auk as the animals became rarer, the more the collectors wanted them.. this is exactly why the pet trade and not the traditional medicine is the greatest threat to L. laoensis..as documented by your own reference. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Roman,
> 
> Your own reference as listed above in this post http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...-side-new-species-discovery-4.html#post684012 demonstrates that to be in the past, and brands the idea of it being the major threat as incorrect. You attempted to cherry pick the bit about "sacks" and ignore the rest of the reference where it contradicts you explicitly. The reference you provided and as I quoted your reference here http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...-side-new-species-discovery-4.html#post684045 brands your position as incorrect at best. I am surprised that you are still attempting to defend it well after the point where your own reference documented it as incorrect. Are you going to discredit your own reference now?
> 
> Attempting to brand the information that the pet trade is the greatest threat in this case as hypocrisy is startlingly hypocritical particularly when you are citing references that document that the pet trade is the greatest threat.
> 
> The lack of including the food trade in the original description has nothing to do with this discussion except as a red herring to get the pressure off your position. It is immaterial at this point and no bearing on the current argument.
> 
> You took the position that the it was hypocrisy that they were blaming the pet trade for the decimation of L. (Paramesotrition) laoensis and when it was demonstrated by your own reference you have consistently and dogmatically gone back to your claim about sacks.. totally ignoring your own information source.
> As I clearly pointed out with the great auk as the animals became rarer, the more the collectors wanted them.. this is exactly why the pet trade and not the traditional medicine is the greatest threat to L. laoensis..as documented by your own reference.
> 
> Ed


Nice try Ed,

But according to the Laotion researchers on the ground it is the medicinal trade that is the biggest threat as can be seen by these excerpts. Complete link to which is below:


*The animal’s bright and unusual appearance makes it easy to capture and popular with pet owners. The biggest threat, however, probably comes from drying the animal for use in traditional medicine. In August 2008, the Department of Forestry listed the species as protected from commercial trade.*

*Another major problem occurred at one site when she returned to discover foreign workers on a nearby road building project had captured and killed hundreds of animals for sale to traditional medicine merchants. This upset her research data for the whole area, Dr Stuart said.*

New research aims to halt salamander trade : Lao Voices


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Nice try Ed,
> 
> But according to the Laotion researchers on the ground it is the medicinal trade that is the biggest threat as can be seen by these excerpts. Complete link to which is below:


So which is it Roman? You have provided two conflicting citations, however only one of which provides documentation for the claims.. the prior citation I referenced above. What you are attempting to use to discredit the first reference is nothing more than anecdotal and as such is of very limited value....

Are you going to try to discredit your own references again? Doesn't that strike you as hypocritical as well? 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> So which is it Roman? You have provided two conflicting citations, however only one of which provides documentation for the claims.. the prior citation I referenced above. What you are attempting to use to discredit the first reference is nothing more than anecdotal and as such is of very limited value....
> 
> Are you going to try to discredit your own references again? Doesn't that strike you as hypocritical as well?
> 
> Ed


Ed,

The researchers on the ground clearly state that the medicinal market represents the biggest threat to the species. Not sure why that is so hard for you to understand and accept?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Ed,
> 
> The researchers on the ground clearly state that the medicinal market represents the biggest threat to the species. Not sure why that is so hard for you to understand and accept?


You mean the anecdotal report of what could be a one time incident? Sorry but that news blurb doesn't provide any proof that 
1) it was more than a one time thing
2) any data supporting the claim that harvesting for traditional medicine is the greatest risk
3) disprove the references and data in your previous citation that harvesting for the pet trade is the greatest risk for this species.... 

I'm going with the hard data on this.. it also fits the economics of the Allee Effect on wildlife trafficking... 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> You mean the anecdotal report of what could be a one time incident? Sorry but that news blurb doesn't provide any proof that
> 1) it was more than a one time thing
> 2) any data supporting the claim that harvesting for traditional medicine is the greatest risk
> 3) disprove the references and data in your previous citation that harvesting for the pet trade is the greatest risk for this species....
> 
> I'm going with the hard data on this.. it also fits the economics of the Allee Effect on wildlife trafficking...
> 
> Ed


Wow you are like a small child that simply can't admit you are wrong. Let's look at the facts shalll we.

1) The natives freely admit to taking the newts by the sack full for food
2) Dr. Stuart's handpicked native researcher to oversee the species in Laos, states that Medicinal use represents the greatest threat facing the species
3) And just to give you an idea of how the natives view the species its native name literally translates to "fish with feet"

Can you show me some hard data of how many specimens are being taken for the pet trade? I've searched far and wide and am coming up with no concrete numbers. There just aren't enough people out there that will pay $240 plus for a WC newt, especially now that it is protected in the wild and bred in captivity. At least not as many as will collect the newt for food and medicinal purposes locally.


----------



## Woodsman

So, after six pages of "discussion", the argument for buying wild-collected endangered amphibians species seems to be:

"You Honor, I may have stabbed the guy ten times with my knife, but I believe it was the other guy's bullet that killed him".

I think it would be less dishonest to just say that the survival of the species in the wild is not a particular concern to some hobbyists, that it is more important to fill someone's basement with animals than to participate in the conservation of endangered species in the wild.

Just my opinion, Richard.


----------



## mantisdragon91

Woodsman said:


> So, after six pages of "discussion", the argument for buying wild-collected endangered amphibians species seems to be:
> 
> "You Honor, I may have stabbed the guy ten times with my knife, but I believe it was the other guy's bullet that killed him".
> 
> I think it would be less dishonest to just say that the survival of the species in the wild is not a particular concern to some hobbyists, that it is more important to fill someone's basement with animals than to participate in the conservation of endangered species in the wild.
> 
> Just my opinion, Richard.


Actually Rich,

At no point in the thread do I say we should be taking these newts into captivity. All I said is that it is hypocritical to say that it is the Pet Hobby that is devastating the local population at a time when the natives freely admit to harvesting this species for food and even your own researcher on the ground states the Medicinal market is proving to be the much bigger threat.

It appears some animals(I have yet to see a concrete number from anyone) were removed from the wild a few years back and are now being bred in captivity. This seems to have satisfied the majority of the pet market(although I am sure a few specimens here and there are still being removed for the pet trade) Now the far greater threat is the food and medicinal trade which continues to remove animals from the wild population.


----------



## jacobi

skylsdale said:


> Actually, I simply wanted to bring the possible issues from the article to light and see what sort of discussion would evolve, so no worries from me (the OP). I'm actually glad it's being discussed rather than quietly disappearing to page 16 of the forum...


You are correct... But I spent several hours over the weekend on various forums AND EVERY SINGLE ONE has arguments that, quite frankly, turned into pissing matches between people who seemed to be unable to decide exactly what they were saying yet vehemently defending their position nonetheless and resorting to name calling and accusing the other participants of bullying, and people who were right...


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Wow you are like a small child that simply can't admit you are wrong. Let's look at the facts shalll we.
> 
> 1) The natives freely admit to taking the newts by the sack full for food
> 2) Dr. Stuart's handpicked native researcher to oversee the species in Laos, states that Medicinal use represents the greatest threat facing the species
> 3) And just to give you an idea of how the natives view the species its native name literally translates to "fish with feet"
> 
> Can you show me some hard data of how many specimens are being taken for the pet trade? I've searched far and wide and am coming up with no concrete numbers. There just aren't enough people out there that will pay $240 plus for a WC newt, especially now that it is protected in the wild and bred in captivity. At least not as many as will collect the newt for food and medicinal purposes locally.


 
Roman,

Unfortunately it appears you don't understand the relevence between anecdotal and peer reviewed data when it comes to documenting things. You are hanging your hat on preconcieved notions while ignoring the hard data that documented that the greatest risk to this species is the pet trade. 

Instead you continue to throw insults at me to attempt to get disctract and hide the issue of anecdotal versus documented risk. So far from early in the thread, you implied I was mentally impaired and/or on drugs that prevented me from understanding the post to the latest where you call me a child (which given your repeated name calling from early in the discussion is very hypocritical) because your position has been established on 
1) preconceptions
2) reliance on unreliable or anecdotal evidence that is and of itself suspect. 
I have yet to see you in an argument where you do not result in name calling... 

You throw around phrases like collected them by the sack full as an appeal to emotion, unfortunately the only reference that you provided that contains documented (peer reviewed references) evidence of this was in the past tense and they indicate that the newts are now protected from collection. As a further indication of your reliance on emotional appeal is that "sack full" cannot be quantified since sack is an unofficial designation that can vary enormously.. 

Finally, you want to know how many newts were shipped out the pet trade.. That demand for information is meaningless since we are 
1) talking about illicit and/or smuggled trade 
2) populations that were depopulated before the laws were in place


So you demand a number that can't be quantified due to the lack of documentation. Can you provide a peer reviewed reference that documents how many have been collected for the food/traditional medicine trade since they were put under legal protection? I highly doubt it since it falls under the same grouping so the question on your part is meaningless to the context of this discussion. Despite the many claims to the opposite, you have not demonstrated any evidence that rises to the level required to dispel not only the original citation provided by Ron but the citation you provided. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed,

Why is it so hard for you to admit you are wrong on this one? First you claimed that the species is not used for medicine or food. Now you are claiming that the depopulations for medicinal purposes are isolated incidents. You can spin this all you want but the facts remain the facts.


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Ed,
> 
> Why is it so hard for you to admit you are wrong on this one? First you claimed that the species is not used for medicine or food. Now you are claiming that the depopulations for medicinal purposes are isolated incidents. You can spin this all you want but the facts remain the facts.


Actually Roman, I'm not claiming anything. I'm going off the peer reveiwed references which are not anecdotal.... Since the evidence provided by those sources are not "claims" which is the opposite of your position. 

You have hung your whole argument on anecodtal evidence which has nothing substantial to back it up. I've made that clear repeatedly through this thread including citing the references to back that point up. 

Now you are attempting to discredit my position by going to things that are no longer relevent to the point. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Where did you get that information? It isn't mentioned in the description of the animals (see http://www.bryanlstuart.com/site/Publications_files/Stuart & Papenfuss 2002.pdf ). Typically if a species is first located in the food market, the hint is documented in the literature.
> 
> *Paramesotrition isn't typically chosen as a medicinal newt due to the high toxicity of the species. Typically it is cynops that are the preferred species in asian medicine. That is based on a pesonal conversation with some of the researchers who have done surveys in the food markets.
> *Ed


Really Ed... Sure looks like you are saying that they aren't being used for food here? If the point person for the species in Laos says that Medicinal use is a bigger threat to the species, who are you to dispute that?


----------



## Ed

I hit submit too quickly... lets address the quote below. 



mantisdragon91 said:


> Now you are claiming that the depopulations for medicinal purposes are isolated incidents. You can spin this all you want but the facts remain the facts.


Early in this thread you insulted me by claiming I didn't read your posts critically and now you throw this out here lets see what I actually did say 



> You mean the anecdotal report of what could be a one time incident? Sorry but that news blurb doesn't provide any proof that
> 1) it was more than a one time thing
> 2) any data supporting the claim that harvesting for traditional medicine is the greatest risk
> 3) disprove the references and data in your previous citation that harvesting for the pet trade is the greatest risk for this species


'
As I noted your anctodal evidence doesn't provide anything to prove that it wasn't anything but a one time event. I did not claim it was a one-time event, I stated your "unscientific evidence" didn't provide the support that it wasn't a one time event, which is what would be required for your claim that the food/traditional medicine trade would be the greatest risk. If instead you go back to the citation you provided we can see an extensive bibliography that backs up the claim that the pet trade is the greatest risk. 

I should also note, that your accusation of "spin" is also hypocritical since you just attempted to spin my position. 

Ed


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Really Ed... Sure looks like you are saying that they aren't being used for food here? If the point person for the species in Laos says that Medicinal use is a bigger threat to the species, who are you to dispute that?


 
Roman,
that point is irrelevent since
1) as I noted (and you highlighted) it was anecdotal
2) I didn't attempt to defend it when the peer reviewed information indicated to the contrary. It isn't the smoking gun you believe it is. 

That is exactly the opposite of your actions in this thread where you have repeatedly attempted to defend your position using unscientific data that cannot be substantiated. I have repeatedly pointed this out to you but you continue to run back to the anecdotal (read unscientific) reports or the historic reports prior to the legal protection of the newts. I have also pointed out the problems with your attempt to use the one anecdotal report as evidence since it doesn't provide
1) any proof that it was more than a one time occurance
2) actual area impacted 
3) number of animals removed


Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Do you really believe that the harvesting for medicinal purposes described in the link I provided is a one time thing or that the researcher in the link I provided was misquoted? Have you considered the simple fact that there was some collection for the hobby when the species was first discovered but the limited collecter market has since been filled and based on more recent info it's the medicinal market that is the much bigger threat to the species survival currently?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Do you really believe that the harvesting for medicinal purposes described in the link I provided is a one time thing or that the researcher in the link I provided was misquoted? Have you considered the simple fact that there was some collection for the hobby when the species was first discovered but the limited collecter market has since been filled and based on more recent info it's the medicinal market that is the much bigger threat to the species survival currently?


Roman,

The scientific data points against the TM/food market as the greatest risk. It is also supported by other species in similar risks such as Great Auk, Goniurosuarus luii, Chelodina mccordi... and it fits economic theory for this issue see PLoS Biology: Rarity Value and Species Extinction: The Anthropogenic Allee Effect 

Let us go back to the now infamous link you provided that demonstrated that the pet trade is the greatest threat. If you read to the actual end of the link you would have also found this quote 


> Anecdotal information from informal interviews with staff and personnel from these establishments would further suggest that Indochinese newts are not commonly kept as pets, eaten or used in TM in range states. However, as this study focused on major towns and cities it is possible that there is an unknown rural component to trade. Furthermore, these results only represent a snapshot of trade at a particular moment and do not take into account seasonal trends and other factors which can influence trade. The only location where newts were seen was during field
> surveys in Northern Lao PDR where they occur in the wild. Although this species is protected locals reported that they occasionally sold them to foreigners.​




The anecdotal evidence (from talking to the locals, which is why it "unscientific" and noted as such ) also points against TM/food being the greatest threat to this species.​


----------



## mantisdragon91

So you are telling me that the actual native researcher assigned to supervise the species by Dr. Stuart is either lying or naive when she states that the Medicinal market poses the greatest threat to the species?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> So you are telling me that the actual native researcher assigned to supervise the species by Dr. Stuart is either lying or naive when she states that the Medicinal market poses the greatest threat to the species?


 
Roman,

It is very clear that you never bothered to read this reference critically and that you attempted to cherry pick information from it while never reading the final result of the research... 
http://www.zoodirektoren.de/pics/medien/1_1310565840/Shepherd_Trade_in_Indochinese_Newts.pdf... 
I was waiting to see if you would bother to read it to the end and even quoted the end of it as a hint.. If you had bothered to read it, you would have seen that your anecdotal blurb was accounted for in it and on the final analysis; the result was that the traditional medicine/food trade was not the major threat to the Laos newt but demand for the international pet trade was instead. You have fought using her "opinion" for pages now by ignoring the data for the latest and best study of the issue which was ironically provided by you. 
hypocrisy... 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Roman,
> 
> It is very clear that you never bothered to read this reference critically and that you attempted to cherry pick information from it while never reading the final result of the research...
> http://www.zoodirektoren.de/pics/medien/1_1310565840/Shepherd_Trade_in_Indochinese_Newts.pdf...
> I was waiting to see if you would bother to read it to the end and even quoted the end of it as a hint.. If you had bothered to read it, you would have seen that your anecdotal blurb was accounted for in it and on the final analysis; the result was that the traditional medicine/food trade was not the major threat to the Laos newt but demand for the international pet trade was instead. You have fought using her "opinion" for pages now by ignoring the data for the latest and best study of the issue which was ironically provided by you.
> hypocrisy...
> 
> Ed


Oh I did Ed.. but it seems you have chosen to cherry pick the information contained to avoid admiting you spoke hastily in your initial post. My question *remains unanswered. 

Do you feel that the reserarcher in Laos assigned to monitor the species and likely to have the greatest visibility for what happens in the field is lying or just misguided when she states that Medicinal use poses the greatest threat to the species*?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Oh I did Ed.. but it seems you have chosen to cherry pick the information contained to avoid admiting you spoke hastily in your initial post. My question *remains unanswered. *
> 
> *Do you feel that the reserarcher in Laos assigned to monitor the species and likely to have the greatest visibility for what happens in the field is lying or just misguided when she states that Medicinal use poses the greatest threat to the species*?


The data in http://www.zoodirektoren.de/pics/medien/1_1310565840/Shepherd_Trade_in_Indochinese_Newts.pdf does not indicate that it is the greatest threat. Your anecodtal reference is outdated by the above reference since it took that incidence into account. If you had read it through then why did you 
1) ignore the results to only cite the initial evaluation where they described historical collection? 
2) attempt to stand on anecdotal information that was superceded by the study and contradicted by the study?


----------



## mantisdragon91

And just for the record. Here is the conclusion to the paper I presented that you alluded to in your last post. They freely admit they don't know all the facts on the ground. Yet you are convinced that you do.

As no newts were found during market surveys it is conceivable that their presence is minimal in local markets and TM
stores. Anecdotal information from informal interviews with staff and personnel from these establishments would
further suggest that Indochinese newts are not commonly kept as pets, eaten or used in TM in range states.* However, as
this study focused on major towns and cities it is possible that there is an unknown rural component to trade.
Furthermore, these results only represent a snapshot of trade at a particular moment and do not take into account
seasonal trends and other factors which can influence trade.* The only location where newts were seen was during field
surveys in Northern Lao PDR where they occur in the wild. Although this species is protected locals reported that they
occasionally sold them to foreigners.


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> And just for the record. Here is the conclusion to the paper I presented that you alluded to in your last post. They freely admit they don't know all the facts on the ground. Yet you are convinced that you do.
> 
> As no newts were found during market surveys it is conceivable that their presence is minimal in local markets and TM
> stores. Anecdotal information from informal interviews with staff and personnel from these establishments would
> further suggest that Indochinese newts are not commonly kept as pets, eaten or used in TM in range states.* However, as*
> *this study focused on major towns and cities it is possible that there is an unknown rural component to trade.*
> *Furthermore, these results only represent a snapshot of trade at a particular moment and do not take into account*
> *seasonal trends and other factors which can influence trade.* The only location where newts were seen was during field
> surveys in Northern Lao PDR where they occur in the wild. Although this species is protected locals reported that they
> occasionally sold them to foreigners.


Roman, I cited that exact highlighted piece a couple of posts ago so we can ignore your claim I was cherry picking but that still doesn't change the results of the study..which is that the pet trade is the greatest threat to the species. Until another study documents it differently, this is the definitive study. Your looking for loopholes and still haven't found one since you cannot provide any information that the analysis of the study is incorrect or outdated.
Your use of a interview blurb for anectdotal opinion doesn't even come close to the level of proof particularly when it as included in the study and dismissed. 
Do you have any peer reviewed data that supercedes the above reference?


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Roman, I cited that exact highlighted piece a couple of posts ago so we can ignore your claim I was cherry picking but that still doesn't change the results of the study..which is that the pet trade is the greatest threat to the species. Until another study documents it differently, this is the definitive study. Your looking for loopholes and still haven't found one since you cannot provide any information that the analysis of the study is incorrect or outdated.
> Your use of a interview blurb for anectdotal opinion doesn't even come close to the level of proof particularly when it as included in the study and dismissed.
> Do you have any peer reviewed data that supercedes the above reference?


So the question remains why would the researcher in Laos, who is arguably the person most familiar in the world with the species in the wild claim that Medicinal use is the biggest threat?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> So the question remains why would the researcher in Laos, who is arguably the person most familiar in the world with the species in the wild claim that Medicinal use is the biggest threat?


 
lets address something here.. you are continueing to utilize an anecdotal newspaper reference "as authoritative". 

It doesn't matter whether or not they (the interviewer) claim it as her opinion or not.. it isn't an authoritative reference. In any case, it was superceded by the published reviewed data that took her account into perspective in the evaluation of the threat to the newts. The greatest threat in this case is the pet trade, this was abundently clear and supported by the anecodotal and other data. This doesn't mean that there is no threat by the TM/food demand, it just isn't the most probable to cause extinction of this species if left unregulated.. (BM noted that there can still be multiple threats early in the thread 


Brotherly Monkey said:


> Also, regardless if it was under pressure from other forces, it would not change the fact that it was also put under pressure from the pet trade.


)


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> lets address something here.. you are continueing to utilize an anecdotal newspaper reference "as authoritative".
> 
> It doesn't matter whether or not they (the interviewer) claim it as her opinion or not.. it isn't an authoritative reference. In any case, it was superceded by the published reviewed data that took her account into perspective in the evaluation of the threat to the newts. The greatest threat in this case is the pet trade, this was abundently clear and supported by the anecodotal and other data. This doesn't mean that there is no threat by the TM/food demand, it just isn't the most probable to cause extinction of this species if left unregulated.. (BM noted that there can still be multiple threats early in the thread
> )


And thus we are at an impasse. Having spent considerable time oversees I have learned that no one knows the habits and pressures facing a species more than the natives. 99 times out of a hundred I will take the word of someone who lives and dies within the native range of a species over that of someone who may visit once at a certain point in time and never return to see the longterm affects within any given habitat. 

Based on people I have talked to in the last few days since this thread opened there are very few if any WC Newts on the market either in the US, Japan or Europe.


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> And thus we are at an impasse. Having spent considerable time oversees I have learned that no one knows the habits and pressures facing a species more than the natives. 99 times out of a hundred I will take the word of someone who lives and dies within the native range of a species over that of someone who may visit once at a certain point in time and never return to see the longterm affects within any given habitat.
> 
> Based on people I have talked to in the last few days since this thread opened there are very few if any WC Newts on the market either in the US, Japan or Europe.


 
Roman,
You are ignoring the fact that reference included field surveys of the markets (both TM and food), as well as interviewing the locals in that study. If as you say the locals have the best information then they were selling them to foriegners (which implies the pet trade) and in general no longer collecting them for food or TM... Which further points to the pet trade as the greatest risk. 

Regardless of whether or not you see WC newts on the market, that doesn't mean that they aren't there. How are your contacts telling the difference between laundered wild caught animals being sold as captive bred? This is easy to accomplish since they could be exported legally from China as either another species or simply Parasmesotriton ssp... (which is pointed out in the reference) and simply relabeled as captive bred when they arrive in country. 
We've even seen this with the dendrobatid trade where Costa Rican pumilio were exported from Europe as "farmed". Or the trade where they are passed through Lebanon (which is not a signatory to CITES) and then to other countries as captive bred animals.... 

Ed


----------



## Woodsman

Laos Newts, Paramesotriton laosensis RARE - FaunaClassifieds


Get yours, before they are all EXTINCT!!!!!!!


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Regardless of whether or not you see WC newts on the market, that doesn't mean that they aren't there. How are your contacts telling the difference between laundered wild caught animals being sold as captive bred? This is easy to accomplish since they could be exported legally from China as either another species or simply Parasmesotriton ssp... (which is pointed out in the reference) and simply relabeled as captive bred when they arrive in country.
> We've even seen this with the dendrobatid trade where Costa Rican pumilio were exported from Europe as "farmed". Or the trade where they are passed through Lebanon (which is not a signatory to CITES) and then to other countries as captive bred animals....
> 
> Ed


Actually WCs are relatively easy to spot, since they are always offered for sale as adults. Since the species can take up to 5 years to reach maturity it is almost unheard of for CB adults to be offered. For instance the ad that Richard was referring to was a WC shipment of about 100 supposedly long term WC animals that came into this country via the West Coast about 9 months ago. At $95 each they were no where near the $240 mark that the authors of the article were claiming. That particular ad was also up on KingSnake for well over a month showing that the interest in the species isn't particularly robust now that the true collectors either have their specimens or know that cb offspring are available for the asking. To my knowledge after checking with multiple sources this was the only shipment offered in the US this year. Compare that with the hundreds removed from just one site by road construction workers in 2008 or the 120 dried newts found in Minnesota in 2009 during an undercover bust of 2 Lao nationals.


----------



## billschwinn

Woodsman said:


> Laos Newts, Paramesotriton laosensis RARE - FaunaClassifieds
> 
> 
> Get yours, before they are all EXTINCT!!!!!!!


I think I will! Thanks for the tip!


----------



## mantisdragon91

Woodsman said:


> Laos Newts, Paramesotriton laosensis RARE - FaunaClassifieds
> 
> 
> Get yours, before they are all EXTINCT!!!!!!!


If you note the time stamps on the ad you have linked to, on 4/21/11 Chris had 20 Newts available for sale, on 6/1/11 15 were still available. That would equate to 5 Newts sold in 40 days at what most would consider a very reasonable price. Not exactly the kind of wild demand that drives a species into extinction Again compare that to the hundres of specimens taken for TM from just one site in one documented incident.


----------



## Woodsman

I still have NO idea what you are arguing about, Roman. 

Essentially all the laws and regulations (combined with Republican defunding of US FWS enforcement) means that you can have just about any endangered species you want, any time you want it. You WIN!!!

Making the claim that you (or any hobbyist) is aiding conservation by keeping endangered species in their frog rooms or basements is on its face a false statement. So far as I know, there are no dart frog hobbyists that are actively participating in any Taxon Management Plan geared toward either restoring endangered populations or (more sadly) even maintaining the genetic diversity of captive animals.

So, don't be down Roman, your argument has one the day. Keep whatever animals you want. Just don't call it conservation.

Take care, Richard.


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Actually WCs are relatively easy to spot, since they are always offered for sale as adults. Since the species can take up to 5 years to reach maturity it is almost unheard of for CB adults to be offered. For instance the ad that Richard was referring to was a WC shipment of about 100 supposedly long term WC animals that came into this country via the West Coast about 9 months ago. At $95 each they were no where near the $240 mark that the authors of the article were claiming. That particular ad was also up on KingSnake for well over a month showing that the interest in the species isn't particularly robust now that the true collectors either have their specimens or know that cb offspring are available for the asking. To my knowledge after checking with multiple sources this was the only shipment offered in the US this year. Compare that with the hundreds removed from just one site by road construction workers in 2008 or the 120 dried newts found in Minnesota in 2009 during an undercover bust of 2 Lao nationals.


Roman, you are ignoring the global trade by attempting to equate the slow sales in the US to a satiation of the collectors globally without any evidence to support the fact. 

You make an arbitrary claim of how to tell wild caughts from captive bred animals which doesn't necessarily have any relevence... juveniles could just as easily be sold into the trade and in fact they are much easier to launder 

You are simply speculating and throwing information at the wall hoping it will support your position. The data is clear, with this species, the greatest risk is from the pet trade... 


Ed


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> If you note the time stamps on the ad you have linked to, on 4/21/11 Chris had 20 Newts available for sale, on 6/1/11 15 were still available. That would equate to 5 Newts sold in 40 days at what most would consider a very reasonable price. Not exactly the kind of wild demand that drives a species into extinction Again compare that to the hundres of specimens taken for TM from just one site in one documented incident.


This is an irrelevent comparision since you have no idea how many of the newts were actually removed from the ecosystem to make up the shipment Richard referenced or any other shipment. This is nothing more than fabricating an example to make it sound comparable. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Roman, you are ignoring the global trade by attempting to equate the slow sales in the US to a satiation of the collectors globally without any evidence to support the fact.
> 
> You make an arbitrary claim of how to tell wild caughts from captive bred animals which doesn't necessarily have any relevence... juveniles could just as easily be sold into the trade and in fact they are much easier to launder
> 
> You are simply speculating and throwing information at the wall hoping it will support your position. The data is clear, with this species, the greatest risk is from the pet trade...
> 
> 
> Ed


And you are grasping at straws to support a flawed paper which drasticly overestimated the trade of the newts as pets and drasticly underestimated their use as food and TM. According to sources in Europe and Japan the current demand for these newts there is no greater than it is here. And while WC juveniles can easly be sold into the trade they aren't for the simple reason that the natives collect these animals for food and TM first and then make the animals available for the pet trade if there is demand for them. In all the WC shipments that have been exported from Laos since the species was discovered there have been remarkably few if any juveniles or subadults.


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> This is an irrelevent comparision since you have no idea how many of the newts were actually removed from the ecosystem to make up the shipment Richard referenced or any other shipment. This is nothing more than fabricating an example to make it sound comparable.
> 
> Ed


On this one I know the number almost to the exact newt. 100 came into the country in early April, 40 were then exported to Canada with the remainder split between Chris Estep, Phillip Vosjolli and a third party that I have been unable to indentify. And the comparison is very valid since we can see the starting number when the ad first went up and we can also clearly see Chris's response 40 days later when asked if he had any newts still available. And all sources agree on the fact that this particular group was not freshly removed from the ecosystem but were long term(1 year or more) captives.


----------



## mantisdragon91

Woodsman said:


> I still have NO idea what you are arguing about, Roman.
> 
> Essentially all the laws and regulations (combined with Republican defunding of US FWS enforcement) means that you can have just about any endangered species you want, any time you want it. You WIN!!!
> 
> Making the claim that you (or any hobbyist) is aiding conservation by keeping endangered species in their frog rooms or basements is on its face a false statement. So far as I know, there are no dart frog hobbyists that are actively participating in any Taxon Management Plan geared toward either restoring endangered populations or (more sadly) even maintaining the genetic diversity of captive animals.
> 
> So, don't be down Roman, your argument has one the day. Keep whatever animals you want. Just don't call it conservation.
> 
> Take care, Richard.


I am simply pointing ot that while the pet trade has much to answer for( for example see Kaiser Newts) on this one they are being used as a scapegoat because the western researchers are too gutless or clueless to point out where the real problem lies. I agree that we don't need anymore imports from the wild for this species. I just get sick of hearing how the "Big Bad Collectors" are strip mining the streams for the insatiable pet market willing to pay large money for these precious animals, when 100 newts at $100 bucks take a month or more to sell in this country


----------



## mantisdragon91

Something else to think about when claiming that the market for these animals is significantly greater in Japan and Europe than here in the US. The price per newt the actual importer paid for the last shipment was less than $30 a head( and I am being very generous in this estimate). Now I'll be the first to admit that the live animal market in SE Asia is a large business enterprise and the people running it are some of the shrewdest and most ruthless individuals you can ever encounter. Having said that do you really think they would send a valuable commodity such as this to the US for less than $30 per head if they could sell them for more in Japan or Western Europe?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> And you are grasping at straws to support a flawed paper which drasticly overestimated the trade of the newts as pets and drasticly underestimated their use as food and TM. According to sources in Europe and Japan the current demand for these newts there is no greater than it is here. And while WC juveniles can easly be sold into the trade they aren't for the simple reason that the natives collect these animals for food and TM first and then make the animals available for the pet trade if there is demand for them. In all the WC shipments that have been exported from Laos since the species was discovered there have been remarkably few if any juveniles or subadults.


Roman,

I am not grasping at straws.. Nor have you demonstrated that it is a flawed paper. Nor have you been able to demonstrate that the risk of use for the food market and traditional medicine is greater... Your "sources" in Japan and Europe are anecdotal and as such not considered authoritative to prove anything against the paper. 

Your continued use of anedotal evidence that was evaluated in the paper and demonstrated to not be of the level you claim, puts the lie to your position. Roman, you are making it abundently clear you do not understand the comparative value and use of an authoritiate paper versus anecdotal and hearsay evidence... and now you are hanging on to your position using hearsay evidence which is not of any value either. 

Roman, it is clear that you have a prejudice against Asia with respect to the animal collection data and want to demonize it as much as possible and you intend to shovel shit at the topic until you bury it. 

Ed


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> On this one I know the number almost to the exact newt. 100 came into the country in early April, 40 were then exported to Canada with the remainder split between Chris Estep, Phillip Vosjolli and a third party that I have been unable to indentify. And the comparison is very valid since we can see the starting number when the ad first went up and we can also clearly see Chris's response 40 days later when asked if he had any newts still available. And all sources agree on the fact that this particular group was not freshly removed from the ecosystem but were long term(1 year or more) captives.


No Roman, this hearsay evidence doesn't provide any indication of how many animals were removed from the ecosystem so it has no value in your attempt to compare the pet trade with the TM/food use in Laos, or anywhere else in the world. This is a bullshit comparision that you are making because it sounds good while lacking substance. Earlier in this thread you were attempting to make the reverse comparision through the use of inexact references (sacks full when you cannot define what "sacks" were being used)... It is the reverse argument of bullshit. 
It is an appeal to emotion without any substance. 

Ed


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> I am simply pointing ot that while the pet trade has much to answer for( for example see Kaiser Newts) on this one they are being used as a scapegoat because the western researchers are too gutless or clueless to point out where the real problem lies. I agree that we don't need anymore imports from the wild for this species. I just get sick of hearing how the "Big Bad Collectors" are strip mining the streams for the insatiable pet market willing to pay large money for these precious animals, when 100 newts at $100 bucks take a month or more to sell in this country


 
Appeal to emotion without substance to back it up.


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> Appeal to emotion without substance to back it up.


Really Ed,

Did you ever consider that the paper itself(which I provided you with by the way) may be flawed. Lets try to look at the facts objectively shall we:

In the papers conclusion they claim that they have seen no evidence that the newts are eaten or used for TM within their native range. If that is the case how do you account for the following facts:

1) The original specimens that alerted Dr. Stuart to the species existense were brought back by a collegue from a wedding in Northern Laos were they were to be used as part of a traditional beverage to celebrate events such as marriage.
2) The native liason hand picked by Dr. Stuart to oversee the species in Laos stated in an interview with a local news paper, that while the newts are collected for the pet trade their greatest threat lies in the medicinal market and points to a recent incident where an entire survey site was wiped out by foreign workers building a road nearby for sale to the TM market.
3) A 2008 bust in Minnesota targeting the use of protected animals for the medicianal market arrested two Laotian nationals who possesed among various other animal byproducts 120 dried Laotian Newts which they admitted was to be used for TM.

Do any of these factors raise the slightest doubt in your mind that perhaps the researchers didn't due enough diligence when they made the claim that the newts aren't really threatened by the TM trade. When you couple that with the extremely low numbers of newts available on the pet market and the relatively low prices they are commanding when available should at least raise some questions regarding the amount of diligence done when preparing this study.


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> In the papers conclusion they claim that they have seen no evidence that the newts are eaten or used for TM within their native range. If that is the case how do you account for the following facts:
> 
> 1) The original specimens that alerted Dr. Stuart to the species existense were brought back by a collegue from a wedding in Northern Laos were they were to be used as part of a traditional beverage to celebrate events such as marriage.


You are ignoring the fact that incident was before the legislation and review, and you are attempting to overemphasize that as a major threat without any substantiation based on personal belief and prejudice. The TM/food collection is/was clearly addressed in that reference.




mantisdragon91 said:


> 2) The native liason hand picked by Dr. Stuart to oversee the species in Laos stated in an interview with a local news paper, that while the newts are collected for the pet trade their greatest threat lies in the medicinal market and points to a recent incident where an entire survey site was wiped out by foreign workers building a road nearby for sale to the TM market.


This was addressed by myself and the paper you provided. You are attempting to inflate something based on personal prejudice after it was dealt with in the paper. You are also attempting to inflate the value of the information reported in a non-peer reviewed article to the level of the peer reviewed article. This is plain old bad science as the two are not comparable. 



mantisdragon91 said:


> 3) A 2008 bust in Minnesota targeting the use of protected animals for the medicianal market arrested two Laotian nationals who possesed among various other animal byproducts 120 dried Laotian Newts which they admitted was to be used for TM.


As I've pointed out all along and you repeatedly refuse to acknowledge, this does not provide any indication that the foot/TM is a greater threat to the wild population than the pet trade. You are inflating the risk without any supporting evidence by making an appeal to emotion. You have nothing to put this into perspective so you are arguing from a position of belief and making appeals to emotion neither of which provides anything to overturn the paper or even indicate that it was flawed. 



mantisdragon91 said:


> Do any of these factors raise the slightest doubt in your mind that perhaps the researchers didn't due enough diligence when they made the claim that the newts aren't really threatened by the TM trade. When you couple that with the extremely low numbers of newts available on the pet market and the relatively low prices they are commanding when available should at least raise some questions regarding the amount of diligence done when preparing this study.


This last piece is nothing but arguing from a position of belief and prejudice, while ignoring the entire point. You continually take the position that the paper makes it sound like there is no threat from the TM/Food trade. That is not what the paper documents. It clearly documents that the greatest threat to the population as of research was the pet trade but there is some TM/food use... Your position is one that attempts to absolve the pet trade while inflating the risk of the food/TM trade of the species. Neither of which you can substantiate with anything but arguments of belief, hearsay and anecodtal claims. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

The more I look at this study the more flaws I see in it. For instance the claim that the newts were sold for $240 in the US in 2011. It strikes a very hard contrast to the fact that only one shipment came in to the country in 2011 and as can be seen by the Fauna Classified link the pricing was under a $100 and the animals took a good while to sell. Which isn't exactly indicative of a high demand item sold for well below market value(the $240 per animal claimed in the study). Anyone with common sense can see that something just doesn't add up and start to wonder exactly how much time went into this study and how hard it was really checked for errors and incosistencies.

As I pointed out before in this thread there simply aren't that many live newts on an annual basis to be found for sale either here or oversees, and when they are, there is not a huge rush to purchase them even at the what I consider a very low price of $100 or less per specimen. I belive part of the rush to blame the "pet trade" is greater visibility. it is fairly easy to see how many live newts are being offered at any given time simply by checking hobbyist websites here and abroad, there simply isn't that level of visibility of how many newts are being used for food and TM in Laos and how many are removed for TM to be used elsewhere.


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## Brotherly Monkey

mantisdragon91 said:


> The more I look at this study the more flaws I see in it.



Do you find it odd that such doubts only occurred *AFTER* you cited it, and it was shown to actually undermines the claims you attempted to support with it?


----------



## Michael Shrom

billschwinn said:


> I think I will! Thanks for the tip!


Hi Bill,
Are you looking for some in an alcohol bottle, dried, L.T.C., or C.B.?


----------



## mantisdragon91

Brotherly Monkey said:


> Do you find it odd that such doubts only occurred *AFTER* you cited it, and it was shown to actually undermines the claims you attempted to support with it?


No I found the doubt after I read it a couple of times and had the chance to cross reference the information contained with other sources. But perhaps you can show me the adds they are claiming with the newts selling for $240 a each this year? I've searched everywhere with absolutely no luck.


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## Brotherly Monkey

mantisdragon91 said:


> No I found the doubt after I read it a couple of times and had the chance to cross reference the information contained with other sources. But perhaps you can show me the adds they are claiming with the newts selling for $240 a each this year? I've searched everywhere with absolutely no luck.



is it possible such adds were removed or deleted?


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> The more I look at this study the more flaws I see in it. For instance the claim that the newts were sold for $240 in the US in 2011. It strikes a very hard contrast to the fact that only one shipment came in to the country in 2011 and as can be seen by the Fauna Classified link the pricing was under a $100 and the animals took a good while to sell. Which isn't exactly indicative of a high demand item sold for well below market value(the $240 per animal claimed in the study). Anyone with common sense can see that something just doesn't add up and start to wonder exactly how much time went into this study and how hard it was really checked for errors and incosistencies.


Roman, again this is doesn't rise to the level of proof.. that the TM/food trade is a greater risk that the pet trade. You continue to attempt to use a flawed approach that seems reasonble but is incorrect. You cannot substantiate that was the only import of those newts or the only export of the newts for any global market. Your instances are without context and as such are useless as proof. 



mantisdragon91 said:


> As I pointed out before in this thread there simply aren't that many live newts on an annual basis to be found for sale either here or oversees, and when they are, there is not a huge rush to purchase them even at the what I consider a very low price of $100 or less per specimen. I belive part of the rush to blame the "pet trade" is greater visibility. it is fairly easy to see how many live newts are being offered at any given time simply by checking hobbyist websites here and abroad, there simply isn't that level of visibility of how many newts are being used for food and TM in Laos and how many are removed for TM to be used elsewhere.


Another argument from belief with no substantiation. Roman, if you review the reference that totally undermined your position, you would see that it "didn't rush to judgement", there is a lot of research in that article which you have repeatedly attempted to dismiss through information that does not rise to the level of proof no matter how much you try. Your argument is nothing more than bad science argued from a position of belief. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Yes Ed,


I know. Nothing raises to the level of proof with you unless it has been peer reviewed into infinity. Not the beliefs of the person most familiar with the animals in the wild and not the facts of the animals being slow to sell at fairly low prices when presented to you online. Guess we are at an impasse. You believe that hundreds if not thousands of newts are being taken from the wild to satisfy the pet trade each year and only a fraction of that number is being taken for the food and TM markers. I believe the opposite is happening we'll agree to politely disagree.


----------



## Ed

mantisdragon91 said:


> Yes Ed,
> 
> 
> I know. Nothing raises to the level of proof with you unless it has been peer reviewed into infinity. Not the beliefs of the person most familiar with the animals in the wild and not the facts of the animals being slow to sell at fairly low prices when presented to you online. Guess we are at an impasse. You believe that hundreds if not thousands of newts are being taken from the wild to satisfy the pet trade each year and only a fraction of that number is being taken for the food and TM markers. I believe the opposite is happening we'll agree to politely disagree.


 
You have argued from a position of belief without being able to supply any corroborating information that is not anecodtal, hearsay or potentially made up. When you are called on the fact that your "information" is not sufficient you have once again resorted to an attempt to insult me to throw me off the track. As I pointed out above, you have no proof that the TM/food pressures are the greatest risk. You cannot even substantiate the claim of "thousands" of the newts are being taken from the wild. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

Brotherly Monkey said:


> is it possible such adds were removed or deleted?


Anything is possible, but I ussually get a heads up from multiple vendors any time anything rare or unusual comes into the country, and every importer I have contacted in the last few days swears up and down that only one shipment of these newts came into the country in 2011 and this was in late March early April. I suppose a shipment could have been smuggled in unknown to all the usual suspects but it seems rather far fetched. More likely is that authors of the article saw this ad from a guy in Canada that was trying to make money on the 40 or so animals that were diverted to Canada as part of the shipment I mentioned earlier and automaticly assumed that this was the going rate for the species in the US (Hence my statement of them not doing enough dilegence on the species market in the States)

Newts for sale - Edmonton Reptiles Forum


----------



## mantisdragon91

Ed said:


> You have argued from a position of belief without being able to supply any corroborating information that is not anecodtal, hearsay or potentially made up. When you are called on the fact that your "information" is not sufficient you have once again resorted to an attempt to insult me to throw me off the track. As I pointed out above, you have no proof that the TM/food pressures are the greatest risk. You cannot even substantiate the claim of "thousands" of the newts are being taken from the wild.
> 
> Ed



Again lets agree to disagree. And for the record nowhere am I claiming that thousands of newts are taken from the wild. The fact of the matter is there is simply not enough data to prove how many newts are taken from the wild for any purpose. It is easily seen that in the last year there have not been many newts available for sale in the US, and the one shipment that I know about was offered at a very reasonable price and took quite a while to sell. Make of that what you will.


----------



## Brotherly Monkey

mantisdragon91 said:


> Anything is possible, but I ussually get a heads up from multiple vendors any time anything rare or unusual comes into the country, and every importer I have contacted in the last few days swears up and down that only one shipment of these newts came into the country in 2011 and this was in late March early April. I suppose a shipment could have been smuggled in unknown to all the usual suspects but it seems rather far fetched. More likely is that authors of the article saw this ad from a guy in Canada that was trying to make money on the 40 or so animals that were diverted to Canada as part of the shipment I mentioned earlier and automaticly assumed that this was the going rate for the species in the US (Hence my statement of them not doing enough dilegence on the species market in the States)
> 
> Newts for sale - Edmonton Reptiles Forum


he actually cites fauna classifieds as his source, and that price doesn't match what he listed in the paper. So am unsure why you would assume that was it, especially when such advertisements are not reliably archived anywhere. Also, pointed out something can demand a certain price isn't the same as claiming something as a base rate, or even average


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## mantisdragon91

Brotherly Monkey said:


> he actually cites fauna classifieds as his source, and that price doesn't match what he listed in the paper. So am unsure why you would assume that was it, especially when such advertisements are not reliably archived anywhere. Also, pointed out something can demand a certain price isn't the same as claiming something as a base rate, or even average


You can certainly demand whatever you want. The challenge is actually getting it Do you find it interested that the other add from Fauna Classifieds is still up an running and yet the ad from the same site asking $240 for the newts is nowhere to be found 

Laos Newts, Paramesotriton laosensis RARE - FaunaClassifieds


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## Brotherly Monkey

mantisdragon91 said:


> You can certainly demand whatever you want. The challenge is actually getting it Do you find it interested that the other add from Fauna Classifieds is still up an running and yet the ad from the same site asking $240 for the newts is nowhere to be found
> 
> Laos Newts, Paramesotriton laosensis RARE - FaunaClassifieds


no, not in the slightest. Because, as I pointed out, they could have been easily deleted or removed, and such aren't actively archived


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## Woodsman

I am quite certain that when they were first offered, the asking price was $350.00 per pair. I remember, because I thought someone would have to be mad to pay that for any newts.

I check the Kingsnake and Fauna adds pretty regularly, to see what the new shipments are bringing in.

Richard.


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## JeremyHuff

mantisdragon91 said:


> Anything is possible, but I ussually get a heads up from multiple vendors any time anything rare or unusual comes into the country, and every importer I have contacted in the last few days swears up and down that only one shipment of these newts came into the country in 2011 and this was in late March early April. I suppose a shipment could have been smuggled in unknown to all the usual suspects but it seems rather far fetched. More likely is that authors of the article saw this ad from a guy in Canada that was trying to make money on the 40 or so animals that were diverted to Canada as part of the shipment I mentioned earlier and automaticly assumed that this was the going rate for the species in the US (Hence my statement of them not doing enough dilegence on the species market in the States)
> 
> Newts for sale - Edmonton Reptiles Forum



Roman,
I'm only going to say this once....DON"T BLAME CANADA...


----------



## mantisdragon91

Woodsman said:


> I am quite certain that when they were first offered, the asking price was $350.00 per pair. I remember, because I thought someone would have to be mad to pay that for any newts.
> 
> I check the Kingsnake and Fauna adds pretty regularly, to see what the new shipments are bringing in.
> 
> Richard.


I think this proves my original point that there simply isn't a large market for these animals, especially not at the $240 a specimen range that was claimed in the posted study. The question then becomes what is the dollar value per Newt for medicinal purposes abroad and how many newts are being harvested locally for food and TM. These are the questions that I believe the data is sadly lacking on


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## jacobi

Illegal (and sometimes legal as defined by the country the animal is smuggled from or to) animal collecting and trade for either medicinal, food or pet purposes results in the loss of many thousands of animals of for every few sold. 
Welcome to CITES

mantisdragon91, I believe that you are confusing (either intentionally or unintentionally) the (anecdotal evidence of) collecting animals with the intent of removing them from their habitat for the purposes of EITHER the international pet trade or the international food trade with the consumption (for food or medical purposes) of said species by natives of the area to which the species is endemic. It is extremely possible that the consumption by the natives of the are could or would over the years drive the species to extinction, however, the international trade of these animals by ANYONE is an immediate, present, and inherent threat and dangerto any species. Speaking for myself personally, there are multiple species which on occasion I see offered for sale on forums and importers websites which I would love to own, care for and breed. However, I am NOT a zoo or any kind of institution or private party able to in any way positively affect said species status in the wild, or even in a sufficient quantity to provide enough genetic diversity to ensure the species survival. As such, I absolutely refuse to purchase any animal that has not been captive bred, as doing so would be a contribution on my part to their removal from the wild. If everyone here took the same steps, it would be a step in the right direction.
I can only hope that you feel the same way, after your comments about being informed by importers of the species they have available.


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## jacobi

Asia's Wildlife Trade — National Geographic Magazine

Bastards


----------



## BrianWI

It is too bad fake CB facilities exist in SE Asia. Captive breeding at the site would reduce harvesting long term. Even that, though, may be too little as getting in on the fad early is where the money is.

This is one reason I generally approve of creating new hybrids or morphs in captive breeding efforts. Desire for new morphs may take pressure of looking for new WC specimens.


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## Michael Shrom

kingsnake.com Classifieds: 2.1 Laos Newts, very RARE, the most Awesome newt


----------



## jacobi

BrianWI said:


> It is too bad fake CB facilities exist in SE Asia. Captive breeding at the site would reduce harvesting long term. Even that, though, may be too little as getting in on the fad early is where the money is.
> 
> This is one reason I generally approve of creating new hybrids or morphs in captive breeding efforts. Desire for new morphs may take pressure of looking for new WC specimens.


I'm sure that comment would irate many people here 

I neither agree, nor do I disagree, however as a random thought I have noticed the difference between the snakes hobbyist's quest for new morphs and dart frogs hobbyist's quest for purity.


----------



## thedude

BrianWI said:


> This is one reason I generally approve of creating new hybrids or morphs in captive breeding efforts. Desire for new morphs may take pressure of looking for new WC specimens.


Actually, the morphs and hybrids they make usually winds up causing poor genetics down the line, forcing them to seek out WC animals. This happens often with ball pythons for example. That is one of the main reasons to keep lines pure, if the snake hobby did that, they wouldn't need WC animals for a very long time (100-200 years actually).

Ed, could provide a lot more info about this. Hopefully he chimes in.


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## Brotherly Monkey

thedude said:


> Actually, the morphs and hybrids they make usually winds up causing poor genetics down the line, forcing them to seek out WC animals. This happens often with ball pythons for example. That is one of the main reasons to keep lines pure, if the snake hobby did that, they wouldn't need WC animals for a very long time (100-200 years actually).
> 
> Ed, could provide a lot more info about this. Hopefully he chimes in.


isn't that actually dependent on active management of those "pure lines"?


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## skylsdale

Brotherly Monkey said:


> isn't that actually dependent on active management of those "pure lines"?


Yes...and proper management has yet to happen, hence the problems thedude mentions. There is a false sense of security on boards and forums as people talk about the need and importance of responsible management...it results in what is called "magical thinking." By talking about enough, we actually begin to think it must be happening somewhere (otherwise, why would we be talking about it?)...when, in fact, it's not. So we have created this false sense that everything is moving along fine, but in reality things are just as mismanaged as ever.

I believe there was a point in time where you couldn't find a 'wild type' corn snake because of the designer morph craze, so a large effort in wild collection of more stock had to take place.


----------



## dfrmav

BrianWI said:


> This is one reason I generally approve of creating new hybrids or morphs in captive breeding efforts. Desire for new morphs may take pressure of looking for new WC specimens.


Just like frogs trampling broms right? What exactly are you experienced in keeping?


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> This is one reason I generally approve of creating new hybrids or morphs in captive breeding efforts. Desire for new morphs may take pressure of looking for new WC specimens.


Actually this doesn't take the pressure off of wild caught animals... in fact we can look at the numbers of ball pythons reported exported from Africa.. the numbers have not shown any significant declines since ball pythons became commonly bred in large numbers.... This is one of the basic tenets of "conservation by captive breeding" which is not supported by any studies.... See the three parts in the thread with the breakdown starting here http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-2.html#post576511 

In addiiton to ball pythons we can look at leopard geckos which were not only the results of crossing the various subspecies but the desire for color variations resulted in the loss of the original wild type (and the genetic variations) resulting in breeders bringing in wild collected animals due to the loss of stability in various color variations (such as the infamous problems with enigmas for example). We can also see this in other species where people pushed inbreeding for a trait to the point it was rendered non-viable and the subsequent increase in wild caught animals to revive the populations.. for example back in the late 1980s and early 1990s there effort to modify banding lengths in various tricolor snakes via "sock headed" patterns resulted in snakes that failed to hatch and if artificially hatched died.. the original blood corn that was not only a weak animal but was so inbred that the diet cues were changed and hatchlings would initially only take snakes resulting in a requirement for force feeding... 

The desire for "morphs" doesn't decrease demand for wild caught animals, it actually increases demand over time as simple dominent or recessive alleles result in a demand from breeders with smaller budgets to allow for crossing with an inexpensive animal to produce heterozygous animals and in the case of recessive traits to allow for backcrossing..... 

Some comments,

Ed


----------



## thedude

Ed said:


> Actually this doesn't take the pressure off of wild caught animals... in fact we can look at the numbers of ball pythons reported exported from Africa.. the numbers have not shown any significant declines since ball pythons became commonly bred in large numbers.... This is one of the basic tenets of "conservation by captive breeding" which is not supported by any studies.... See the three parts in the thread with the breakdown starting here http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-2.html#post576511
> 
> In addiiton to ball pythons we can look at leopard geckos which were not only the results of crossing the various subspecies but the desire for color variations resulted in the loss of the original wild type (and the genetic variations) resulting in breeders bringing in wild collected animals due to the loss of stability in various color variations (such as the infamous problems with enigmas for example). We can also see this in other species where people pushed inbreeding for a trait to the point it was rendered non-viable and the subsequent increase in wild caught animals to revive the populations.. for example back in the late 1980s and early 1990s there effort to modify banding lengths in various tricolor snakes via "sock headed" patterns resulted in snakes that failed to hatch and if artificially hatched died.. the original blood corn that was not only a weak animal but was so inbred that the diet cues were changed and hatchlings would initially only take snakes resulting in a requirement for force feeding...
> 
> The desire for "morphs" doesn't decrease demand for wild caught animals, it actually increases demand over time as simple dominent or recessive alleles result in a demand from breeders with smaller budgets to allow for crossing with an inexpensive animal to produce heterozygous animals and in the case of recessive traits to allow for backcrossing.....
> 
> Some comments,
> 
> Ed


Who called it?  Thanks Ed


----------



## BrianWI

Ed,

I have noticed you do like to argue extremes. However, in many of your threads, it has led you to arguing logical fallacies. Just an observation. You violated here your own "individual case" evaluation you mentioned in Part 2.

I've done my share of genetics work. Some has been simply taxonomic correction. Other work has involved restoring bottlenecked populations using animals with a common ancestor. I have even utilized composite bred animals to restore certain traits.

Two things really affect captive breeding efforts more than all else: peoples ideas and money.

The first generally is an argument over genetic "purity" and its value.

The second of course is what is something worth monetarily.

Lets take an example I have worked with, the most recent import of the Manchurian Ringneck pheasant. Early generations don't do well in captivity and could bottleneck genetically. They were crossed with captive lines of Chinese ringnecks and did better in captivity. That had value for keeping them, but since many were released into the wild and did not survive as well as the wild imports, that subtracted some value. Releasing expensive import birds isn't economical, but the cheaper F1 crosses was affordable. The associated "values" of those issues is debatable.

Turn to dart frogs. I would assume that the lines that have been in captivity the longest have had time to self-select for traits that help them better survive in captivity. That is a value. Since there is no release program, this type of selection has no real downside unless there are "visual changes" that make them of lesser pet value. Unless you breed poorly and create non-viable traits in these populations, I just don't see a downside... EXCEPT if it is someone elses' MISGUIDED opinion that these frogs are somehow inferior to WC specimens. This opinion can lead to some people wanting WC frogs. However, I do not see your logical connection to this causing MORE importation. That connection doesn't exist. More later....

Many people like new morphs of animals. In DF's, one could get them from the wild populations or satisfy that need by creating them in captivity. I have seen that the "purists" who discourage the latter create a climate in which more people do it "secretly". That creates a boom/ bust for "rare" traits. That in turn leads to short cuts in breeding to "get while the getting is good" as far as profit. Sure, maybe WC species are brought in to stabilize bad breeding projects, but the logical link to that creating MORE importation doesn't exist. Nor does outcrossing a morph to a WC specimen have more value than using CB "wild types" to do the same.

Since some of this may need to have more details applied in future posts, I will cut it short. But the point is, the pet trade is not conservation, so what "value" is there in keeping various WC geographical morphs "pure" in captivity? There may not be a real clear answer to that question. However, driving crossbreeding experiments underground certainly has a huge downside.


----------



## thedude

BrianWI said:


> Since some of this may need to have more details applied in future posts, I will cut it short. But the point is, the pet trade is not conservation, so what "value" is there in keeping various WC geographical morphs "pure" in captivity? There may not be a real clear answer to that question. However, driving crossbreeding experiments underground certainly has a huge downside.


First of all, it isn't conservation in the traditional sense, but the zoo's and other institutes don't have the means to keep all species, populations, or traits around in captivity and we can help with that. Also, as has been stated, one of several reasons to keep lines pure and close to wild type is to keep from continuously bringing in new blood from the wild. And again, this is something that commonly happens in other herp hobbies. Second of all, encouraging cross-breeds and hybrids would be better to you? At least this way, the people that really want what's best for the hobby are known, and we can track lines and how they are doing somewhat easily.

Also, we generally seem to shy away from the pet trade for the most part. This is more like a tight nit community that enjoy a great hobby. At least that's the way it seems 95% of the time.


----------



## BrianWI

You demonstrate one of the ways of thinking that should be reevaluated. Why does breeding close to the wild type have value? Having to bring in wc breeders can have more bad than good. If you think keeping them "pure" is good, you have the right to do it. Just as those who want to hybridize do. And both can be done, it just takes producing more frogs.

That is where monetary limitations comes in. You can only keep in the proper manner what you can afford to. So shortcuts happen when you reach too far. You can offset that by having more people openly participating in any given project.

Here is the direct question you should answer. WHY do I need to keep the line pure and how do I define that purity? There again is no logical connection between wild caught and cb frogs except what you FEEL you want.


----------



## BrianWI

The other thing to remember is you ARE keeping pets. You can call it something else, but unless you are doing pure research on these animals, you are keeping them as pets. Sure, there is a difference between a dedicated pet owner and those looking for the latest fad, but it still all falls under pet trade.

What frogs are you keeping currently in captivity that will be extinct in the wild?


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> Ed,
> 
> I have noticed you do like to argue extremes. However, in many of your threads, it has led you to arguing logical fallacies. Just an observation. You violated here your own "individual case" evaluation you mentioned in Part 2.


Actually I don't think I did violate it. Your argument is that new morphs and hybrids would take pressure off of wild populations and I responded to that argument. As for the "extreme", I simply used the most obvious examples off the top of my head that I've seen over the last 30 plus years... 



BrianWI said:


> I've done my share of genetics work. Some has been simply taxonomic correction. Other work has involved restoring bottlenecked populations using animals with a common ancestor. I have even utilized composite bred animals to restore certain traits.


Using even closely related populations can result in issues down the road with outbreeding depression.. As a conservation management tool, that is coming under scrutiny as being a real issue that is covered in the following pdf ... http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/wfb224/edmands.pdf 
As for real world examples we can look at the result of outcrossing on the Dusky seaside sparrows... 



BrianWI said:


> Lets take an example I have worked with, the most recent import of the Manchurian Ringneck pheasant. Early generations don't do well in captivity and could bottleneck genetically. They were crossed with captive lines of Chinese ringnecks and did better in captivity. That had value for keeping them, but since many were released into the wild and did not survive as well as the wild imports, that subtracted some value. Releasing expensive import birds isn't economical, but the cheaper F1 crosses was affordable. The associated "values" of those issues is debatable.


Adaptations to captivity that are maladaptive for release populations are well known and documented in multiple taxa.. some of the captive adaptations are to the point where the animals in captivity couldn't even be used to model animals in the wild....(example some of the captive population of desert pupfish). These adaptations are also documented to be detrimental to the wild populations if the captive raised animals are allowed to interbreed with the wild populations (example hatchery raised salmon). I clearly pointed out in the link I provided that since the captive dart frog populations are not managed for genetic diversity much less traits that are maladaptive in the wild that we cannot consider captive breeding to automatically equate to conservation. However, loss of genetic diversity and changes in the population so they are not as robust or colorful as the wild caught animals drives the desire for more imports (whether legal or not) and anything that increases demand (including hybrids and artificially selected morphs) for wild caught animals is a problem.. As I noted above, ball pythons provide a clear example of how morphs and hybrids drive a greater desire for wild caught animals (in the case of ball pythons the collection of wild deposited eggs and females about to oviposit). These numbers are readily available through the CITES trade database. 



BrianWI said:


> Turn to dart frogs. I would assume that the lines that have been in captivity the longest have had time to self-select for traits that help them better survive in captivity. That is a value. Since there is no release program, this type of selection has no real downside unless there are "visual changes" that make them of lesser pet value.


This ignores other potential behavioral changes that can occur.. for example we can easily hypothesize a decrease in parental behaviors since other than obligate egg feeders, it is not uncommon for hobbyists and breeders to pull all clutches which puts a selection advantage on animals that spend less energy and time on parental care as that energy can be channeled into display and more eggs... Focusing solely on visual patterns is ignoring the bigger picture (for example reduction of histocompatability complex diversity rendering the animal(s) more susceptiable to a disease (we can look at domestic dogs for classic examples with differences in susceptiability to canine parvovirus between breeds (morphs!)



BrianWI said:


> Unless you breed poorly and create non-viable traits in these populations, I just don't see a downside... EXCEPT if it is someone elses' MISGUIDED opinion that these frogs are somehow inferior to WC specimens. This opinion can lead to some people wanting WC frogs. However, I do not see your logical connection to this causing MORE importation. That connection doesn't exist. More later....


Your argument on poor breeding ignores the potential detrimental impact of the "new" morphs and hybrids (such as outbreeding depression) acceleration of inbreeding depression by reducing the number of breeding animals in the normal population, acceleration of popularity cycles... all of which can render the established population non-viable.. If I remember correctly, the hobby has already lost one morph of tricolor/anthyonii... 



BrianWI said:


> . Sure, maybe WC species are brought in to stabilize bad breeding projects, but the logical link to that creating MORE importation doesn't exist. Nor does outcrossing a morph to a WC specimen have more value than using CB "wild types" to do the same.


So name one "good" hobbyist breeding program that doesn't neccesitate eventual new imports? 
So how do you get the lack of logic that if more wild caughts are required over time to deal with "bad" breeding projects that it won't create more importations? How is the creation of hybrids and artificially selected inbred morphs not "bad" breeding since it reduces holding space for the original species/populations/morphs which has a direct impact on popularity and/or genetic variation in the population? 

Some comments,

Ed


----------



## thedude

BrianWI said:


> You demonstrate one of the ways of thinking that should be reevaluated. Why does breeding close to the wild type have value? Having to bring in wc breeders can have more bad than good. If you think keeping them "pure" is good, you have the right to do it. Just as those who want to hybridize do. And both can be done, it just takes producing more frogs.


I fail to see your connection here. We DON'T want to bring in wild type frogs because that means more importing/exporting of nature, and that's why breeding wild type frogs has value. Both of those questions were answered in an earlier post.

Of course people have the right to hybridize. It is discouraged for several reasons. It's a matter of ethics, not freedom. So thats a moot point.

You may think both can be done, but it is unlikely. As I and many others have stated before, plenty of frogs have been lost in this hobby over the years, and still are. There aren't enough people in this hobby to keep all the pure lines around, what makes you think there's enough to keep hybrids and cross breeds around?

And yes, they are pets, but that doesn't mean we can't be a part of something bigger. 

While none are extremely close to going extinct there are quite a few amphibians people are keeping that are threatened, endangered, and critically endangered. Ranitomeya summersi being one I keep. There's the 'Tingo Maria' sirensis, benedicta, 'Sisa' bassleri, silverstonei, silvaticus, vittata, aurotaenia, terribilis, bicolor, histrionica, granuliferus, several mantella species, Gastrotheca riobambae, ceratophrys stolzmanni, Cruziohyla calcarifer, Hylomantis lemur, and quite a few other species.

There have also been several breeding projects by pet owners that have helped keep captive populations of several asian turtle species, and a few caudates.


----------



## BrianWI

Ed,

Part of the problem is you tend to lose focus in your posts. Try to not assume opinions I have not given. It will be easier.

I'll keep it simpler to try to help keep focus.

One reason hybrids or CB morphs don't satisfy certain needs is the prevailing attitude. Your helping create that attitude with a rallying cry of "wild stock diversity". And as far as keeping pets goes, its bunk.


We are looking at an animal, dart frogs, that have rapid reproduction. I can easily evaluate any outcrossing depression that may occur and again, since I am selecting for pets, not release, you are getting a bit "out there". Your dusky seaside sparrow example is meaningless as the whole remaining population used in that effort was 7 males. Combining that limitation with the habitat destruction that originally killed them off makes that a complete misfit for your theory. Simply put, outcrossing depression was not the biggest enemy or have any real proof of being a culprit at all! Top it off with being a release based effort, it just doesn't apply.

On the next section, wild survivability in captive bred Df's is a non-issue. We are dealing with animals in captivity. There are plenty of pet animals that no longer reproduce without human help like artificial incubation, removal of young, etc. SO WHAT? We are breeding pets.

You keep referring to importing ball pythons. Why are WC still being brought in? The BIGGEST reason is imports are cheaper. Hence, the reason more people breed morphs than breed "wild type" ball pythons is money, not genetics. The cheap price is the enemy, not morphs. You are suggesting we cut of someones arm to eliminate a hangnail.

Dogs are a whole different subject. Most lines were created LONG before genetics was understood. And getting breeders away from being absolutely obsessed with linebreeding is near impossible.

Your last paragraph shows logical errors. If "new" drives popularity (it does) how is a cb morph increasing importation? You erroneously say it is because of less normals in the captive population forcing more stock to be imported for breeding efforts. But if instead of a new interesting morph, people choose a newly discovered species, we are still going to be removing frogs from the wild at an even higher rate! And maybe of a rarer species, doing more damage overall. OOps.


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> Ed,
> One reason hybrids or CB morphs don't satisfy certain needs is the prevailing attitude. Your helping create that attitude with a rallying cry of "wild stock diversity". And as far as keeping pets goes, its bunk.


Oddly enough you have no evidence to the contrary so this is nothing more than an unsupported opinion which is why I pointed at it as one of the flaws in the tenet of "captive breeding for conservations".. I have provided evidence for the opposite side of the argument while you have done nothing but supply unsupported dogma and opinion. 



BrianWI said:


> We are looking at an animal, dart frogs, that have rapid reproduction. I can easily evaluate any outcrossing depression that may occur and again, since I am selecting for pets, not release, you are getting a bit "out there". Your dusky seaside sparrow example is meaningless as the whole remaining population used in that effort was 7 males. Combining that limitation with the habitat destruction that originally killed them off makes that a complete misfit for your theory. Simply put, outcrossing depression was not the biggest enemy or have any real proof of being a culprit at all! Top it off with being a release based effort, it just doesn't apply.


Actually it isn't out there since as a conservation example to counter your unsupported argument, it provides proof directly opposite to you a claim that you made (which was part of unfocused rambling on your part since you moved from captive breeding to random comments on conservation). 



BrianWI said:


> On the next section, wild survivability in captive bred Df's is a non-issue. We are dealing with animals in captivity. There are plenty of pet animals that no longer reproduce without human help like artificial incubation, removal of young, etc. SO WHAT? We are breeding pets.


I think I've covered this adequately in the linked information. Try again with some actual data.. 



BrianWI said:


> You keep referring to importing ball pythons. Why are WC still being brought in? The BIGGEST reason is imports are cheaper. Hence, the reason more people breed morphs than breed "wild type" ball pythons is money, not genetics. The cheap price is the enemy, not morphs. You are suggesting we cut of someones arm to eliminate a hangnail.


Unsupported dogmatic opinion. Please supply proof that it isn't analogous to the issue (and I've also covered this elsewhere (see the linked article).It is actually directly relevent to the whole argument that you presented that hybrids and breeding for specific morphs reduces demand on the wild populations since there are literally potentially hundreds of color variations in the ball python market and thousands of ball pythons captive bred for patterns and colors and demand for wild caught animals has not dropped at all..... 



BrianWI said:


> Dogs are a whole different subject. Most lines were created LONG before genetics was understood. And getting breeders away from being absolutely obsessed with linebreeding is near impossible.


So? The fact that it occured a long time ago doesn't invalidate the point, since the frogs are bred for traits as well instead of genetic diversity (coloration of offspring, direct selection for color (chocolate leucomelas, sky blue azureus, no dot citronella...).... Your attempting to dodge the point by attempting to dismiss it even though it is actively occuring in the hobby today.... 



BrianWI said:


> Your last paragraph shows logical errors. If "new" drives popularity (it does) how is a cb morph increasing importation? You erroneously say it is because of less normals in the captive population forcing more stock to be imported for breeding efforts. But if instead of a new interesting morph, people choose a newly discovered species, we are still going to be removing frogs from the wild at an even higher rate! And maybe of a rarer species, doing more damage overall. OOps.


It isn't a logical error on my part.. you are attempting to divert attention from the argument on your part that morphs and hybrids do not damage the captive population. I did not miss it, I simply stayed focused on your point. If we want to include it, then it will amplify the risk to the population and we can see that occuring in the hobby whenever a new morph becomes available.. the most recent was when Panama opened up again and pumilip began to be imported, larger frogs like those in the tinctorius group were displaced by the imported pumilio variants..... 


I'm still waitiing to hear your response to the following 


> So name one "good" hobbyist breeding program that doesn't neccesitate eventual new imports?
> So how do you get the lack of logic that if more wild caughts are required over time to deal with "bad" breeding projects that it won't create more importations? How is the creation of hybrids and artificially selected inbred morphs not "bad" breeding since it reduces holding space for the original species/populations/morphs which has a direct impact on popularity and/or genetic variation in the population?


Care to respond in a real manner or are you simply trolling by trying to start flame wars such as making insulting or inflammatory comments in multiple parts of the forum...? 

Ed


----------



## BrianWI

> Oddly enough you have no evidence to the contrary so this is nothing more than an unsupported opinion which is why I pointed at it as one of the flaws in the tenet of "captive breeding for conservations".. I have provided evidence for the opposite side of the argument while you have done nothing but supply unsupported dogma and opinion.


Really? we have ZERO pet animals breeding without constant reintroduction of "wild blood". News to me...



> Actually it isn't out there since as a conservation example to counter your unsupported argument, it provides proof directly opposite to you a claim that you made (which was part of unfocused rambling on your part since you moved from captive breeding to random comments on conservation).


Your answer is REALLY that you are just going to say it is proof, even with MANY way more involved details than what you claim? You have just given a great example of how "Scientists" like you put out so much junk. You want to say x+y=1 from the equation ((x^3+ bcd) - e(y^6-12g/f))/(6h^5log12=5g-7x+15y)^2. I suppose it does, just leave out the factors you want to ignore. In the end, no, the dusky sparrow was not a failure of ourbreeding.



> I think I've covered this adequately in the linked information. Try again with some actual data..


I LOVE science guys without any comprehension of logic. Asking for proof something does not exist. You should know better than that!



> Unsupported dogmatic opinion. Please supply proof that it isn't analogous to the issue (and I've also covered this elsewhere (see the linked article).It is actually directly relevent to the whole argument that you presented that hybrids and breeding for specific morphs reduces demand on the wild populations since there are literally potentially hundreds of color variations in the ball python market and thousands of ball pythons captive bred for patterns and colors and demand for wild caught animals has not dropped at all.....


Another argument lost to not having any logic flow. You academic types do this alot. Its what gives us more and more junk solutions to junk science. So, you are saying price has no influence on why cb animals dont sell as well as WC? Interesting... but wrong. You are even drifting away from your own position in other threads just to try to win an argument. Maybe no one will notice.



> So? The fact that it occured a long time ago doesn't invalidate the point, since the frogs are bred for traits as well instead of genetic diversity (coloration of offspring, direct selection for color (chocolate leucomelas, sky blue azureus, no dot citronella...).... Your attempting to dodge the point by attempting to dismiss it even though it is actively occuring in the hobby today....


Two things. First, why dogs show the problems they do is a completely different argument. However, you brought them up after MISUNDERSTANDING and DRIFTING of the original target. However, lets say this? How often do dogs require outcrossing to their wild counterparts? I know of ONE single project that did it, reopening the registry to add new animals. ABSOLUTE PROOF it can be done. Pick any number of fowl, rodents, etc. in the pet trade that are NEVER crossed back to wild stock. I can't do that with a frog? Big assumption.



> It isn't a logical error on my part.. you are attempting to divert attention from the argument on your part that morphs and hybrids do not damage the captive population. I did not miss it, I simply stayed focused on your point. If we want to include it, then it will amplify the risk to the population and we can see that occuring in the hobby whenever a new morph becomes available.. the most recent was when Panama opened up again and pumilip began to be imported, larger frogs like those in the tinctorius group were displaced by the imported pumilio variants.....


Man, I wish you had taken some courses in logic, you get farter off all the time. And you don't like moderation because point to point, your logical fallacies don't hold up. You are accomplished at arguing with people who don't know any better, I am sure, but you can't get away with it here. I am going to moderate you, whether you like it or not. Hopefully fear of the outcome won't stop your participation.

Lets start with the simple premise. You think cb morphs drive importation. Do you believe that to create new morphs, lets say of your beloved ball python, it is NECESSARY to import new ones to regain lost genetic diversity for snakes that will forever be kept as simply pets?

This is necessary to keep you on point I think. You have gone beyond all logic in your answer and just keep drifting......

And finally, asking someone if they are trolling is... TROLLING. I have seen you do it... ALOT.

As for not needing any new imports... we can go again to any domesticated animal. There are tons of poultry, rodents, fish, insects, etc., etc., etc., that do not require imports of new genetic stock.


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## thedude

You've been on here not even a month and you're calling out someone who is one of the most respected members on this forum. Not only that but he provides countless facts, theories, and documents about what you call "junk science" every day. And he is an amazing biologist with plenty of zoological background.

All I've seen from you is opinions and question dodging and derogatory remarks. By the way, it seems like some of what your saying are insults, which, is in fact, trolling.


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## MonarchzMan

Someone just called Ed a troll... *snort*












> As for not needing any new imports... we can go again to any domesticated animal. There are tons of poultry, rodents, fish, insects, etc., etc., etc., that do not require imports of new genetic stock.


And for those domesticated animals (keep in mind that exotics, like dart frogs aren't really domesticated, by and large; and that domestication takes a great deal of time), you do see a great deal of genetic problems associated with a limited breeding pool in those species, whether it is proclivity to hip dysplasia or reduced fertility. Problems that could be reduced or solved by an outcross to a wild counterpart to increase heterozygosity.


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## Ed

BrianWI said:


> Really? we have ZERO pet animals breeding without constant reintroduction of "wild blood". News to me...


Irrelevent to the discussion since you are ignoring the impact of genetic bottlenecks during domestication. 



BrianWI said:


> Your answer is REALLY that you are just going to say it is proof, even with MANY way more involved details than what you claim? You have just given a great example of how "Scientists" like you put out so much junk. You want to say x+y=1 from the equation ((x^3+ bcd) - e(y^6-12g/f))/(6h^5log12=5g-7x+15y)^2. I suppose it does, just leave out the factors you want to ignore. In the end, no, the dusky sparrow was not a failure of ourbreeding.


Actually yes the failure of the dusky sparrow conservation program was directly due to outbreeding. 



BrianWI said:


> I LOVE science guys without any comprehension of logic. Asking for proof something does not exist. You should know better than that!


Irrelevent. Attempting to avoid providing examples and counterpoint through inferred insults and avoidence. 




BrianWI said:


> Another argument lost to not having any logic flow. You academic types do this alot. Its what gives us more and more junk solutions to junk science. So, you are saying price has no influence on why cb animals dont sell as well as WC? Interesting... but wrong. You are even drifting away from your own position in other threads just to try to win an argument. Maybe no one will notice.


Irrelevent and an atttempt to distract from the faulty issues your position has given you. 



BrianWI said:


> Two things. First, why dogs show the problems they do is a completely different argument. However, you brought them up after MISUNDERSTANDING and DRIFTING of the original target.


Actually no, it is relevent, you have yet to demonstrate that I misunderstood at all. Irrelevent attempt to distract from the discussion. 



BrianWI said:


> However, lets say this? How often do dogs require outcrossing to their wild counterparts? I know of ONE single project that did it, reopening the registry to add new animals.


Irrelevent since you are attempting to again get off point. 



BrianWI said:


> ABSOLUTE PROOF it can be done. Pick any number of fowl, rodents, etc. in the pet trade that are NEVER crossed back to wild stock. I can't do that with a frog? Big assumption.


Irrelevent.. please stay focused on the discussion at hand which was that hybrids and artificial selection for specific traits is not only a negative to the captive population but due to issues with the captive frogs we then see an increased demand for new imports. 




BrianWI said:


> Man, I wish you had taken some courses in logic, you get farter off all the time. And you don't like moderation because point to point, your logical fallacies don't hold up. You are accomplished at arguing with people who don't know any better, I am sure, but you can't get away with it here. I am going to moderate you, whether you like it or not. Hopefully fear of the outcome won't stop your participation.


Irrelevent to the discussion since you are attempting to get off point through insults and avoidence of the topic. 



BrianWI said:


> Lets start with the simple premise. You think cb morphs drive importation. Do you believe that to create new morphs, lets say of your beloved ball python, it is NECESSARY to import new ones to regain lost genetic diversity for snakes that will forever be kept as simply pets?


It doesn't matter what I believe, the numbers produced and imported to meet the trade demand put the direct lie to your position.... 



BrianWI said:


> This is necessary to keep you on point I think. You have gone beyond all logic in your answer and just keep drifting......
> 
> And finally, asking someone if they are trolling is... TROLLING. I have seen you do it... ALOT.


Insults, and and attempts to get off the point. 



BrianWI said:


> As for not needing any new imports... we can go again to any domesticated animal. There are tons of poultry, rodents, fish, insects, etc., etc., etc., that do not require imports of new genetic stock.


Irrelevent attempt to get off the point. 

Ed


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## BrianWI

I kind of figured you would react with strong avoidance when I tried to nail you down from continuing with poor logic. I will try again, but you will have to be moderated to keep you on task. I can see that. You have a tendancy to drift off point, then accuse the other side of causing it. I see it in a LOT of your posts. Lets hope you can do better if we keep it simple and are OK if perhaps you are found to be wrong and can continue without ego.

Lets stay right with dart frog. We'll pick azureus. Do you believe that staying within that that small breed or morph that we can breed them in captivity without ever needing to reintroduce blood from WC specimens?


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## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> Lets stay right with dart frog. We'll pick azureus. Do you believe that staying within that that small breed or morph that we can breed them in captivity without ever needing to reintroduce blood from WC specimens?


You really do pick them. You ought to do a little research on the history of azureus in the U.S., and then you might have picked a better example to start with.


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## srrrio

It is my fault, I suspected of him of wanting to turn my azureus into coco cola emblazoned hybrids, which may have given him the idea. 

Sally



MonarchzMan said:


> You really do pick them. You ought to do a little research on the history of azureus in the U.S., and then you might have picked a better example to start with.


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## Ed

BrianWI said:


> I kind of figured you would react with strong avoidance when I tried to nail you down from continuing with poor logic. I will try again, but you will have to be moderated to keep you on task. I can see that. You have a tendancy to drift off point, then accuse the other side of causing it. I see it in a LOT of your posts. Lets hope you can do better if we keep it simple and are OK if perhaps you are found to be wrong and can continue without ego.
> 
> Lets stay right with dart frog. We'll pick azureus. Do you believe that staying within that that small breed or morph that we can breed them in captivity without ever needing to reintroduce blood from WC specimens?


Still making attempts with the insults..despite repeated failures to distract me from the point.. 

Lets put to bed your attempt to claim I'm avoiding the discussion.. this is exactly what you said...



BrianWI said:


> This is one reason I generally approve of creating new hybrids or morphs in captive breeding efforts. Desire for new morphs may take pressure of looking for new WC specimens.


You directly stated that production of hybrids and new morphs would take pressure off of looking for new wild caught animals. I refuted that point and you began to wander all over the map.. to which I responded with direct points. 

But lets look at your azureus example.. Yes, if the population is managed it could easily be sustainable for more than 100-500 years with no further input from wild caught animals.. The key is that it has to be managed.. the current way it is handled by the hobby is not managing for genetic diversity and hence it is going to require new bloodlines at some point or it will end up being heavily inbred and non-viable.. As a direct analgoy (since the number of founders is very similar), we can look at the success of Przewalski's horse mangement.. where the current population is based on 9 founders...... 

Ed


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## BrianWI

FINALLY! A direct answer! I love it!

OK, lets go on, but keep the responses short and to the point. Ot may take time, but the message is clearer.


Now as for my quote. I did not say it would take pressure. That is why the word "may" is in there. The reason "may" is in there is because like many things, breeding is often about misconceptions and attitudes. No response to this necessary.


So, you agree it can be done. OK, we are getting somewhere. We could breed, in your opinion, for 100-500 years, azeures, the Tinc morph. Now I know because of reclassification, this gets hairy. However, you agree that "submorphs" occur in azureus, like powder blue, correct? If you don't like submorphs, pick another term.

This part is a side note for clarification: you are stating that, to your knowledge, the entire population of azureus in the US came from approx. 9 animals that were imported?


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## thedude

BrianWI said:


> So, you agree it can be done. OK, we are getting somewhere. We could breed, in your opinion, for 100-500 years, azeures, the Tinc morph. Now I know because of reclassification, this gets hairy. However, you agree that "submorphs" occur in azureus, like powder blue, correct? If you don't like submorphs, pick another term.


Submorphs would be a bad term unless you were talking about something like "small spots", or "Sky blue" morphs occurring within the azureus population. As for powder blues, citronella, lorenzo, etc. they are all separate populations. So different populations occur within the tinctorius species, and different morphs within those populations.


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## BrianWI

As you just identified sub morphs, sky blue or small spots, that is what I am referring to. I looked at a site that called powder blue an azureus, hence using it. But if that is not a submorph, lets leave it out. I am specifically referring to azureus and any morphs of azureus.

Ed, I hope that is clearer.


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## jacobi

BrianWI, I'm having difficulty understanding your intentions. Do you have something that you are trying to say that may educate the people on this board? If so, I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to tell us, due to the course the conversation has taken. Perhaps you have some references to make things clearer? 

Jake


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## BrianWI

You'll have to have patience. If it takes time between replies, we may not get their for a bit in this slower moderated format. But at least it won't drift off point.


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## heyduke

Yeah, I think you should take this to dart den.... There. Are some folks that would be more than happy to argue with you. And to me, and most here, that seems to be all you are looking for.


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## BrianWI

Fight the urge to "clique".


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## MonarchzMan

Brian, you should find a little respect. You're dealing with people who have bred dart frogs for many years as well as people who are well versed in genetics, conservation, and zoological practices. They have been very active in promoting captive breeding programs among hobbyists so that the need for wild caughts is reduced. They have more experience in their little finger than you do in total. Needless to say, they're past the point where they're putting plastic water dishes in their vivs.


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## thedude

Hes ignored too many good points and too much evidence now for me to care. And judging from Eds lack of posting, I think he probably doesn't either.

Hopefully the thread continues with more useful posts.


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## BrianWI

You can be stuck in a way of thinking if you want. I, on the other hand, would love to hear from people who ARE working on new breeding new morphs or crosses of existing morphs. The few I have seen have been interesting. If you stop patting yourself on the back, sometimes you may learn something new


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## mantisdragon91

BrianWI said:


> You can be stuck in a way of thinking if you want. I, on the other hand, would love to hear from people who ARE working on new breeding new morphs or crosses of existing morphs. The few I have seen have been interesting.* If you stop patting yourself on the back, sometimes you may learn something new *


We already learned that you are a hate spewing mysogynist does that count for anything


----------



## thedude

BrianWI said:


> You can be stuck in a way of thinking if you want. I, on the other hand, would love to hear from people who ARE working on new breeding new morphs or crosses of existing morphs. The few I have seen have been interesting. If you stop patting yourself on the back, sometimes you may learn something new


Patting ourselves on the back? You're the one he thinks he can improve this:










Maybe if you quit babbling and listened to the evidence people provide you, you would learn something. This hobby has done fine for 30+ years without crossbreeds, hybrids, and designer BS, why do you want to ruin it?


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## BrianWI

You guys are funny. "I congratulate you on your random matings". Really, someone posted that. Its so lame and counterproductive.

I can't breed for color? NATURE BREEDS FOR COLOR! In some animals, the animals themselves do the selection for color, in others predators do the selection. Various colors or morphs of frogs interbreed without regard to color where ranges overlap. If you aren't doing the same, then you may be not following the natural course the wild frogs are following. ARe you improving on nature?


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## MonarchzMan

Brian, you should start by reading some of the research that has been done on dendrobatids. For one, you don't know what you're talking about for frogs interbreeding without regard for color where ranges overlap. There has been considerable research and support for frogs breeding according to similar color, even in populations that are highly polymorphic, such as the Bastimentos Cemetery population of _Oophaga pumilio_ which show a wide range of polymorphism within the population.

Random mating, if you knew your genetics, precisely does not improve upon nature. It keeps allele frequencies constant in the captive population and does not change them. That's just simple conservation genetics. It's when people start selecting for colors or whatever that they are trying to improve upon nature.


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## thedude

You are comparing evolutionary processes that occur naturally in the wild to you trying to improve on that by mixing different populations of frogs that would not interbreed in nature. No we aren't improving on nature, we are trying to manage the captive populations of frogs so their gene pool keeps the same allele frequency as what is expressed naturally in the wild population. 

THIS ISN"T ABOUT DIFFERENT MORPHS BREEDING TOGETHER IN NATURE. If you stopped and read what people said you would get it but you aren't. If the Cemetary population of pumilio on bastimento has reds, oranges, greens, and whites that all interbreed it is a good thing to keep them together and breed them as they do in nature. However, you should not be breeding those frogs with the Salt Creek population because they DON"T INTERBREED NATURALLY.

What aren't you understanding? How long have you been in the hobby? Have you dont any research on these animals or are you just trolling?


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## BrianWI

JP, really, stalking me too?

First, you don't know what you read. Second, if you think frogs should only breed within their color in that locale, then you are against what others say on the same subject, yet both groups of you think you are preserving the captive gene pool. 

In the wild, the frogs that end up mating are hardly paired by random. As for color, thhe argument can go either way. If you think those populations of frogs are breeding by color 100% of the time, thats awesome. Wonder how they got to be different colors then? Are they picky enough to choose yellow over orange? Picky enough to to choose bright yellow over dull yellow? Picky enough to choose bright yellow overall vs bright yellow with a white stomach?


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## BrianWI

Why must your captive frogs match the wild populations?


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## thedude

BrianWI said:


> JP, really, stalking me too?
> 
> First, you don't know what you read. Second, if you think frogs should only breed within their color in that locale, then you are against what others say on the same subject, yet both groups of you think you are preserving the captive gene pool.
> 
> In the wild, the frogs that end up mating are hardly paired by random. As for color, thhe argument can go either way. If you think those populations of frogs are breeding by color 100% of the time, thats awesome. Wonder how they got to be different colors then? Are they picky enough to choose yellow over orange? Picky enough to to choose bright yellow over dull yellow? Picky enough to choose bright yellow overall vs bright yellow with a white stomach?


That's not what he said at all. Slow down while you read other peoples posts.

Also, you may want to pick up a biology book and read up on both genetics and ecology.

I'm out, he's either to ignorant or he's just trolling.


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## BrianWI

> There has been considerable research and support for frogs breeding according to similar color, even in populations that are highly polymorphic, such as the Bastimentos Cemetery population of Oophaga pumilio which show a wide range of polymorphism within the population.


JP said the above, the frogs in this population breed by color....



> If the Cemetary population of pumilio on bastimento has reds, oranges, greens, and whites that all interbreed it is a good thing to keep them together and breed them as they do in nature.


Here thedude says they interbreed.

Huh, seem to be saying the opposite. Weird, huh?


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## MonarchzMan

Brian, you do not know what you are talking about, but I'll break down the basic genetics for you, since you don't know genetics.

The response Ed had given about Azureus being able to be maintained for 100-500 years is based off of the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium. Essentially, these are conditions necessary for evolution (i.e., changes in allele frequency) NOT to happen. In a captive population, all can be met, but the one most often broken is random mating. By having non-random mating, alleles get fixed, eventually in a population. This is fine for a wild population that is naturally evolving. But that is not the goal of a captive breeding program. Captive breeding programs, for dart frogs, seek to stop evolution as best as possible, and to do that, random mating is essential. When you pair up frogs for a particular trait, such as color, you are doing nonrandom mating which will result in evolution and loss of heterozygosity within the captive population. This is why, for example, domestic animals have so many health issues. Normally innocuous recessive issues are kept hidden, but when you remove that heterozygosity, they start popping up.

I know you think that you're omniscient, but you're not, and you certainly do not know what frogs are selecting for when females choose males. More likely than not, it is not simply single traits like color, but an entire suite of traits that no one can predict. That is the entire probably with your whole premise. You assume you know what frogs select for. You don't. I guarantee without a doubt that you don't (for one, you didn't think they select for color..).

Now, for the Bastimentos population of pumilio, yes, they select similar colored individuals. They are a population undergoing evolution and perhaps in 1,000 years, they will be separate red, yellow, orange, and green populations. But for now, they are one population. And once again, you don't know what frogs select for. That is why random mating for this population is the right choice. What you think to be a red frog with a red frog may not be the choice made by those individuals in the wild.

Like I said, it's simple conservation genetics.

And finally, our frogs should resemble the wild populations because the wild populations are most fit. We do not have the inherent problems that domestic animals have. About the worst thing that people have with PDFs is SLS, and that's environmental, for the most part.


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## BrianWI

Do you feel better now?

But it doesn't explain why you both said opposite things about the same population of frogs!

Lets say you take 20 frogs from that population. One of you would breed them all together. The other would breed by color. NEITHER of you know what matings would have taken place in the wild. So what genetics are you conserving? You don't know. One of you may be eliminating some, the other may be making new morphs. YOU DON'T KNOW.

And the still 100% unanswered question: we are talking about PET POPULATIONS. For quality of life, some selection to live better in captivity may be desirable (like breeding layers that tolerate tight quarters or cows that can live on concrete 24/7, two of my favorite past projects). These frogs don't live in the wild. Maybe someone finds that important. Why is it a must that they match wild populations as pets? Should we all have wolves and wildcats in our homes?


----------



## MonarchzMan

Brian, read what I said. I'll highlight the bold parts since you apparently get bored after the first sentence. I answered your questions. Stop asking them.



MonarchzMan said:


> Brian, you do not know what you are talking about, but I'll break down the basic genetics for you, since you don't know genetics.
> 
> The response Ed had given about Azureus being able to be maintained for 100-500 years is based off of the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium. Essentially, these are conditions necessary for evolution (i.e., changes in allele frequency) NOT to happen. In a captive population, all can be met, but the one most often broken is random mating. By having non-random mating, alleles get fixed, eventually in a population. This is fine for a wild population that is naturally evolving. But that is not the goal of a captive breeding program. Captive breeding programs, for dart frogs, seek to stop evolution as best as possible, and to do that, random mating is essential. When you pair up frogs for a particular trait, such as color, you are doing nonrandom mating which will result in evolution and loss of heterozygosity within the captive population. This is why, for example, domestic animals have so many health issues. Normally innocuous recessive issues are kept hidden, but when you remove that heterozygosity, they start popping up.
> 
> I know you think that you're omniscient, but you're not, and you certainly do not know what frogs are selecting for when females choose males. More likely than not, it is not simply single traits like color, but an entire suite of traits that no one can predict. That is the entire probably with your whole premise. You assume you know what frogs select for. You don't. I guarantee without a doubt that you don't (for one, you didn't think they select for color..).
> 
> *Now, for the Bastimentos population of pumilio, yes, they select similar colored individuals. They are a population undergoing evolution and perhaps in 1,000 years, they will be separate red, yellow, orange, and green populations. But for now, they are one population. And once again, you don't know what frogs select for. That is why random mating for this population is the right choice. What you think to be a red frog with a red frog may not be the choice made by those individuals in the wild.*
> 
> Like I said, it's simple conservation genetics.
> 
> *And finally, our frogs should resemble the wild populations because the wild populations are most fit. We do not have the inherent problems that domestic animals have. About the worst thing that people have with PDFs is SLS, and that's environmental, for the most part.*


And, in addition to resembling wild populations, there is scientific value in captive populations that resemble wild populations without those captive animals ever having to go back into the wild. Sequencing and genetics is a good example, but there are plenty others.


----------



## BrianWI

And JP,


Don't forget, you were going to help create a brand new morph of Gallus gallus domesticus, despite the fact that there are PLENTY of heritage breeds being lost and in need of conservation. People flocked to them, abandoning other more historically important poultry. Plus, the genes they carried were often detrimental to their health and reproduction. Yet, you didn't seem to mind. 

I certainly didn't see you start a flock of original wild type junglefowl.


----------



## mantisdragon91

BrianWI said:


> Do you feel better now?
> 
> But it doesn't explain why you both said opposite things about the same population of frogs!
> 
> Lets say you take 20 frogs from that population. One of you would breed them all together. The other would breed by color. NEITHER of you know what matings would have taken place in the wild. So what genetics are you conserving? You don't know. One of you may be eliminating some, the other may be making new morphs. YOU DON'T KNOW.
> 
> And the still 100% unanswered question: we are talking about PET POPULATIONS.* For quality of life, some selection to live better in captivity may be desirable (like breeding layers that tolerate tight quarters or cows that can live on concrete 24/7, two of my favorite past projects). *These frogs don't live in the wild. Maybe someone finds that important. Why is it a must that they match wild populations as pets? Should we all have wolves and wildcats in our homes?



So you want domesticated frogs that can be kept in the smallest amount of space possible, with the least amount of maintenance possible and able to produce the most offspring possible? Sounds like you really don't understand what this hobby is all about. We aren't trying to mass produce poultry or keep bovines on concrete for milking. This hobby is about people replicating a slice of nature in their home. What you are advocating would turn our frogs into those hideous inbred goldfish that you see in petstores Thanks but no thanks.


----------



## BrianWI

JP,

You are in contradiction with him. Would you breed that population by color or all together? Simple question, please give simple answer.


----------



## BrianWI

> This hobby is about people replicating a slice of nature in their home. What you are advocating would turn our frogs into those hideous inbred goldfish that you see in petstores Thanks but no thanks.


So, if this is hard on the frog, that is OK? As long as you get to have a snapshot of the wild.


----------



## MonarchzMan

We are dealing with wild animals, not domesticated ones. Breeding chickens and breeding frogs is very different.

But I would appreciate you keeping on topic rather than trying to derail it with irrelevant side tangents, and keep to what we're discussing. I rather enjoy schooling you in conservation genetics.

And I answered your question. I would breed them all together. They choose for color in the wild, but we do not know that that is the only thing. Breeding them all together is the best way not to deviate from wild populations.

Please read. It would save a lot of time.


----------



## mantisdragon91

BrianWI said:


> So, if this is hard on the frog, that is OK? As long as you get to have a snapshot of the wild.


What do you base that statement on? Do you have any proof that the way frogs are kept in the hobby is harder on the frogs than you desire to create a domesticated amphibian that will live in a shoebox and breed every 10 days?


----------



## BrianWI

Wow, both going in opposite directions.

If you claim you THINK they breed by color in the wild, don't have a genome map of the entire population, but breed them all together, you AGAIN don't know if you are preserving the wild type correctly or not. You THINK you are breeding wild animals. They ceased to be wild animals the second you took them from their natural habitat. You are not conserving anything.

As for the pet version of a dart frog....

The pet trade has brought chytrid as a threat (as well as thru other vectors). I believe breeding frogs in captivity that are resistant would have value.

Frogs in the wild don't require supplements, so obviously we are not meeting their needs exactly. Which may be why we have smaller individuals in captivity than are found wild.


----------



## fieldnstream

I bet Ron's stoked about what has happened to his thread...


----------



## BrianWI

JP, another question:

Why is conservation breeding for dart frogs more important than conservation breeding of heritage domestic animals?


----------



## BrianWI

> Last edited by fieldnstream; Today at 03:14 AM. Reason: I like turtles


I gotta love that reason! My daughter and I rescued a female box turtle, the pet store gave her to us because she arrived with BAD pneumonia and egg bound (most expensive free turtle I ever got. Bought injectible antibiotics for cattle, sterile saline, syringes. Gave turtle injections, soaked and unbound her, was so surprised I was successful). She fell in love with that turtle and we ended up with another, a male. She just adores her turtles and just about anything related to them. I bought a new bike, a classic style big cruiser. On the back of the hard-ass bike the plate frame says "I Brake For Turtles". She gets a big kick out of it. I do also have turtle valve stem covers.


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> Wow, both going in opposite directions.


No, I've been quite consistent with what everyone, but you, has said.



> If you claim you THINK they breed by color in the wild, don't have a genome map of the entire population, but breed them all together, you AGAIN don't know if you are preserving the wild type correctly or not. You THINK you are breeding wild animals. They ceased to be wild animals the second you took them from their natural habitat. You are not conserving anything.


No, I said that there have been studies that have shown that frogs select like colored mates (specifically females choosing males). I do not think that they do, I know they do, especially having participated in conducting the experiments myself.

Despite what you may THINK, they are wild animals. They do not become domesticated once you put them in a tank. They are genetically identical to their wild counterparts. They retain the same behaviors as their wild counterparts. They are wild animals. You're not conserving anything, but I am. Do not lump me in with you.



> The pet trade has brought chytrid as a threat (as well as thru other vectors). I believe breeding frogs in captivity that are resistant would have value.


You really need to spend less time typing and more time reading. TWI did a study and found very, very low prevalence of chytrid in captive PDFs. Not only that, while chytrid does pose some threat, for PDFs, it's likely minimal because PDFs temperature preferences are outside of chytrid's tolerances.



> Frogs in the wild don't require supplements, so obviously we are not meeting their needs exactly. Which may be why we have smaller individuals in captivity than are found wild.


Where do you get your data from? Please provide some references, not ridiculous conjecture.

And I'm not going to answer your question because it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.


----------



## BrianWI

JP,

Run from the hard questions. I knew you had no good answer, it's ok.

Before I source anything, I'll ask you a simple question: Do you know that the captive bred/ raised dart frogs do not reach the same size as their wild counter parts?

As far as them being "wild", while the original imports were once wild, they become captive. Their offspring are captive bred and were never wild.

If you know they select by color, and you breed them randomly, you ARE modifying the gene pool. Unless of course you happened to witness the first generation it ever happened. Unlikely.


So, when you breed dart frogs, how do you select frogs for mating and how to pair them, JP?



> You really need to spend less time typing and more time reading. TWI did a study and found very, very low prevalence of chytrid in captive PDFs. Not only that, while chytrid does pose some threat, for PDFs, it's likely minimal because PDFs temperature preferences are outside of chytrid's tolerances.


Oh, and here I thought the threat of recombination creating a more deadly version of chytrid was real. Shucky Darns.


----------



## fieldnstream

BrianWI said:


> I gotta love that reason! My daughter and I rescued a female box turtle, the pet store gave her to us because she arrived with BAD pneumonia and egg bound (most expensive free turtle I ever got. Bought injectible antibiotics for cattle, sterile saline, syringes. Gave turtle injections, soaked and unbound her, was so surprised I was successful). She fell in love with that turtle and we ended up with another, a male. She just adores her turtles and just about anything related to them. I bought a new bike, a classic style big cruiser. On the back of the hard-ass bike the plate frame says "I Brake For Turtles". She gets a big kick out of it. I do also have turtle valve stem covers.


Very cool...sounds like a cool kid! 
Now I feel obligated to repost what I edited out of my original statement; I essentially said that this is an interesting topic, but it may be for the best to split it into its own new discussion. I feel that open discussion of these opinions are beneficial for the hobby in general...so many new people join every day, it can't hurt to let them know how the majority of the hobby feels. I do hope that the converstion continues...I for one am learning a lot.
This concludes my hijack of a thread that started as a discussion of newts and has become something very different.


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> JP,
> 
> Run from the hard questions. I knew you had no good answer, it's ok.


I'm not running from any questions. You are continually trying to derail the topic with talks of poultry and turtles because I am schooling you.



> Before I source anything, I'll ask you a simple question: Do you know that the captive bred/ raised dart frogs do not reach the same size as their wild counter parts?


Having measured them myself, yes. I'm guessing you can't say the same, nor can you provide evidence, you haven't yet.



> If you know they select by color, and you breed them randomly, you ARE modifying the gene pool. Unless of course you happened to witness the first generation it ever happened. Unlikely.


Geez. Read up on the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. You're embarrassing yourself. If you breed them randomly, then it will not change the allele frequency from the original starter population. This has been mathematically demonstrated.



> So, when you breed dart frogs, how do you select frogs for mating and how to pair them, JP?


I throw them together.



> Oh, and here I thought the threat of recombination creating a more deadly version of chytrid was real. Shucky Darns.


Yep, there is that threat, but the fungi are still sensitive to high temperatures...


----------



## BrianWI

JP,

You couldn't school me on any topic. You already know that, stop trying to strut.

So, you do know they are not as big in captivity. Then why did you ask for a source??



> Geez. Read up on the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. You're embarrassing yourself. If you breed them randomly, then it will not change the allele frequency from the original starter population. This has been mathematically demonstrated.


This is true. Mathematically, the genetic content of the starter population can be the same in the new population. However, if the original individuals are not the same, the new population will be composites. This is what you are missing, but it is a concept that requires some thinking, so it is not overtly obvious. How close the individuals match each other or the originals is not as easy to calculate depending on how diverse the original population is.


----------



## MonarchzMan

I am schooling you here. You don't know dendrobatids, their conservation, or anything about genetics. Not only do I know about dendrobatids, their conservation, and their genetics, but I actually study and research them, and publish on them. You're being schooled, get used to it.

Please, provide your source. I'd love for you to actually back something up for once. As I originally said, since you apparently mistook me, I can tell you that captive frogs are not smaller than their wild counterparts, having measured them myself.

It does not matter if the new population is composites. All of the alleles, in the same frequencies as the original population, will be in tact. But, you also forget that sufficiently large populations, where most of these frogs likely come from, likely have a high amount of heterozygosity, and any breeding within them would also promote that. Heterozygotes produce lots of heterozygotes. And if you are breeding randomly, homozygotes that arise would eventually be bred with homozygotes of opposite alleles or heterozygotes and the balance would be maintained. When you start selecting, you start removing alleles, and it is at that point that, genetically, the population will never be similar to the wild population.

I would love for you to demonstrate that maintaining a population in H-W equilibrium actually does change anything within the population as compared to the wild population. Seriously, do it. It would entertain me.

Consider yourself schooled.


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## frogparty

The threat of fungal gene recombination creating a chytrid super strain is extremely small. Fungi do not reproduce in a simar fashion to bacteria, viruses or yeast. Random alpha, alpha prime hyphae mating is highly unlikely to produce strains more resilient than the founder stock.


----------



## BrianWI

I'm still not impressed or learned a thing from you. But go ahead, it is your story, tell i like you want.



> Tinctorius are hardy captives and make excellent vivarium subjects. Their bold nature and the endless variety of beautiful colour morphs have made them a staple of the poison frog hobby for many years. Despite the relative ease of care, it seems that one of the bigger challenges faced by enthusiasts working with tinctorius is growing CB animals to the sizes attained by their wild counterparts. Careful attention to offer a varied diet and proper supplementation, as well as a consistently available food supply will go a long way in successfully raising these frogs.


So, you are OK with a captive population with a lot of diversity where very few of the individuals match the original population (conversely, most are previously nonexisting in the original population) as long as all original combinations are kept in tact?



> I would love for you to demonstrate that maintaining a population in H-W equilibrium actually does change anything within the population as compared to the wild population. Seriously, do it. It would entertain me.


Really? You can't see how many new combinations could occur that had not occurred in the wild, using the variance of the locale you chose? How long have they been self-selecting for color?


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## BrianWI

JP,



> I would love for you to demonstrate that maintaining a population in H-W equilibrium actually does change anything within the population as compared to the wild population. Seriously, do it. It would entertain me.


You are right, lets do it! But I am going to need your expert help.

Lets use your specialty. Using the pumilio from the cemetery locale, what are the two most "opposite" or different varieties as far as color goes?


----------



## thedude

BrianWI said:


> I'm still not impressed or learned a thing from you. But go ahead, it is your story, tell i like you want.


IT'S NOT A STORY. Both JP and Ed have provided you with facts, theories, and evidence. All you have done is insult them, avoid questions, ignore answers, ignore evidence, and pretend like you know what you are talking about.

You're arguing with someone who studies these animals in the wild and has published papers on them. He actually has degrees that require him to understand these genetic and ecological concepts. Most of them are actually very basic and I learned them in the first college level biology class I took. JP even has the patience to explain these concepts to you. But you continue to ignore what he's says and change it around, as well as change the topic. Hilarious because you constantly accused Ed of doing the same thing when he wasn't.

Before you seemed to be arguing that designer morphs would help wild populations (a bad job of it though) but now its coming out completely differently. As far as I can tell you are either trolling, trying to promote crossbreeds so you can make money, or you are just too ignorant to understand what you are talking about.

PLEASE spend just one reply explaining to us your vast wisdom on genetics and these frogs. Explain to us why you are against keeping the captive populations with the same allele frequency as the wild populations. Don't just tell us your OPINION that that can't be done, because using several biological concepts we can prove that it is possible.

I would like to stress this part, I'm not asking for just your OPINIONS, but actual evidence. Show JP some evidence to argue this with him. I'm amazed he's even still replying to whatever you would call this. Oh ya, trolling.

POST SOME EVIDENCE


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## BrianWI

Stop being so cliquey.

Now, when he gives me the two morphs I asked for, we will do the math.


I cannot help it if you cannot see the whole logic problem in arguing a population breeds by color to try to win one debate, then arguing it should be bred together to win another. But again, it is your story...


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> I'm still not impressed or learned a thing from you. But go ahead, it is your story, tell i like you want.


Nice quote. What peer reviewed article did that come from? See, there is a difference between anecdotal evidence, which you have supplied, and actually statistical evidence which shows that there is, in fact, a difference. I have the latter. I can visually say two red pumilio may be the same in color, but until I pull out a spectrometer and actually measure the color, it's anecdotal.



> So, you are OK with a captive population with a lot of diversity where very few of the individuals match the original population (conversely, most are previously nonexisting in the original population) as long as all original combinations are kept in tact?


Please demonstrate that a captive population that has the same allele frequencies as the founder population is fundamentally different from that founder population. As Adam as said, give some evidence.



> Really? You can't see how many new combinations could occur that had not occurred in the wild, using the variance of the locale you chose? How long have they been self-selecting for color?


See above. Demonstrate that this is the case. Give me cold, hard evidence.

We're dealing with science here. So, when you provide sources, please actually provide peer reviewed sources. There is no doubt in my mind that there are people here who have considerable experience raising these frogs, but without actually doing statistical analysis, the conclusions made are suspect. Statistics allow us to see how much variation is allowed within a particular trend. For instance, captive tinctorius may bee smaller than wild ones, but that does not mean that they are statistically smaller. The means may be slightly different, but because of so much overlap, there really is no separation between captive and wild populations.

And I can give you two extreme colors in the Bastimentos population (e.g. red and green), but last I checked, two frogs does not constitute a population. In fact, the population has a wide variety of colors in it, and they span the spectrum from Red to Green. But please, by all means, tell me that crossing red and green is going to yield something not already in the population.

Schooled again.


----------



## BrianWI

OK, red and green. Let's go with that. Do these have other names? I have seen several different red and green pumilio, so I want to make sure we are talking about 2, and only 2, specific morphs from that locale.


----------



## MonarchzMan

Red Bastimentos and Green Bastimentos. These are two variants found within an interbreeding population.

Nice dodging the other points, though. Don't worry, no one noticed.


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## BrianWI

We will get there, have patience.

OK, in Pumilio, what is the number of loci involved in the expression of color?


----------



## MonarchzMan

You really need to do some reading because your lack of knowledge on the subject is pretty apparent. No one knows how many loci are involved with the expression of color for pumilio or for any dart frog. That's one of those issues that arises when you deal with wild animals. They haven't been bred for hundreds of years and genomes have not been mapped. In fact, because the interbreeding population of Bastimentos pumilio displays a wide variation of phenotype indicates that color and that similar colored parents can throw different colored offspring, in this population, is likely the result of multiple loci and maybe even epistasis. QTL mapping would be necessary to determine the loci involved in color, but that has yet to be done.


----------



## BrianWI

"I don't know" would have sufficed.

OK, can you tell me how many alleles in this unknown number of loci are found only in one of these morphs and not the other?


----------



## MonarchzMan

You know the answer as well as I, but you are just avoiding the original question. You can just admit that I am right. It's okay.


----------



## BrianWI

JP, "I don't know" is fine. It was the right answer.

OK, so we don't know if these two frogs have any mutually exclusive alleles. If we play the odds, we'd have to say they do. Say we imported them, 10 mixed sex groups of each. Using your own current method, we would breed them together randomly. If they do have mutually exclusive alleles we will create individuals with both, something that may not have existed in the wild population. We just created new morphs just as sure as if we had done it intentionally.


----------



## MonarchzMan

Please demonstrate that in a population of interbreeding individuals that there are mutually exclusive alleles present in the population where those alleles have been selectively separated within individuals within the population.

I am sorry, you are wrong, Brian. So completely and totally wrong. That is the right answer. As I said, this idea of breeding frogs randomly all stems from the H-W equilibrium. This is a seminal concept around breeding programs in zoos. Zoos very carefully breed their animals such that heterozygosity within their populations is maintained and that allele frequencies did not change between captive and wild populations. That is how programs, such as the California Condor program that started with so few individuals, are able to be successful.

Please, go to a zoo and tell them they're doing their conservation breeding program all wrong. I would love for you to tell a senior zookeeper that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Oh, wait. You already did that to Ed.

So, practice with me and say "I am wrong." It's simple.

Schooled again.


----------



## BrianWI

> Please demonstrate that in a population of interbreeding individuals that there are mutually exclusive alleles present in the population where those alleles have been selectively separated within individuals within the population.


Um, that is what you need to prove in order for hardy-weinberg equilibrium to work as you want it to, not for my argument. You have the burden to prove that first, not I. That isn't even debatable. Plus, don't forget, you said they were already selectively mating, not interbreeding.

However, I gave you all the evidence you need to show you are very likely creating new morphs. 

I think you don't get the math. Especially when you bring up condors. OF COURSE the condor program worked. However, because of the tiny, very closely related population, genetic deviation was already small, meaning exclusive alleles were unlikley to exist. Second, when conserving a species, NO ONE CARED. Faced with extinction, a little genetic pollution would be acceptable.

And there is your answer to this all, you either accept that you are making some morphs of your own and its OK, or you don't do it.

Besides, if genetic stability was the best condition, nature wouldn't be constantly forcing instabilities.

Thank you. Check Mate.


----------



## MonarchzMan

Brian, you're asserting that within an interbreeding population, frogs will have mutually exclusive alleles that are not mixed within individuals within the population. And by randomly mating, those mutually exclusive alleles would be mixed when they normally would not. I want you to demonstrate that this actually happens. The burden of proof is on you. You made the assertion, back it up.

You don't understand captive breeding programs, do you? Like, at all? The condor program was conducted such that heterozygosity was maintained and that very little was done to reduce genetic diversity found in those original animals. It was very important that specific matings be done so as not to promote homozygosity and allow those lethal recessives to pop up. Selective breeding promotes homozygosity and loss of genetics diversity. That's fact, and that's exactly what you're arguing for. And reduced genetic diversity means more genetic problems pop up. You're very, very mistaken if you think that those doing the condor breeding program weren't very concerned about genetics.

Your entire assumption is based on the idea within an interbreeding population, there are individuals with alleles that are never found in combination with other alleles, but you did not actually demonstrate that this actually happens. So, your point, as with many of your points, is irrelevant.

If you took frogs from a population, they represent, at that point, the most fit individuals that nature has selected for. While nature may constantly be changing genetics, that is not the point of a captive program. A captive program seeks to maintain that genetic diversity originally found in the population and not to reduce it. Captive programs seek to maintain a snapshot of what was, not try to continue natural selection since we don't know what nature is selecting for.

I'm sorry, we weren't playing chess. That may explain your confusion.

Schooled again.


----------



## winstonamc

BrianWI said:


> I can't breed for color? NATURE BREEDS FOR COLOR! In some animals, the animals themselves do the selection for color, in others predators do the selection. Various colors or morphs of frogs interbreed without regard to color where ranges overlap. If you aren't doing the same, then you may be not following the natural course the wild frogs are following. ARe you improving on nature?


I'm not sure you get how natural selection works. Nature doesn't just breed for color, it breeds for a host of things, such as general fitness w/r/t the environment within which the population exists. If a female bird of paradise picks a pretty male and that produces a a prettier male offspring that is in some way infirm, nature just de-selected for color in a general trajectory towards you're esteemed COLOR.

With the best of intentions none of us are properly equipped to gauge what is in fact a dynamic process. This is rendering something that is multi-dimensional to the -nth degree into a one-dimensional selction process, leading inevitably to infirmity despite us selecting out the spindly legged of the offspring


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## winstonamc

guess JP just got at this... didn't finish reading the posts after hitting that one


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## MonarchzMan

winstonamc said:


> guess JP just got at this... didn't finish reading the posts after hitting that one


That's okay. Perhaps multiple people saying the same thing will get it to stick. Thus far, it hasn't worked, but at some point, it may. One more person can't hurt


----------



## thedude

BrianWI said:


> JP, "I don't know" is fine. It was the right answer.
> 
> OK, so we don't know if these two frogs have any mutually exclusive alleles. If we play the odds, we'd have to say they do. Say we imported them, 10 mixed sex groups of each. Using your own current method, we would breed them together randomly. If they do have mutually exclusive alleles we will create individuals with both, something that may not have existed in the wild population. We just created new morphs just as sure as if we had done it intentionally.


How exactly does that mean we created new morphs? You don't understand gene expression do you? 

First of all, in this population on bastimento, SOME females will be selecting based on color. This is called sexual selection. Not all the females do this, and it's obvious based on how much variation you can get from a single pair of frogs. Even if one was to take a pair of orange frogs and breed them together, you wouldn't get all orange offspring from it. This is because not all the alleles are expressed in each frog. In fact, all the alleles in the gene pool won't even be expressed within the population. 




BrianWI said:


> And there is your answer to this all, you either accept that you are making some morphs of your own and its OK, or you don't do it.
> 
> Besides, if genetic stability was the best condition, nature wouldn't be constantly forcing instabilities.
> 
> Thank you. Check Mate.


We aren't making morphs and I don't understand how you got to that. Hopefully you can elaborate on it?

Are you insinuating that nature chooses to be unstable to help wild populations?  because that is very wrong. We want to keep the captive populations stable as they are in nature. These wild populations aren't going to be changing much over the next 100-200 years so it is completely acceptable to keep them in equilibrium in captivity.

Why don't you explain your purpose in all of this? What are you trying to prove?


----------



## JPccusa

Talking about new species discovery, did you guys see this? 

New Frog Species Found in New York City | Wired Science | Wired.com


----------



## Rusty_Shackleford

thedude said:


> Why don't you explain your purpose in all of this? What are you trying to prove?


Perhaps he is trying to justify his creation of some new designer frog?

I bet he's created a tinc with a bright yellow cheese wedge shaped spot on top of it's head.


----------



## MonarchzMan

Rusty_Shackleford said:


> Perhaps he is trying to justify his creation of some new designer frog?
> 
> I bet he's created a tinc with a bright yellow cheese wedge shaped spot on top of it's head.


You give him far too much credit...


----------



## BrianWI

Here is where it gets fun, when you have so many people arguing wrong things at one time.

JP



> Your entire assumption is based on the idea within an interbreeding population, there are individuals with alleles that are never found in combination with other alleles, but you did not actually demonstrate that this actually happens. So, your point, as with many of your points, is irrelevant.


No, to use The Hardy-Weinberg Equation as your basis assumes you have infinite population to be true and hence has no unexpressed combinations. Therefore, the burden of proof is yours.

The same equation is used in making composite breeds. 

The Hardy-Weinberg Equation is basically statistics of a stable process, similar math to SPC. As President of a electronif mfg firm for 9 years using these equations constantly, plus having my degrees in eng and math, I am going to claim expert status over you. If you don't have an infinite population, the Hardy-Weinberg Equation actually REQUIRES creating new morphs to be true. I'll run through that in another post. However, other engineers, mathematicians or quality people take note: this is where the "experts" don't realize that your experience in other things applies just as well here. The math is the same, so don't let them bully you as being "inexperienced".



> I'm not sure you get how natural selection works. Nature doesn't just breed for color, it breeds for a host of things, such as general fitness w/r/t the environment within which the population exists. If a female bird of paradise picks a pretty male and that produces a a prettier male offspring that is in some way infirm, nature just de-selected for color in a general trajectory towards you're esteemed COLOR.


This ACTUALLY HAPPENS! But we cannot account for all variables in this discussion.



> Are you insinuating that nature chooses to be unstable to help wild populations? because that is very wrong. We want to keep the captive populations stable as they are in nature. These wild populations aren't going to be changing much over the next 100-200 years so it is completely acceptable to keep them in equilibrium in captivity.


Yes, nature is unstable! It is the basis for evolution!


I will actually do some math here. Again, hardy-weinberg assumes an inifinite population to be 100%. We know that doesn't happen in breeding programs or imports. So lets visit the other extreme: 2 individuals. Lets say they have one gene par each. One is AA. The other is BB. Lets randomly breed. It takes a couple generations, but we end up with AA, BB, AB and BA. Lets keep it simple in terminology. A is expressed on the left 50% of the time, B 50% on the right. That is what H-W claims. But you can see we ended up with two individuals that never occurred in the original population. That is the simplified version. The same thing happens on a larger scale.

We cannot possibly hope to know how often this happens in any given population. Nor do we probably have all the pieces in a small import. But, if you claim a population can be bred by using that equation, YOU must bear the burden of proof. If you don't understand this piece, you aren't a scientist.


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## MonarchzMan

Brian, you're welcome to think the expert, but you're not, not here, not at all (not to mention that I have take classes, have degrees, been asked to write TMPs, and have publications about conservation; I doubt you have any of that, so I'd say I'm still the expert). You'll notice support for my position, but not yours. And besides, I would question that you actually used anything similar . You seem to like to taut how experienced you are with everything you touch, but don't ever back it up.

Here are the conditions that must be true for the H-W equilibrium to be true.

1. No mutations must occur so that new alleles do not enter the population.
2. No gene flow can occur (i.e. no migration of individuals into, or out of, the population).
3. Random mating must occur (i.e. individuals must pair by chance)
4 The population must be large so that no genetic drift (random chance) can cause the allele frequencies to change.
5. No selection can occur so that certain alleles are not selected for, or against. 

You're mistaken that it assumes an infinite population. It assumes a large population, and all of that depends on the effective population size, which often is smaller than the actual population, but with careful management, that can be increased such that all or just about all individuals in a population are contributing to the breeding effort. Now, we don't generally have small populations of frogs come in, and with careful breeding, the numbers we have are sufficient for the population to be large enough for that assumption to be held valid.

You will notice that no mutation is also on the list, so it is truly impossible to keep frequencies perfect, but all other conditions can and are met, and mutation, generally, happens at a very slow rate such that over the time that we would be breeding frogs, we can assume that mutation is not occurring. You are suggesting violating the selection condition (and nonrandom matings). Again, this is simple math.

But you math is very silly, and irrelevant. Again, please demonstrate that that actually happens in these frogs. You simplified and set your example to the extreme to demonstrate your point, but that is not what we're dealing with in captivity. We aren't dealing with just two individuals or just two alleles. You are asserting that this happens, show it. Burden of proof is on you. But, you haven't provided evidence yet, so your whole assertion is bunk.

I have demonstrated as have a number of people, that populations can and are bred behind the concepts of the H-W equilibrium. You choose to ignore it. You are quite clearly not the scientist. Not at all. Not even close. But then again, we all know that because scientists back up their assertions.

Schooled, yet again.


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## BrianWI

> Static allele frequencies in a population across generations assume: no mutation (the alleles don't change), no migration or emigration (no exchange of alleles between populations), infinite population size, and no selective pressure for or against any genotypes. Genotype frequencies will also be static when mating is random.


Sorry, again, I trump you on math by 1000 fold. So there you go, assumes an infinite population.

More references:



> Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
> 
> No evolution:
> Given the existence of genetic polymorphism, evolution can occur. However, in a given situation, is it?
> A population that shows an absence of evolution (as well as random mating) is said to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.
> That is, while there may be an input and removal of alleles over time, there is similarly no occurrence of change in allele frequency (equilibrium).
> Criteria for establishment:
> A touch more formally stated, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium can occur only given a number of properties of a population:
> the population must be infinite
> there must be completely random mating
> there must be a lack of differential survival and reproductive success
> there must be no mutation (or any other genetic change)
> there must be no movement of individuals into or out of the population
> These properties translate to (respectively):
> no genetic drift
> no mating biases
> no selection
> no mutation
> no migration


Enough to show you wrong? If not, I'll post more.



> But you math is very silly, and irrelevant. Again, please demonstrate that that actually happens in these frogs. You simplified and set your example to the extreme to demonstrate your point, but that is not what we're dealing with in captivity. We aren't dealing with just two individuals or just two alleles. You are asserting that this happens, show it. Burden of proof is on you. But, you haven't provided evidence yet, so your whole assertion is bunk


I did this on purpose knowing you'd say this. That pair of alleles could be ANY locus in the frog. Makes no difference at all.


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## Roadrunner

What about recessive genes which are culled by the environment when expressed? In a native pop of garters, generally the albinos don't get to sexual maturity to breed and pass on to 100% of the population. Could there be recessive genes that would not cause death in captivity but which would in nature that we don't know about which would be unnaturally expressed in captive populations?


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## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> Sorry, again, I trump you on math by 1000 fold. So there you go, assumes an infinite population.


Nope, sorry. I've got the degrees and experience to show that I know more about what we're talking about than you do. Given the discussion, your experience on "math" is quite suspect.



> Enough to show you wrong? If not, I'll post more.


We are getting closer, good. We're almost to freshmen biology level. But, simply quoting is not citing. You have to provide the source. And in many classes, quoting without providing reference for the quote is plagiarism, and grounds for expulsion. Let's not get you expelled, eh?



> I did this on purpose knowing you'd say this. That pair of alleles could be ANY locus in the frog. Makes no difference at all.


Um, yes, it makes a difference. We do not deal with a population of two individuals and two alleles. Like I said, show me that this actually happens in these frogs. Show me that in an interbreeding population, there are alleles present in some frogs, but not in others, and that there are no heterozygotes represented. You keep dodging this because you know you can't provide evidence of it. But it's okay, you can say "I am wrong, you are right."

Schooled. Once more.


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## MonarchzMan

frogfarm said:


> What about recessive genes which are culled by the environment when expressed? In a native pop of garters, generally the albinos don't get to sexual maturity to breed and pass on to 100% of the population. Could there be recessive genes that would not cause death in captivity but which would in nature that we don't know about which would be unnaturally expressed in captive populations?


It would not matter, as long as we maintain the ratios originally found in the starter population. We cannot presume to know all of the interactions of these phenotypes. While albinism might be maladaptive to most garter snakes, there might be the occasional situation where it is advantageous.

There was a recent paper that came out that looked at the "spectral bears" of the northwest which are white (they're grizzlies, not polar bears). These bears eat quite a bit of fish, and it is hypothesized that it helps camouflage them against the fish being able to see them. So while, it might be maladaptive in situations where other grizzlies survive, it is adaptive to them.

If you breed randomly, that phenotype should show up no more commonly than it does in the wild population based on the allele frequencies seen.

Keep in mind that the point of a breeding program is to take a snap shot and not have selection happen. While these phenotypes may be selected against in nature, we cannot do so in captive populations, otherwise it would result in evolution of the species, possibly in the wrong direction for their wild environment.

Not only that, but there is what is known as the heterozygote advantage which is another reason why a maladaptive recessive allele may persist in a population. An excellent example of that is Sickle Cell Anemia. Individuals who are homozygous for SCA are often selected against since they are often anemic and need transfusions to survive. Individuals who are homozygous for normal blood cells are found to be susceptible to malaria. It is the heterozygotes that are not anemic, but are less susceptible to malaria who have the greatest fitness. It is one of the hypotheses as to why something as disadvantageous as SCA persists in the human population.


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## jacobi

BrianWI said:


> As President of a electronif mfg firm for 9 years using these equations constantly, plus having my degrees in eng and math, I am going to claim expert status over you.


What degrees do you have?


Jake


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## Roadrunner

But in wild populations the frequency of albinos breeding would be very close to 0. in captivity we would be expanding those recessives by letting the occasional albino breed, passing on the recessive gene to 100% of his offspring. If he bred a het there would be a much larger precent of albinos than in any wild clutch. then randomly select 2 albinos to breed together and your really skewing the frequency. in a wild situation the most youd get is 66% passed from 2 hets. If it was something we couldn't see it could approach 50% expressed in captive populations, or more, while never reaching 1% in wild populations. What I'm saying is that we have a frequency kept in check specifically by predation which would not maintain in captivity.



MonarchzMan said:


> It would not matter, as long as we maintain the ratios originally found in the starter population. We cannot presume to know all of the interactions of these phenotypes. While albinism might be maladaptive to most garter snakes, there might be the occasional situation where it is advantageous.
> 
> There was a recent paper that came out that looked at the "spectral bears" of the northwest which are white (they're grizzlies, not polar bears). These bears eat quite a bit of fish, and it is hypothesized that it helps camouflage them against the fish being able to see them. So while, it might be maladaptive in situations where other grizzlies survive, it is adaptive to them.
> 
> If you breed randomly, that phenotype should show up no more commonly than it does in the wild population based on the allele frequencies seen.
> 
> Keep in mind that the point of a breeding program is to take a snap shot and not have selection happen. While these phenotypes may be selected against in nature, we cannot do so in captive populations, otherwise it would result in evolution of the species, possibly in the wrong direction for their wild environment.
> 
> Not only that, but there is what is known as the heterozygote advantage which is another reason why a maladaptive recessive allele may persist in a population. An excellent example of that is Sickle Cell Anemia. Individuals who are homozygous for SCA are often selected against since they are often anemic and need transfusions to survive. Individuals who are homozygous for normal blood cells are found to be susceptible to malaria. It is the heterozygotes that are not anemic, but are less susceptible to malaria who have the greatest fitness. It is one of the hypotheses as to why something as disadvantageous as SCA persists in the human population.


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## MonarchzMan

frogfarm said:


> But in wild populations the frequency of albinos breeding would be very close to 0. in captivity we would be expanding those recessives by letting the occasional albino breed, passing on the recessive gene to 100% of his offspring. If he bred a het there would be a much larger precent of albinos than in any wild clutch. then randomly select 2 albinos to breed together and your really skewing the frequency. in a wild situation the most youd get is 66% passed from 2 hets. If it was something we couldn't see it could approach 50% expressed in captive populations, or more, while never reaching 1% in wild populations. What I'm saying is that we have a frequency kept in check specifically by predation which would not maintain in captivity.


We're dealing with nothing but allele frequencies here. It would not matter if our wild population resulted in a lot of albinos. Presumably, then, there would be fewer heterozygotes in the population. And when those albinos are bred back to normal individuals, as would likely happen in a random situation where the allele for albinism is as rare as it is, the trait would once again disappear. You're dealing with percentages. To put it in mathematical terms, look back to the H-W equilibirum. Let's say that the albino allele represents 1% of the alleles at a particular locus. So, putting it in H-W terms, p=0.99 (frequency of the alleles that are normal) and q=0.01 (frequency of the alleles that are albino). These two should always add up and equal 1 (which represents 100% of the population). So:

p = 0.99
q = 0.01

p + q = 1

Now, we need to throw in the fact that alleles are paired which simple results in a quadratic equation with three different possibilities: p^2 (homozygous normal), 2pq (heterozygous), q^2 (albino). These also equal 1.

p^2 + 2pq + q^2 = 1

Now we can just substitute our original numbers into the equation to figure out chances of having each genotype:

p^2 = 0.99 * 0.99 = 0.9801 - frequency of individuals homozygous normal
2pq = 2 * 0.99 * 0.01 = 0.0198 - frequency of heterozygotes
q^2 = 0.01 * 0.01 = 0.0001 - frequency of homozygous albino

From this, we can even figure out the changes of two albinos coming together and breeding and resulting in more albinos. It would be 0.0001 * 0.0001 = 0.00000001 chance that you get two albinos pop up AND breed together (well, simply, we need to throw a 50% chance that one of those albinos is male and a 50% chance that the other is female, so really, the chances of two albinos breeding together is 0.0000000025, pretty close to 0 for all intents and purposes...). The chances of an albino breeding with a heterozygote are 0.0001 * 0.0198 = 0.00000198.

So chances are incredibly small that you would result in increases of particular phenotypes such as albinism if you are breeding randomly. Now, it's a different story if there is selection for the albino phenotype, but that is no longer breeding randomly.

It's really not of concern, and it's best not to select against alleles because of the reasons that I outlined. If we perceive that a phenotype is maladaptive, it might be the case in a number of situations, but likely not all since the dominant allele was not driven to fixation. Trust me, if you're breeding randomly (and fulfilling the other requirements of H-W), the frequency of alleles would never exceed what was in the wild population. This has been shown mathematically and is pretty well accepted (and also has been demonstrated by captive breeding experiments, most easily with fruit flies).


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## jacobi

frogfarm said:


> But in wild populations the frequency of albinos breeding would be very close to 0. in captivity we would be expanding those recessives by letting the occasional albino breed, passing on the recessive gene to 100% of his offspring. If he bred a het there would be a much larger precent of albinos than in any wild clutch. then randomly select 2 albinos to breed together and your really skewing the frequency. in a wild situation the most youd get is 66% passed from 2 hets. If it was something we couldn't see it could approach 50% expressed in captive populations, or more, while never reaching 1% in wild populations. What I'm saying is that we have a frequency kept in check specifically by predation which would not maintain in captivity.


That's a perfect example of "survival of the fittest". The albino animals are more visible to predators, thereby making them less fit to survive in the wild. In essence, breeding for albinism (in smaller animals, I'm not referring to high level predators such as felines or ursines) is almost counterintuitive to the animals survival. 
That's probably obvious but I thought it was interesting 

Jake


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## Ed

frogfarm said:


> But in wild populations the frequency of albinos breeding would be very close to 0. in captivity we would be expanding those recessives by letting the occasional albino breed, passing on the recessive gene to 100% of his offspring. If he bred a het there would be a much larger precent of albinos than in any wild clutch. then randomly select 2 albinos to breed together and your really skewing the frequency. in a wild situation the most youd get is 66% passed from 2 hets. If it was something we couldn't see it could approach 50% expressed in captive populations, or more, while never reaching 1% in wild populations. What I'm saying is that we have a frequency kept in check specifically by predation which would not maintain in captivity.


 
Aaron, 

there is also the reason, you don't cull them from the breeding population is because there are often genes that are linked on the same portion of the chromasome as the genes that code for the aberration. If you cull the albinism from the population, you are also changing the frequency of other genes that can be very important to the population. The way you manage it, is by breeding to keep the distribution of the genes coding for that allele at the same level of distribution as in the founding population. People tend to miss that the distribution (frequency of occurance) of the genes are the important part, not how often they are expressed in the individual. The fact that it is we may think of it as a deleterious mutation in the wild doesn't matter since we cannot accurately replicate the pressures that would go to preserve the frequency of the other alleles that are associated with the gene in question. 

For example, if the distribution of albinism is 20%, then it doesn't matter if the animal is albino, heterozygous or not a carrier, as long as the frequency of the occurence of the allele stays the same. 

Ed


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## Ed

jacobi said:


> That's a perfect example of "survival of the fittest". The albino animals are more visible to predators, thereby making them less fit to survive in the wild. In essence, breeding for albinism (in smaller animals, I'm not referring to high level predators such as felines or ursines) is almost counterintuitive to the animals survival.
> That's probably obvious but I thought it was interesting
> 
> Jake


Except in captivity it is directed artificial selection and is considered a problem when attempting to maintain a captive population as close as possible to the wild type at the moment the genetic management began. 


Ed


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## Ed

MonarchzMan said:


> Um, yes, it makes a difference. We do not deal with a population of two individuals and two alleles. Like I said, show me that this actually happens in these frogs. Show me that in an interbreeding population, there are alleles present in some frogs, but not in others, and that there are no heterozygotes represented. You keep dodging this because you know you can't provide evidence of it. But it's okay, you can say "I am wrong, you are right."
> 
> Schooled. Once more.


Thanks for picking up the slack JP. I've been limited in my time and energy for these endless arguments. 

Ed


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## Roadrunner

But it won't. Esp if it's something we can't see to cull down to the percentage it's found in the wild population. There is a predatory or env response selecting for these recessives to never breed or breed w/ such rarity that it doesn't matter. In captivity, if you have 1 or more recessives kept in check by predation or env factors not found in our vivs, you are going to alter the frequency drastically. 



Ed said:


> Aaron,
> 
> there is also the reason, you don't cull them from the breeding population is because there are often genes that are linked on the same portion of the chromasome as the genes that code for the aberration. If you cull the albinism from the population, you are also changing the frequency of other genes that can be very important to the population. The way you manage it, is by breeding to keep the distribution of the genes coding for that allele at the same level of distribution as in the founding population. People tend to miss that the distribution (frequency of occurance) of the genes are the important part, not how often they are expressed in the individual. The fact that it is we may think of it as a deleterious mutation in the wild doesn't matter since we cannot accurately replicate the pressures that would go to preserve the frequency of the other alleles that are associated with the gene in question.
> 
> For example, if the distribution of albinism is 20%, then it doesn't matter if the animal is albino, heterozygous or not a carrier, as long as the frequency of the occurence of the allele stays the same.
> 
> Ed


----------



## MonarchzMan

frogfarm said:


> But it won't. Esp if it's something we can't see to cull down to the percentage it's found in the wild population. There is a predatory or env response selecting for these recessives to never breed or breed w/ such rarity that it doesn't matter. In captivity, if you have 1 or more recessives kept in check by predation or env factors not found in our vivs, you are going to alter the frequency drastically.


Aaron, you really won't. If you are sticking to H-W, it will not happen. Like I demonstrated, just with random chance, it is pretty close to zero that you will even get two albinos that are male and female that can breed. Same with an albino and heterozygote. It is only when you start culling for a particular trait that you start changing the frequencies.

You can do this in your house. Just take a ton of wildtype fruit flies and toss in a couple apterous ones, and let them breed for a few generations. I guarantee you that apterous won't ever get beyond the original level unless you specifically select for it.


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## Ed

frogfarm said:


> But it won't. Esp if it's something we can't see to cull down to the percentage it's found in the wild population. There is a predatory or env response selecting for these recessives to never breed or breed w/ such rarity that it doesn't matter. In captivity, if you have 1 or more recessives kept in check by predation or env factors not found in our vivs, you are going to alter the frequency drastically.


 
Actually it does.. There tends to be a slight drift over time if the frequency of the alleles are managed but this is typically very small (less than 5% change) between 100 and 200 years (with no new added animals) even for relatively small founder populations (say between 25 and 50 animals). Many managed institutional populations are targeted to have less than 5% drift over the next 100-500 years. 

The problem occurs when selection for or against a trait occurs as this rapidly changes not only the targeted allele but other linked alleles. This is because the choice is being made based on the individual and not based on the frequency of the occurence of the allele(s). 

The percent of animals carrying an allele (or alleles) is what is important, it doesn't matter if the animal is homozygous, heterozygous, or a non carrier as long as the frequency of occurence doesn't change in the overall captive population. This is where you are I are talking past one another. We cannot replicate the selection pressures of the appropriate ecosystem which maintains the frequency of allele distribution in response to those pressures nor how that pressure may or may not change them over time so the answer is to not even try... What we can do is maintain the frequency at which the alleles occur at the time when management begins and this means that we have to stop looking at the phenotype of the individual (since this is direct artificial selection) and concentrate on the distribution of the genes in the entire captive population. 

Ed


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## Roadrunner

But it will drift. The quicker you move on to the next generation the more it will drift. The longer you maintain the founders, the longer it will stay similar but if you go a generation every, say 3 years, you`ll end up a lot farther out then where you started. If nature is keeping down recessives from being expressed and they express and breed in captivity, the allele frequency will change. The more recessives(alleles that are kept down currently by natural selection) you have the more it will change. Nature "naturally" maintains allele frequencies such that you can't replicate them in captivity w/out those factors that keep the allele frequency where it is in nature. Even if you capture most of the alleles only a small percentage will still be near the same frequency of the founding population when captured.

You say the problems comes in when we select but that's exactly what's happening in nature.

How many tests have been done to see if the math turns out right in 100-500yrs, or is it all just been modeled?





Ed said:


> Actually it does.. There tends to be a slight drift over time if the frequency of the alleles are managed but this is typically very small (less than 5% change) between 100 and 200 years (with no new added animals) even for relatively small founder populations (say between 25 and 50 animals). Many managed institutional populations are targeted to have less than 5% drift over the next 100-500 years.
> 
> The problem occurs when selection for or against a trait occurs as this rapidly changes not only the targeted allele but other linked alleles. This is because the choice is being made based on the individual and not based on the frequency of the occurence of the allele(s).
> 
> The percent of animals carrying an allele (or alleles) is what is important, it doesn't matter if the animal is homozygous, heterozygous, or a non carrier as long as the frequency of occurence doesn't change in the overall captive population. This is where you are I are talking past one another. We cannot replicate the selection pressures of the appropriate ecosystem which maintains the frequency of allele distribution in response to those pressures nor how that pressure may or may not change them over time so the answer is to not even try... What we can do is maintain the frequency at which the alleles occur at the time when management begins and this means that we have to stop looking at the phenotype of the individual (since this is direct artificial selection) and concentrate on the distribution of the genes in the entire captive population.
> 
> Ed


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## MonarchzMan

frogfarm said:


> But it will drift. The quicker you move on to the next generation the more it will drift. The longer you maintain the founders, the longer it will stay similar but if you go a generation every, say 3 years, you`ll end up a lot farther out then where you started. If nature is keeping down recessives from being expressed and they express and breed in captivity, the allele frequency will change. The more recessives(alleles that are kept down currently by natural selection) you have the more it will change. Nature "naturally" maintains allele frequencies such that you can't replicate them in captivity w/out those factors that keep the allele frequency where it is in nature. Even if you capture most of the alleles only a small percentage will still be near the same frequency of the founding population when captured.
> 
> You say the problems comes in when we select but that's exactly what's happening in nature.
> 
> How many tests have been done to see if the math turns out right in 100-500yrs, or is it all just been modeled?


Aaron, this is really incorrect. There have been a number of studies examining the assumptions of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and they've all found it to be true if you're strict to the premises of it.

You seriously doubt it, but my best recommendation for you is to just test it yourself. Start a culture of fruit flies. In it put 90 wildtype flies and 10 apterous flies (or you could do the opposite if you want to deal with mostly non-fliers, it doesn't matter), and just keep the culture going for a year (let's say you get do a culture every 2 weeks for 26 generations over the course of a year, which would represent around 30 years of breeding for frogs). At the end of the year, score the flies that you have. I guarantee that, if you stuck to H-W, you'd still have 90% of the population wildtype and 10% apterous.


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## Catfur

Be nice. Nicer than you all are being in this thread. 

Please

Thank You


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## Roadrunner

Thats for 1 recessive group controlled by nature, what if you add 2-3 or more? You'd then only have 70%? Forgive me if I'm wrong, I have no formal classes, just a general (possible)understanding of the math of it. It just doesn't seem to work in my understanding that you can get a snapshot of the wild if the wild is defining the allele frequency. It'll change and it will do it quicker the shorter the generations take to turn over.



MonarchzMan said:


> Aaron, this is really incorrect. There have been a number of studies examining the assumptions of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and they've all found it to be true if you're strict to the premises of it.
> 
> You seriously doubt it, but my best recommendation for you is to just test it yourself. Start a culture of fruit flies. In it put 90 wildtype flies and 10 apterous flies (or you could do the opposite if you want to deal with mostly non-fliers, it doesn't matter), and just keep the culture going for a year (let's say you get do a culture every 2 weeks for 26 generations over the course of a year, which would represent around 30 years of breeding for frogs). At the end of the year, score the flies that you have. I guarantee that, if you stuck to H-W, you'd still have 90% of the population wildtype and 10% apterous.


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## MonarchzMan

frogfarm said:


> Thats for 1 recessive group controlled by nature, what if you add 2-3 or more? You'd then only have 70%? Forgive me if I'm wrong, I have no formal classes, just a general (possible)understanding of the math of it. It just doesn't seem to work in my understanding that you can get a snapshot of the wild if the wild is defining the allele frequency. It'll change and it will do it quicker the shorter the generations take to turn over.


You're correct in that the wild will change allele frequencies, but like Ed said, we don't know what conditions favor particular alleles over others. Just like with the spectral bears, albinism can be favorable in some situations, the same could be for frogs. Because albinos are selected against 99 out of 100, doesn't mean we should select against it as well. It is in the population, even in a small amount, for a reason. It has not been bred out, for whatever reason. As Ed had suggested, it could be because it is linked to beneficial alleles. We don't know.

Just because of independent assortment, you would expect that if you start off with a set frequency of alleles, you'd still have the same proportions of homozygotes and heterozygotes pop up. If you are randomly mating, if a recessive homozygote is very rare in the population, then it is even more rare that two pop up and are able to mate. They're more likely to mate with a dominant homozygote, but even so, that would be one recessive homozygote mating with a dominant one as compared to a great deal more of dominant homozygotes mating with other dominant homozygotes.

It is far better to maintain a snapshot of what the population was, than to think we can understand all the different selective pressures on the population. Remember that selection removes genetic diversity and promotes homozygosity (for the most part). There are a number of reasons why this is bad from recessive diseases or lethals popping up to lack of an ability to adapt. Make no mistake, it's not a perfect solution, but it is the best option available.


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## jacobi

Sidenote, but I don't think the spectral bears are true albinos. 

Jake


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## MonarchzMan

Possibly not, but it demonstrates the required point. It is phenotype that would otherwise be selected against under "normal" circumstances, but it has found a niche where it is advantageous.


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## thedude

thedude said:


> Are you insinuating that nature chooses to be unstable to help wild populations?  because that is very wrong.





BrianWI said:


> Yes, nature is unstable! It is the basis for evolution!


THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAID. This is the problem Brian, you don't take the time to read what people say. Either that or you just ignore what you don't like. Yes nature is unstable and it is the basis for evolution, good job. Now read it again and try to find what I was saying your mistake was.


Also, I notice you still haven't gotten to your point. What is your point in all this? Cause to me, it's still just steady trolling.

All hail the mighty english major, we all know that they are the experts on biology, especially genetics and ecology.

It's sad that not a single thing that has been said in this thread is above a 100 level biology class and he still doesn't get it.


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## Ed

frogfarm said:


> Thats for 1 recessive group controlled by nature, what if you add 2-3 or more? You'd then only have 70%? Forgive me if I'm wrong, I have no formal classes, just a general (possible)understanding of the math of it. It just doesn't seem to work in my understanding that you can get a snapshot of the wild if the wild is defining the allele frequency. It'll change and it will do it quicker the shorter the generations take to turn over.


Multiple rare alleles don't change the numbers in the manner you are indicating (assuming I'm understanding you correctly). 

As for the loss over time, yes frequency of generational turn over can impact allele frequency but you if reduce the frequency of generational turnover as much as possible (example if known by using the median life span as the basis for selection, provided that animal in question doesn't show any reproductive senesence) then you minimize the impact. However the potential impact of this can also be significantly reduced if you can start with a larger population of animals. 

Otherwise I think JP has done a good job explaining it. 

Ed


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## Roadrunner

As an example(which I know is totally off but able to be visualized for ease of explanation) what if you have het albinos, het melanistics and het hypos in a population. Say that all those recessive traits were culled when shown by predation, so that no adult breeders were albinos, hypos and melanistics and never passed their gene to 100% of offspring of any clutch in the wild. If each were represented 20% in the population and in bringing them into captivity, these animals would breed when showing these recessive traits, you'd start doubling the amount of offspring in which cases that these animals bred. So if you started w/ representations by 20%, would that raise the # to 25% each in 100 years? If 20% of your population is hets you will have het to het breeding in the first round and produce albinos which may be chosen to breed the next gen.

By multiplying the #'s of traits that are controlled by natural selection, the further you are going to end up from where you started, correct? 




Ed said:


> Multiple rare alleles don't change the numbers in the manner you are indicating (assuming I'm understanding you correctly).
> 
> As for the loss over time, yes frequency of generational turn over can impact allele frequency but you if reduce the frequency of generational turnover as much as possible (example if known by using the median life span as the basis for selection, provided that animal in question doesn't show any reproductive senesence) then you minimize the impact. However the potential impact of this can also be significantly reduced if you can start with a larger population of animals.
> 
> Otherwise I think JP has done a good job explaining it.
> 
> Ed


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## Roadrunner

Ya know what, forget it. I'm terrible at learning from reading words on a screen and it's frustrating. I'll take a class or read it somewhere where I can get diagrams to visualize it if I need to.
Good day.


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## MonarchzMan

Aaron, I think your main problem is that you're thinking of just the recessive trait and not the dominant trait. Let me try one more analogy that will hopefully help.

Let's say that we have 200 individuals in a population: 198 that are normal and 2 that are albino. Also keeping it simple, let's say everyone is a homozygote. Just by random chance, the two that are albino pair up and the other 198 pair up giving us 100 pairs in total. Let's say the average number of offspring these pairs have are 10 individuals. So the animals get busy and before we know it, we have the next generation: 990 normal and 10 albino.

The allele frequency is the same (99% normal, 1% albino), but there are more albinos. I think this is where you're getting confused. There are also more normal, which still vastly outnumber the albinos. While the number of individuals has increased, the proportions of each trait stayed the same. Really, the only way for the frequency to change is if there was selection for the recessive trait, or if, for whatever reason, the recessive trait allowed a huge boost in fecundity.

Hopefully that helps.


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## BrianWI

frogfarm,

The problem is, you are CORRECT! You see more than they do. And a big part of it is their complete misunderstanding of the math behind HW they argue with.

You are just right, in the wild, selection rids the bad traits. If an albino frog is bad, selection in the wild culls them. They erroneously apply HW to the wild population. But it doesn't happen because the basic rules are violated. When you put them into a breeding program with no selection using random mating, HW equilibrium means something completely different. The "bad" genes will show up in a much denser number in the captive population until they hit mathematical equilibrium over many generations. The two populations no longer match. This can happen with finite populations and beginning population of a small sample size. HW cannot deal with this.

frogfarm, don't let them make you believe you are wrong and cannot learn. They are basically dazzling you with their own misunderstanding and need to seem correct even when they are wrong. Just take the simple example of me telling JP he was wrong about the need for infinite populations to be 100% accurate with HW. He said it wasn't true. I posted the rules from a couple different places. Did he admit he was wrong? No, instead he tried to fake it. He blamed me for not referencing the information (which anyone who wants to can Google it). But was he wrong? YES!!! Focus on that point and you begin to understand people like Ed and JP. They don't care if they are wrong, they only care if you are impressed because they got you to believe they were right.

And there you have the reason these people just argue really inane stuff. They don't care about fact or truth, only having most people think they are the "experts" and are right. If you get in their way or show as we both have how they are wrong, they will try to make you look dumb. Don't buy into it. YOU ARE ON THE CORRECT PATH. frogfarm, to steal a phrase misused until now, YOU schooled JP and Ed.


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## Rusty_Shackleford

Dart Den • View topic - Breeding for color


Why? I guess it's not enough to be wrong on one forum, you have to be wrong on several.


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## MonarchzMan

Brian, again, you ought to learn some respect for your superiors. Ed has more experience in his little pinky than you have in entirety. Anyone here does because you haven't actually worked in conservation genetics at all. He works in conservation and genetic management and you actually have the gall to tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about. Same with me, I actually have degrees and experience in this stuff (you don't, remember).

Now, you can't provide references so, in freshmen biology, you'd fail the class and be expelled. It's really not that big of a request. It is completely suspect as to why you actually refuse to provide sources.

Now, as to why you are wrong with H-W. We'll go even more basic. No selection meaning that no allele is selected for or against. During meiosis, chromosomes duplicate themselves. So when you have one A before meiosis, you'll have two A's after meiosis. If you are not selecting for one allele over another, which is what the H-W stipulates, *then there is no possible way to change the allele frequencies.*

Have you thought as to why a large population is important? It's because genetic drift can randomly remove alleles and change frequencies. Now, that's all well and good in a wild population. As you might know, captive populations have significantly less genetic drift because of significantly higher survival, and the chances of random removal of alleles is significantly small. For all intents and purposes, genetic drift is not that big of a concern in a captive population. It's possible, but only on very rare cases. So your hanging on this one stipulation of the H-W says you don't know what you're talking about. There are bigger violations to the H-W than genetic drift in a captive population, but you're focused on one that, really, is pretty irrelevant. You know, unless you want to argue that captive animals don't have as high a survival rate as wild animals and that they are subjected to significant amounts of genetic drift.

School's out.


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## frogparty

The only problem with using albinism as an example in this case is that albinism carries with it 
1. Increased visibility and chance of predation
2. Increased sensitivity to sun and UV
Therefore most never live to pass on their genes. I don't see this as the same as Bastimentos cemetery population where different, but equally fit color variation is found.


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## MonarchzMan

frogparty said:


> The only problem with using albinism as an example in this case is that albinism carries with it
> 1. Increased visibility and chance of predation
> 2. Increased sensitivity to sun and UV
> Therefore most never live to pass on their genes. I don't see this as the same as Bastimentos cemetery population where different, but equally fit color variation is found.


This is how we understand it, but why, then would albinism not be completely selected out of a population? Why would a normal color be driven to fixation? This would indicate to me that there is some advantage to albinism, even if it is rare. As I pointed out with the spectral bears, there is advantage to a "conspicuous" phenotype in certain niches.


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## BrianWI

I'm not writing a paper. You were wrong about HW not needing inifinite population to be 100% accurate, I'd think you'd want to correct yourself as a scientist so you don't make the mistake again.


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## frogparty

Albinism is never fully extirpated from the gene pool because at its simplest form its homozygous recessive and detrimental. You are not selecting against heterozygous carriers of the gene

Heterozygous for albinism could be linked to other traits. Take sickle cell anemia for example. Homozygous recessive is horribly disfiguring, while heterozygous provides moderate resistance to malaria


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## BrianWI

I understand what you are saying frogparty, agreed.

What if in the wild population, there is a recessive "bad mojo" gene. 1 in 1000 have it in a population of 100,000. We import 9 frogs we caught from one small area. In that area, we picked up two that carried it. We used random matings for 20 years. How close does the captive population resemble the wild population? Just an extension of the thought, I think.


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## frogparty

Well statistically speaking its extremely unlikely that 2/9 would carry a 1/1000 genetic trait.


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## BrianWI

No, it isn't far fetched. Part of the need is a good sample. But, what if you collected from a small area. Maybe a group of tadpoles or juveniles was found. And they were offspring of a single pair? If the "local" range of the animal is 4 square miles, is it more likely the frogs picked from a single acre are more closely related?

Your sample is important.


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## frogparty

What I believe we see in captive populations is a general lack of selective pressure for anything else except which animals do best in a glass tank. We dont( for the most part) select for parental care since we raise eggs and tads ourselves. We don't select for optimum fitness, since we feed so heavily the frogs barely need to move to keep themselves more than adequately fed. Artificial selection for "high orange" or "sky blue" traits are common, but these traits don't represent "sub morphs" as stated earlier in this thread, merely genetic variation within a population. You wouldn't consider red heads or blue eyed people sub morphs of **** sapiens, what they are is the expression of homozygous recessive traits created by the Marin of two heterozygous carriers, or a heterozygous carrier and a homozygous recessive individual. 
With a little choice selection of founder stock it would be easy to breed for any one of these traits that are merely one piece of a diverse gene pool, not sub morphs. Look at auratus. Green/bronze, blue/bronze, super blue. All just part of a genetically diverse population that should NOT be split into different morphs, but instead be seen as a healthy diverse gene bank, same as Bastimentos pumilio.

So back to your question... With appropriate section of a founding stock of 9 individuals NOT based on phenotype, the selection of such a high percentage of this "loser" gene is not only highly unlikely but damn near impossible. And random matings in a tank where mates had multiple matin possibilities would likely yield a population with high preserved gene diversity. 
However, that implies that each individual in the founding stock has access to every other potential mate. If you pair up your founder stick in perpetuity and don't allow for the increased potential for mate diversity your allele diversity will fall as you have severely limited the potential combinations. Simple punett square configuration will show you this. 

Then there's the question of what's the breakdown of your founding 9. Female heavy or male? And is this "loser gene" sex linked? That would play a large role in its frequency in later generations


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## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> I'm not writing a paper. You were wrong about HW not needing inifinite population to be 100% accurate, I'd think you'd want to correct yourself as a scientist so you don't make the mistake again.


You didn't provide any sort of citation, so, sorry, I'm not wrong. You plagiarized, at best. I need to be able to see the full source so I can take everything in context. And once again, you're ignoring my points (i.e., genetic drift in captive populations and survival), to try to make some irrelevant ones because you know I am right.



frogparty said:


> Albinism is never fully extirpated from the gene pool because at its simplest form its homozygous recessive and detrimental. You are not selecting against heterozygous carriers of the gene
> 
> Heterozygous for albinism could be linked to other traits. Take sickle cell anemia for example. Homozygous recessive is horribly disfiguring, while heterozygous provides moderate resistance to malaria


Right, but see, if we selected against albinism, we would be shifting allele frequencies towards a more normal form which could rob the population of the heterozygote advantage that it may confer on the population. That is why it is important to keep albino individuals within the captive population. Otherwise, we're photoshopping the photograph.



BrianWI said:


> What if in the wild population, there is a recessive "bad mojo" gene. 1 in 1000 have it in a population of 100,000. We import 9 frogs we caught from one small area. In that area, we picked up two that carried it. We used random matings for 20 years. How close does the captive population resemble the wild population? Just an extension of the thought, I think.


Please demonstrate that this happens with these frogs. Otherwise, you're, once again, speaking in irrelevant scenarios.


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## frogparty

Right, I'm not saying we should select against albinism in the hobby. Or melanism either for that matter. Fact is though, IN NATURE, albinism is often selected against by environmental pressures that prohibit that individual from passing on any genetic material. Since we as a hobby create very few pressures beyond the ability to live and breed in a small enclosed box, we are creating a different type of selective pressure. In this case, the allele for albinism isn't lost, but we have no real way of knowing what we are selecting AGAINST. While some alleles are maintained at perhaps greater than wild type density it is almost inevitable that ohers fall below wild type percentage.


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## BrianWI

JP, learn to use Google and the Internet. Wikipedia the info. I don't care. I am sorry I am a mathematician and you are not. I am sorry you don't know you are wrong. Continue on being wrong if you like. Oh, and someone said at some point english major? No, Electrical Engineering.

frogparty,

If the original import was made of 9 frog, there is the possibility they are related. Take for instance a recent "import" of true wild type red junglefowl. What was collected were eggs from a single nest. Doesn't seem so impossible. Importers are generally not conservationists.

Now, we would be lying if we said no one soft selects their frogs, right? Do these people keep their "rejects" for the entire lifespan? Or, being money involved, do they sell the ones that didn't make their breeding program? Therefore, your starter population may already be limited. I can use whatever conservation breeding method you want based on random matings, won't do anything but preserve the limited pool I got. How do I fix them, random mating? No, I probably SELECT for missing traits from someone elses frogs. Why don't I just buy more frogs and random mate them to make better frogs? Because I DON'T have room for infinite frogs.


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## BrianWI

> Right, I'm not saying we should select against albinism in the hobby. Or melanism either for that matter. Fact is though, IN NATURE, albinism is often selected against by environmental pressures that prohibit that individual from passing on any genetic material. Since we as a hobby create very few pressures beyond the ability to live and breed in a small enclosed box, we are creating a different type of selective pressure. In this case, the allele for albinism isn't lost, but we have no real way of knowing what we are selecting AGAINST. While some alleles are maintained at perhaps greater than wild type density it is almost inevitable that ohers fall below wild type percentage.


I'm glad JP likes this... because it was what I have said! We aren't raising wild animals. We aren't randomly breeding, we are selecting for "pets" that live in captivity, even without trying. Despite that being a huge point of mine all along that JP wanted to fight, he just agreed to it. Finally, JP learned!


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## JPccusa

Couldn't breeders use a blue ocean strategic approach to this?


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## MonarchzMan

> JP, learn to use Google and the Internet. Wikipedia the info. I don't care. I am sorry I am a mathematician and you are not. I am sorry you don't know you are wrong. Continue on being wrong if you like. Oh, and someone said at some point english major? No, Electrical Engineering.


Burden of proof is on you. You're the plagiarizer taking someone else's words and trying to pass them off as your own without giving proper credit to the individual who wrote them. But, see, you demonstrate your lack of ability to find credible information if you take it from Wikipedia (I tell my freshmen biology students that it's not a source to be used in defending their arguments). It's not peer reviewed, and as you know, any person can change entries. I could go onto the H-W page right now and edit in that Brian Sparks is wrong about H-W and JP is right, but that comment is not scientific. It becomes such when it can be backed up, which it has.

You spend your day connecting wires together. Right. So, you don't spend all of your time studying genetics (or running gels and sequencing to identify genes), breeding frogs, or really looking at anything conservation related. So you're qualified... how?



BrianWI said:


> I'm glad JP likes this... because it was what I have said! We aren't raising wild animals. We aren't randomly breeding, we are selecting for "pets" that live in captivity, even without trying. Despite that being a huge point of mine all along that JP wanted to fight, he just agreed to it. Finally, JP learned!


No, it's not what you said. You've been arguing that a recessive trait will increase in frequency, somehow, through random breeding in accordance with the H-W equilibrium. But to prove that you do not read:



MonarchzMan said:


> It is far better to maintain a snapshot of what the population was, than to think we can understand all the different selective pressures on the population. Remember that selection removes genetic diversity and promotes homozygosity (for the most part). There are a number of reasons why this is bad from recessive diseases or lethals popping up to lack of an ability to adapt. Make no mistake, it's not a perfect solution, but it is the best option available.


Which is *entirely* consistent with what I have been saying and what frogparty said. You're the one arguing to no point, and whenever someone tries to get you to clarify a position, you ignore it and bring up some irrelevant point.


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## frogparty

EIt is possible to have all related founder stock. But that would be very unfortunate. We are arguing what ifs here. Worst case scenarios etc etc. in reality I'm saying founder stocks are likely not related to that extreme, and that a large contingent of the wild type alleles are present in the small founding stock. I'm also arguing that while it's possible to maintain this founding stock to the greatest genetic potential, it's just as easy to limit its potential by improperly managing it.
Is this going to be an issue for frogs like Bastimentos, auratus, leucs etc? Nope. Will it be more so for single import, locale specific frogs? You bet your ass. One more reason that the old line frogs with no locale info should not be discounted. These old lines likely contain a higher allele diversity than newer line frogs do


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## BrianWI

I dunno. The Red jungle fowl was one example I know of. Some pheasants are another where the import was all related.


Don't forget, due to soft selection and small numbers, our individual populations are not in themselves diverse. While everyone wants to discuss theories on infinite numbers and infinite access to other frogs, this doesn't exist.

What is funny is I don't see a HUGE population, diverse, as bad. In fact, I wrote about it once and its usefulness to solidify traits in new breeds while reducing the loss of useful. JP, of all people, argued he could accomplish it with 8 birds his mom took care of. LOL.

JP can dig so low on his argument he babbles nonsense about plagurism, but thats just him not wanting to be proven wrong. Anyone else actually looked it up to see if it requires infinite population to be true? I bet someone has.


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## frogparty

If people KNOW that these jungle fowl all. One from the same clutch then I would hope noone is putting these into a breeding program as founder stock with each other. However, if they are used to bring new blood to an otherwise diminished breeding population, that's a bit better. 
With a diverse, properly selected breeding group I believe it has been proven that allele diversity can be maintained with a small founding population. I believe Ed has referenced material proving this before. Because he deals wih zoolological breeding populations, I would instantly defer to him on this because the AZA is very concerned wih maintaining this allele diversity. 

Obviously the bigger the population you start with the better, but an infinite population is far from necessary


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## frogparty

Rember too Brian that were not interested in solidifying new traits, but preserving wild type as close as possible


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## BrianWI

You can maintain the alleles of your sample, even of closely related individuals, for a time. I don't have any argument with that.

My argument is whether your sample can be determined to be valid and matched the wild.

If you don't have all the genetics in your sample, breed huge numbers, then reconsider the original population, you haven't maintained the frequency, you have altered it.


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## Ed

An interesting side point to this discussion occurs when one takes some time to dig through the relative literature on heritage breeds..oddly enough selected and line breeding are both listed as deleterious to a breed of a domestic animal in the long run, although there may be short term gains.. For example this study on attempting to breed sheep for resistence to scrapie can result in a loss of 87% of the male founders with an overal loss of 30% of the rarer alleles in the population (see for example http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1297-9686-38-5-495.pdf) It is also important to note that the genetic management techniques are the same as those developed for management of populations in institutions... 

A second study referencing pigs can be used to illustrate how minimal effective populations can be important for sustaining the genetics (you have to skip over the parts where they are discussing marketing) https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/25218/Sanders_Thesis.pdf?sequence=1 
This is important since it documents how important population size can be on the overal genetic viability of a population and is appliciable to the hobby since displacement of a captive population by a outcross, hybrid or line bred (inbred) animal for specific pattern can reduce the viabililty of the population long-term.... 

This recent paper (http://www.vortex9.org/reprints/FrankhamConsBiol2011.pdf) indicates the potential risk of outbreeding depression in many populations of dendrobatids that have different patterns since we know for sure in some populations (like tinctorious) that they have not exchanged genes for more than 500 years (actually 10,000 years see http://bnoonan.org/Papers/Noonan_Gaucher_06.pdf). 

Back to frogs.. we can see from several studies why outcrosses and hybrids are not desirable since we can see outbreeding depression issues both on a larger scale within a species http://www.environmental-expert.com/Files\6063\articles\5372\LV68M29432114864.pdf 

How outbreeding depression may not appear in the F1 but in later generations (see http://www.helsinki.fi/biosci/egru/pdf/2002/BJLS2002.pdf) and between inbreeding and outbreeding which is a greater risk (see http://dornsife.usc.edu/labs/edmands/documents/Edmands_2007.pdf) and that it can take up to 5 generations to see the negative impacts of outbreeding depression... 

some comments..... 

Ed


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## Ed

frogparty said:


> Obviously the bigger the population you start with the better, but an infinite population is far from necessary


See my citations above.. there are multiple institutional programs (see my when is captive breeding considered conservation link many pages above as well), that are managed to preserve greater than 95% of the allelic diversity in a population with around 50-100 founders for more than 200 years. This is well within the ability of the hobby (the pig citation above describes how it can be done if a number of people step forward to help out). 

Ed


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## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> You can maintain the alleles of your sample, even of closely related individuals, for a time. I don't have any argument with that.
> 
> My argument is whether your sample can be determined to be valid and matched the wild.
> 
> If you don't have all the genetics in your sample, breed huge numbers, then reconsider the original population, you haven't maintained the frequency, you have altered it.


You are arguing that only small numbers of frogs come in at any given time, 2 or 9 or whatever, but you have not actually demonstrated that this happens or that we have this at all in captive populations (we don't in most cases).

But, I will refer you to this (some actual quotes with sources):



> Genetic theory teaches us that 20 founders would already represent 97.5% of the wild gene diversity (if we assume that these founders are not related to each other and are representative for the spread of gene diversity over the geographic range of the species) (CROW & KIMURA 1970).


http://www.kasparek-verlag.de/PDF Abstracts/PDF-SUPP3 Weboptimiert/151-158 Leus.pdf

Amphibian Ark also has a nice tool that calculates the number of individuals necessary for a captive population to represent the vast majority of the genetic diversity in a population. Amphibian Ark is one of these organizations that works tightly with zoos and knows what they're talking about when they talk about captive breeding.

Founder Animals « Amphibian Ark

Contrary to your assertions, you do not need "huge numbers" of individuals to capture the vast majority of genetic diversity within a population.

And again:



MonarchzMan said:


> Make no mistake, it's not a perfect solution, but it is the best option available.


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## JPccusa

This is very interesting and concerning. 

I have a corn snake, and I did a lot of reading on cornsnakes.com before getting it. With corn snakes, you could see new morphs coming up every year. Are we talking about something different here, or are corn snakes doomed in the long run? 

Is it possible that this hobby (frogs) will eventually split into designer breeders and conservationist breeders (the blue ocean strategic approach I mentioned earlier)?

I like the idea of people helping out to preserve a diverse population in this hobby.


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## MonarchzMan

JPccusa said:


> This is very interesting and concerning.
> 
> I have a corn snake, and I did a lot of reading on cornsnakes.com before getting it. With corn snakes, you could see new morphs coming up every year. Are we talking about something different here, or are corn snakes doomed in the long run?
> 
> Is it possible that this hobby will eventually split into designer breeders and conservationist breeders (the blue ocean strategic approach I mentioned earlier)?
> 
> I like the idea of people helping out to preserve a diverse population in the hobby.


In the very long run, perhaps. Essentially what is happening with corn snakes, leopard geckos, ball pythons, etc. is that they are being line bred for particular traits. Selective breeding removes genetic diversity and line breeding could have unintended consequences. Think of what you see in dogs. All of the genetic problems you have with purebreds. It'll be the same way with corn snake morphs. But that is some time down the road (think how long domesticated dog breeds have been around).

I personally doubt that there will be a split in the hobby. There has been the constant people questioning, and some trying hybridization and line breeding, but it doesn't really catch on since nature does it right. Hybrids really aren't all that attractive as compared to original morphs.


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## frogparty

Ed said:


> See my citations above.. there are multiple institutional programs (see my when is captive breeding considered conservation link many pages above as well), that are managed to preserve greater than 95% of the allelic diversity in a population with around 50-100 founders for more than 200 years. This is well within the ability of the hobby (the pig citation above describes how it can be done if a number of people step forward to help out).
> 
> Ed


I'm in total agreeance with you Ed, that's why I said earlier I defer to you on these issues


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## BrianWI

I will ask Ed again. How many azureus were imported? I never got that answer.


However, misrepresenting the scrapies article is hardly good argument. They took a specific amount of already homozygous male sheep and made a worse case analysis to arrive at those numbers. Why try to mislead people with that?


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## Brotherly Monkey

MonarchzMan said:


> I personally doubt that there will be a split in the hobby. There has been the constant people questioning, and some trying hybridization and line breeding, but it doesn't really catch on since nature does it right. Hybrids really aren't all that attractive as compared to original morphs.


I think it's more likely due to the type of person attracted to the hobby and their taste in aesthetics. In fact, I tend to focus on species orchids, and when I kept snakes and monitors (both rather small collections) I always focused on large and elaborate naturalist enclosures. And many here have backgrounds in the reefing hobby


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## frogparty

Luckily I think a larger part of the herp hobby is shifting towards naturalistic enclosures and wild type animals. Locale specific grey banded kingsnakes and mountain kingsnakes come to mind.


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## BrianWI

Why are you trying to do that and why do you think it will be successful?

Loss of genetic material is NOT always bad, and is planned. Lets take Ed's pig example. Lets say I make as many super ocean fantasy blue dart frogs as I can with unique genetic material. I make 50 individuals without signs of issues. I can now breed them with 95% retention of allelic diversity for 200 years! I'm no worse off than the pigs.

Did I displace any of the original morphs population? The random breeders MUST believe this is true. They must believe that if I can't have the designer frog, I will keep the regular variety and therefore am taking away from the captive population to have the designer ones. In ball python terms, that would mean if albinos didn't exist, everyone would still have just as many ball pythons, they'd just all be normals.

Thats the equivalent of saying that if a state bans dart frogs and exotics, theyd all replace them with an equal number of hamsters.


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## MonarchzMan

Except, as has been pointed out time and time again, selection removes allelic diversity and homogenizes the genome. As a result, while you may not have signs of issues in the 50 individuals (unlikely given the amount of breeding and selection that would need to be done to get true breeding frogs with that color), but the likelihood of deleterious alleles popping up in subsequent generations is more likely than with a captive population seeking to maximize the similarity to the wild genetic diversity.

That's why it is bad. You're not a geneticist, and while you may think that everything is fine with your super blue frogs, you actually have no capability to assess if that is the case. Again, in just about any domesticated animal, you see an increased prevalence of genetic disorders as compared to wild counterparts. These domesticated animals have been selected over time for particular phenotypes, thereby losing genetic diversity. It's no coincidence that genetic disorders pop up more often.


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## BrianWI

Yet, you have no issue doing that in what you would already considered bottlenecked animals: poultry. Huh. You'll breed for type with 8 birds, and have no issue with any bottlenecks. But frogs: no way! I guess your motivations have nothing to do with the welfare of the animal then.


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## MonarchzMan

Line breeding domesticated animals is quite different than conservation genetics of frogs. Keep on subject, Brian. I know your mind likes to wander, but focus. My breeding chickens is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. You keep on trying to change the subject because you know you're wrong, and you're getting schooled.

We're talking about frogs.


----------



## JPccusa

MonarchzMan said:


> In the very long run, perhaps. Essentially what is happening with corn snakes, leopard geckos, ball pythons, etc. is that they are being line bred for particular traits. Selective breeding removes genetic diversity and line breeding could have unintended consequences. Think of what you see in dogs. All of the genetic problems you have with purebreds. It'll be the same way with corn snake morphs. But that is some time down the road (think how long domesticated dog breeds have been around).
> 
> I personally doubt that there will be a split in the hobby. There has been the constant people questioning, and some trying hybridization and line breeding, but it doesn't really catch on since nature does it right. Hybrids really aren't all that attractive as compared to original morphs.


In corn snakes there are already some issues, such as stargazing.


----------



## BrianWI

JP,

For me, it is a constant. Unlike you I guess, I value the life experience of all animals. I would no sooner create a poor chicken or a poor dart frog. Quality of life is important to me, and I have always done my best to do my best to provide animals with a great quality of life.

You may value frogs above chickens, I do not. And the genetics are exactly the same, the equations are the same. I think even Ed brought that up.... I guess you just told us Ed was wrong. Weird! But that is what happens when you argue from a baseless point. The content is all wrong.

H-W type mathematics is used to create composite breeds as well. I guess you didn't know that.

Just like H-W wasn't based off infinite population.

Lect 3 Pop. Gen. I Intro.
Hardy-Weinberg principle
Population Genetics
Population and Evolutionary Genetics
EvoMath 1: The Hardy-Weinberg Principle - The Panda's Thumb

One of those must be a good source for you. Again, why argue when you are wrong?


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> I will ask Ed again. How many azureus were imported? I never got that answer.
> 
> 
> However, misrepresenting the scrapies article is hardly good argument. They took a specific amount of already homozygous male sheep and made a worse case analysis to arrive at those numbers. Why try to mislead people with that?


Actually I didn't misrepresent the scrapie article. I pointed out that the paper indicates the potential deleterious impacts of line and selected breeding on a population. I am not surprised you want to downplay it since your claim to date in this thread is that by using domesticated animals as examples, you claim that outcrosses, hybrids, artificial selection and line breeding are not a risk to the captive dendrobatid populations. However we can see not only by that article that but the body of literature surrounding this topic that those actions are a direct threat to populations. 

As for the number of azureus, it is not only immaterial to the discussion at hand but is an attempt to distract from the flaws in your arguement as well as an attempt to put doubt on my position. I've asked you repeatedly for examples much earlier in some of your unsupported opinions that you not only ignored but refused to answer and I did not press the issue since they didn't matter other than to indicate that you were making unsupported statements but as soon as you find your defined position being threatened by actual references you attempt to avoid the real points of the article by attempting to once again attack me personally. 

Ed


----------



## Ed

JPccusa said:


> In corn snakes there are already some issues, such as stargazing.


Stargazing can also be due to several diseases including some that are very slow developing such as amoeba infections of the nervous system or even viral infections so unless necropsies and histopathology have been done on the snakes, we can't be sure that the issues are actually directly genetic in origin or not. (or not would be due to loss of alleles that enable the snakes to better fight infections). 

However we have already seen lines of corn snakes that were line bred until they were really a problem such as the original line bred blood corns that had a high mortality after hatching and wanted to only start feeding on other snakes... One of the differences is that people are still aquiring cornsnakes from the wild to breed into the lines so your not seeing the same level of issues as you would if you had a totally closed population that was inbreeding for the various color patterns. 

Ed


----------



## BrianWI

JP,

You can use your expertise to help us out.

Lets say I have 20 founders would already represent 97.5% of the alleles of the entire population in males. Lets say I have another 97.5% contained in 20 females.

I have one color morph male, and one female. The morphs color is created simply by a recessive gene, already found in the population. If I use this set up to create a population of 20 of these new morphs, how much of the original populations alleles can I retain? Ed is allowed to help you.


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> JP,
> 
> For me, it is a constant. Unlike you I guess, I value the life experience of all animals. I would no sooner create a poor chicken or a poor dart frog. Quality of life is important to me, and I have always done my best to do my best to provide animals with a great quality of life.
> 
> You may value frogs above chickens, I do not. And the genetics are exactly the same, the equations are the same. I think even Ed brought that up.... I guess you just told us Ed was wrong. Weird! But that is what happens when you argue from a baseless point. The content is all wrong.
> 
> H-W type mathematics is used to create composite breeds as well. I guess you didn't know that.
> 
> Just like H-W wasn't based off infinite population.
> 
> Lect 3 Pop. Gen. I Intro.
> Hardy-Weinberg principle
> Population Genetics
> Population and Evolutionary Genetics
> EvoMath 1: The Hardy-Weinberg Principle - The Panda's Thumb
> 
> One of those must be a good source for you. Again, why argue when you are wrong?


See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're attempting to side track the conversation by trying to undermine me and say that I do not care for animal welfare. Not only is it a ridiculous assertion, but it is irrelevant to the conversation at hand. You're doing the same to Ed, who by all accounts, is probably the most respected member on this board. All because we've shown your arguments to be baseless.

You're trying to put words into my mouth to suit your own ends, but you'll find that I never actually said anything you purport that I said.

Your problem, well one of your problems, is that you think that conservation genetics in frogs is equivalent to line breeding of domesticated animals. They aren't. H-W isn't even applicable to line breeding of domesticated animals because *there is selection going on* which is one glaring violation of H-W.

And good job on finally providing some links, you can learn. Even if it takes 10 pages to do so.


----------



## BrianWI

Ed,

Come on, you know why you don't want to say the number, we both do....

Tell us how many azureus were brought in.


----------



## MonarchzMan

I think Ed and I have been answering your questions quite a bit. How about you go back and answer ours. You'll find that you skipped over a large amount of them.


----------



## BrianWI

> And good job on finally providing some links, you can learn. Even if it takes 10 pages to do so.


And it proved you wrong. Obviously you learn much harder.



> Your problem, well one of your problems, is that you think that conservation genetics in frogs is equivalent to line breeding of domesticated animals. They aren't. H-W isn't even applicable to line breeding of domesticated animals because there is selection going on which is one glaring violation of H-W.


Have Ed say that too, have him back you up on that statement. Come on Ed, back JP on that one. Tell us JP is right, this equation is irrelevant to domestic breeding or conservation of a heritage breed.


----------



## BrianWI

I checked. No relevant questions were asked in the last several pages. If you want to ask a relevant question, I answer them.


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> Why are you trying to do that and why do you think it will be successful?
> 
> Loss of genetic material is NOT always bad, and is planned. Lets take Ed's pig example. Lets say I make as many super ocean fantasy blue dart frogs as I can with unique genetic material. I make 50 individuals without signs of issues. I can now breed them with 95% retention of allelic diversity for 200 years! I'm no worse off than the pigs.


Your ignoring more than one very important facet here.. first off visual issues do not mean that there are no problems from the attempt..This is an invalid claim that phenotype equates to genotype. This is important because you are ignoring the loss of variety of various alleles such as those that code for diversity in disease resistence (histocompatability complex for example) as well as potentially others and an indication of why the claim that the loss of genetic material is bad..... The second facet is that you are attempt to present a frog that has not gone through a bottlenecking event as equivalent to a domesticated animal that has gone through at least one bottlenecking event during domestication.... This results in a significant difference in the potential to survive long-term,. These are some of the reasons your attempt to equate domestic live stock as an equal example to the frogs in your arguments is invalid (despite the fact that you have ignored the impact on inbreeding, linebreeding and direct selection on both domesticated and non-domesticated captive animals). It is clear in the relevent literature that selected breeding and line breeding in both domesticated animals and the frogs are negative for both populations but are not totally equivalent due to the lack of a bottlenecking event and you are attempting to bury that distinction as much as possible. 



BrianWI said:


> Did I displace any of the original morphs population? The random breeders MUST believe this is true. They must believe that if I can't have the designer frog, I will keep the regular variety and therefore am taking away from the captive population to have the designer ones. In ball python terms, that would mean if albinos didn't exist, everyone would still have just as many ball pythons, they'd just all be normals.


Each enclosure that houses the designer morph/population/species by definition is removed from potentially housing a non-designer morph/population/species. This is documented occuring even in the "domesticated" animals towards which you point as examples of success (since heritage breeds are being displaced by commercial breeds and outcrosses).. the analogy to ball pythons is flawed since you do not acknowledge the impact the economics of the ball python market on the trade... 



BrianWI said:


> Thats the equivalent of saying that if a state bans dart frogs and exotics, theyd all replace them with an equal number of hamsters.


See above why this is also a flawed statement.. 

Ed


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> Ed,
> 
> Come on, you know why you don't want to say the number, we both do....
> 
> Tell us how many azureus were brought in.


Irrelevent and a smoke screen.. You are attempting to bait me into moving off track from the real issues which is your claim that hybrids, outcrosses, inbreeding, and/or line breeding are not a threat to the captive populations. 


Ed


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> And it proved you wrong. Obviously you learn much harder.


Let me guess, you did a google search for "Hardy-Weinberg infinite population" on google and just copied and pasted the URLs for the top five. You should read your sources, and a little comprehension might help. From Population and Evolutionary Genetics, which again, you posted, this is what they say about an infinitely large population:



> Infinitely large population - No such population actually exists, but does this necessarily negate the Hardy-Weinberg Law? NO!! The effect that is of concern is genetic drift. Genetic drift is a change in gene frequency that is the result of chance deviation from expected genotypic frequencies. This is a problem in small population, but is minimal in moderate sized or larger populations.


And I will point out what I said:



MonarchzMan said:


> Have you thought as to why a large population is important? It's because genetic drift can randomly remove alleles and change frequencies. Now, that's all well and good in a wild population. As you might know, captive populations have significantly less genetic drift because of significantly higher survival, and the chances of random removal of alleles is significantly small. For all intents and purposes, genetic drift is not that big of a concern in a captive population. It's possible, but only on very rare cases. So your hanging on this one stipulation of the H-W says you don't know what you're talking about. There are bigger violations to the H-W than genetic drift in a captive population, but you're focused on one that, really, is pretty irrelevant. You know, unless you want to argue that captive animals don't have as high a survival rate as wild animals and that they are subjected to significant amounts of genetic drift.


Huh, looks like it is entirely consistent with what your sources say. The idea behind a large or infinite population is genetic drift. In captivity, that can largely be controlled, so it doesn't violate the assumption of H-W. I'm sorry, I'm right.



> Have Ed say that too, have him back you up on that statement. Come on Ed, back JP on that one. Tell us JP is right, this equation is irrelevant to domestic breeding or conservation of a heritage breed.


Looks like he did...


----------



## jacobi

BrianWI said:


> I checked. No relevant questions were asked in the last several pages. If you want to ask a relevant question, I answer them.


I ask again, with respect, what your experiences and/or formal education in breeding, conservation and genetics are. I also politely ask you what exact argument are you trying to make? What is it that you want to accomplish by your argument?

Jake


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## Roadrunner

Arghhh, no it doesn't help, as I said I need the punnett squares and diagrams. It's too confusing working w/ % and numbers of individuals, I don't learn this way, it hurts my head 

Although let's say we have 20% hets and you breed 50 pairs to be replaced by 100 of the offspring. The next generation would be 1 albino(1% chance of producing an albino, 100 replacement animals and there will be an albino in the next gen. I imagine the probability wont go up that much w/ one albino in the group but if it's enough to have 2 in the next gen or 3rd, it will keep going up to level off, correct? If albinos represent something that doesn't occur in nature as a liveable trait and you have multiples your creating things that don't survive in nature. If it's naturally 20% then it will move to a higher percentage since your not culling albinos, which would change the percentage but 66% to 100% in that 1 percent of cases per 100, or something like that. I'm not saying it's substantial as 1 trait but 100's of those traits present a problem. If there are traits from stacking alleles they may be the same in the occurrence in the population but may be stacked in certain individuals and lacking in others. Albinos expressing the gene constitute turning one survivor(het) in the wild to a non survivor(albino). So it does matter if these animals are het or show the trait, esp if it's bad eyesight or something else that would hinder it in the wild and much moreso when(if drawn out long enough) these albinos start breeding together. It's confusing math and that's all I care to think about it at this point.

And thanks Brian but I'm reserving celebration till I understand it completely

Good night.



MonarchzMan said:


> Aaron, I think your main problem is that you're thinking of just the recessive trait and not the dominant trait. Let me try one more analogy that will hopefully help.
> 
> Let's say that we have 200 individuals in a population: 198 that are normal and 2 that are albino. Also keeping it simple, let's say everyone is a homozygote. Just by random chance, the two that are albino pair up and the other 198 pair up giving us 100 pairs in total. Let's say the average number of offspring these pairs have are 10 individuals. So the animals get busy and before we know it, we have the next generation: 990 normal and 10 albino.
> 
> The allele frequency is the same (99% normal, 1% albino), but there are more albinos. I think this is where you're getting confused. There are also more normal, which still vastly outnumber the albinos. While the number of individuals has increased, the proportions of each trait stayed the same. Really, the only way for the frequency to change is if there was selection for the recessive trait, or if, for whatever reason, the recessive trait allowed a huge boost in fecundity.
> 
> Hopefully that helps.


----------



## jacobi

frogfarm said:


> Although let's say we have 20% hets and you breed 50 pairs to be replaced by 100 of the offspring. The next generation would be 1 albino(1% chance of producing an albino, 100 replacement animals and there will be an albino in the next gen. I imagine the probability wont go up that much w/ one albino in the group but if it's enough to have 2 in the next gen or 3rd, it will keep going up to level off, correct? If albinos represent something that doesn't occur in nature as a liveable trait and you have multiples your creating things that don't survive in nature. If it's naturally 20% then it will move to a higher percentage since your not culling albinos, which would change the percentage but 66% to 100% in that 1 percent of cases per 100, or something like that. I'm not saying it's substantial as 1 trait but 100's of those traits present a problem. If there are traits from stacking alleles they may be the same in the occurrence in the population but may be stacked in certain individuals and lacking in others. Albinos expressing the gene constitute turning one survivor(het) in the wild to a non survivor(albino).


But you aren't culling the normals either so why would the percentages change? 

Jake


----------



## MonarchzMan

frogfarm said:


> Arghhh, no it doesn't help, as I said I need the punnett squares and diagrams. It's too confusing working w/ % and numbers of individuals, I don't learn this way, it hurts my head
> 
> Although let's say we have 20% hets and you breed 50 pairs to be replaced by 100 of the offspring. The next generation would be 1 albino(1% chance of producing an albino, 100 replacement animals and there will be an albino in the next gen. I imagine the probability wont go up that much w/ one albino in the group but if it's enough to have 2 in the next gen or 3rd, it will keep going up to level off, correct? If albinos represent something that doesn't occur in nature as a liveable trait and you have multiples your creating things that don't survive in nature. If it's naturally 20% then it will move to a higher percentage since your not culling albinos, which would change the percentage but 66% to 100% in that 1 percent of cases per 100, or something like that. I'm not saying it's substantial as 1 trait but 100's of those traits present a problem. If there are traits from stacking alleles they may be the same in the occurrence in the population but may be stacked in certain individuals and lacking in others. Albinos expressing the gene constitute turning one survivor(het) in the wild to a non survivor(albino). So it does matter if these animals are het or show the trait, esp if it's bad eyesight or something else that would hinder it in the wild and much moreso when(if drawn out long enough) these albinos start breeding together. It's confusing math and that's all I care to think about it at this point.
> 
> And thanks Brian but I'm reserving celebration till I understand it completely
> 
> Good night.


I'm not entirely sure I follow your logic, but I think that you're still focusing on the recessive trait and ignoring the dominant one, and I think you're making it more complicated than it needs to be. You don't have to deal with punnett squares because that deals with expected frequencies from a given pairing.

I also think that you're confusing number of individuals with frequency.

Albinism is a rare trait, right? So individuals with it breeding would also be rare, right? The common trait, normal coloring, is going to be breeding in a far greater amount, right? This is going to be proportional to how many there are. What could happen is that the number of albinos is going to increase, but the population also will increase with normal individuals. The proportion will remain the same. If you have 1 albino in a population of 100, that albino is 1% of the population, just like if you have 1,000 albinos in a population of 100,000. While there are more albinos in the second population, they still represent the same proportion of population.

I think that this is where you're getting confused. You think that increasing number of albinos will mean increasing the allele frequency, which is not necessarily true because the normal individuals will increase even more.


----------



## BrianWI

NO, there are a few things you both missed.


First, Ed Will Not say that it has no use in domestic animals. I expected him to ignore that as he cannot back you on that because he knows what will happen. He isn't willing to make a false statement for you. Like you, he will look out for himself first.

It does matter that the sample size is complete and the population is infinite for the equation to be 100% true. This is why Ed is avoiding talking about a small number of frogs in imports. He knows he cannot win the argument. It is the same reason you won't answer the EXTREMELY relevant question of how much I would retain of the original breeders in my example. Either that or neither of you can actually do the math, or both.

I'll make it easier, on the 20+20 creating 20 new morphs... do you think it is closer to the full 97.5% the first 20 share with the wild population, or closer to 90% (that should get you close). I know you won't answer that because using mathematical proof would show only the loss of the single allele (or selection) and any linked genes (improbably small). Or, in other words, the populations would be nearly identical in allele frequency. But I will wait for you to show the math 



> *Each enclosure that houses the designer morph/population/species by definition is removed from potentially housing a non-designer morph/population/species.* This is documented occuring even in the "domesticated" animals towards which you point as examples of success (since heritage breeds are being displaced by commercial breeds and outcrosses).. the analogy to ball pythons is flawed since you do not acknowledge the impact the economics of the ball python market on the trade...


Again, this is the problem. He THINKS people who keep different python morphs are at housing capacity because of it and would own a wild type ball python if they could not have their preferred morph. By the same logic, people who can't have snakes at all will keep the next closest thing: eels. And because they have ball pythons, they are hurting the captive population of eels. People would keep wild rats if they couldn't get white ones, therefore hurting the captive bred population of wild rats. LOL. But to be fair, I would bet, in reality, a person unable to keep an albino python would probably opt to keeping an albino snake of a different species. In any case, its a funny argument. I know people in this forum that went from fish to frogs. REALITY. So you have a case for frogs displacing resources that used to be spent on fish.

I do see why some of you are BAD for the hobby though. I have read posts about your attitudes causing people not to raise dart frogs.

As a side note, when you have big hands these touch pads REALLY cause issues typing!


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> First, Ed Will Not say that it has no use in domestic animals. I expected him to ignore that as he cannot back you on that because he knows what will happen. He isn't willing to make a false statement for you. Like you, he will look out for himself first.


You need to read what Ed said. Like I said, domesticated animals and line breeding of these is violating one of the main assumptions of H-W. It is not applicable. You are wrong.



> It does matter that the sample size is complete and the population is infinite for the equation to be 100% true. This is why Ed is avoiding talking about a small number of frogs in imports. He knows he cannot win the argument. It is the same reason you won't answer the EXTREMELY relevant question of how much I would retain of the original breeders in my example. Either that or neither of you can actually do the math, or both.


So, you're saying that your own source is wrong. You're saying that population size does not relate back to genetic drift. You're saying your own source is wrong. Like I said, you're wrong. Population size relates to genetic drift. Population size does not matter. It is genetic drift that matters. If you can control genetic drift, which we largely can in captivity, then population size doesn't matter once you get a population large enough to cover the majority of genetic diversity found in it.



> I'll make it easier, on the 20+20 creating 20 new morphs... do you think it is closer to the full 97.5% the first 20 share with the wild population, or closer to 90% (that should get you close). I know you won't answer that because using mathematical proof would show only the loss of the single allele (or selection) and any linked genes (improbably small). Or, in other words, the populations would be nearly identical in allele frequency. But I will wait for you to show the math


Brian, you don't even know what you're talking about here.



> Again, this is the problem. He THINKS people who keep different python morphs are at housing capacity because of it and would own a wild type ball python if they could not have their preferred morph. By the same logic, people who can't have snakes at all will keep the next closest thing: eels. And because they have ball pythons, they are hurting the captive population of eels. People would keep wild rats if they couldn't get white ones, therefore hurting the captive bred population of wild rats. LOL. But to be fair, I would bet, in reality, a person unable to keep an albino python would probably opt to keeping an albino snake of a different species. In any case, its a funny argument. I know people in this forum that went from fish to frogs. REALITY. So you have a case for frogs displacing resources that used to be spent on fish.


Read. You should read. Reading is good. It's funny because you highlighted the important part of what Ed said, but you apparently did not read it. Here is what he said:



> Each enclosure that houses the designer morph/population/species by definition is removed from potentially housing a non-designer morph/population/species


The key word there is "potentially," and he is right. If someone has a tank that contains a designer morph, then it is not available to be used for a non-designer morph. They won't inhabit the same spot. That is what Ed is saying. He did not say that such a tank, if empty would be used for a non-designer morph, but that it could.

You're just speaking more irrational stuff.



> I do see why some of you are BAD for the hobby though. I have read posts about your attitudes causing people not to raise dart frogs.


The hobby seems to be doing pretty well despite us. I would say that people coming in with no experience (i.e., you) trying to act like experts when they aren't is probably what is bad for the hobby because they spread lies and misinformation, and ultimately hurt those truly interested in getting into this hobby.


----------



## Ed

Brian,



BrianWI said:


> First, Ed Will Not say that it has no use in domestic animals. I expected him to ignore that as he cannot back you on that because he knows what will happen. He isn't willing to make a false statement for you. Like you, he will look out for himself first.


Once again you are in effect taunting in an attempt to deal with issues that you keep attempting to ignore. I should warn you that baiting people with insults (which you are doing here) is a violation of the TOS and we have already seen one warning in this thread about this method of obfustication. If you continue to attempt to bait and taunt I will file a complaint with the moderators. 

You are clearly ignoring what I have written on this topic. 



BrianWI said:


> It does matter that the sample size is complete and the population is infinite for the equation to be 100% true. This is why Ed is avoiding talking about a small number of frogs in imports. He knows he cannot win the argument. It is the same reason you won't answer the EXTREMELY relevant question of how much I would retain of the original breeders in my example. Either that or neither of you can actually do the math, or both.


As I noted, the number of azureus is immaterial for the discussion at hand... you are again attempting to avoid the direct issue. 



BrianWI said:


> I'll make it easier, on the 20+20 creating 20 new morphs... do you think it is closer to the full 97.5% the first 20 share with the wild population, or closer to 90% (that should get you close). I know you won't answer that because using mathematical proof would show only the loss of the single allele (or selection) and any linked genes (improbably small). Or, in other words, the populations would be nearly identical in allele frequency. But I will wait for you to show the math


This is again smoke and mirrors.. you are attempting to equate the creation of new morph/hybrid/outcross with the loss of genetic drift a managed population can have over time. This is an apples and oranges comparision. As I have documented with references above, even selecting for one trait can cause significant loss over time (one of the points you keep avoiding).... Once again you are attempting to get away from your point.. 





BrianWI said:


> Again, this is the problem. He THINKS people who keep different python morphs are at housing capacity because of it and would own a wild type ball python if they could not have their preferred morph. By the same logic, people who can't have snakes at all will keep the next closest thing: eels. And because they have ball pythons, they are hurting the captive population of eels. People would keep wild rats if they couldn't get white ones, therefore hurting the captive bred population of wild rats. LOL. But to be fair, I would bet, in reality, a person unable to keep an albino python would probably opt to keeping an albino snake of a different species. In any case, its a funny argument. I know people in this forum that went from fish to frogs. REALITY. So you have a case for frogs displacing resources that used to be spent on fish.


Again attempting to change the point. I would suggest rereading my post.. 
I am also curious as to why you choose to enact a double standard? For example when I called you on a statement earlier in the thread (I can quote it if necessary), you pointed out that you had used the word "may".. Here you are clearly ignoring the use of the word potential. It would be nice if you avoided the use of a double standard in your attempts to bait me with attempts to change the point. 




BrianWI said:


> I do see why some of you are BAD for the hobby though. I have read posts about your attitudes causing people not to raise dart frogs.
> 
> As a side note, when you have big hands these touch pads REALLY cause issues typing!


Please provide documentation that the people you are inferring have actually caused anyone to not raise dart frogs. 

As I noted above continued baiting of me or any other member of the board will draw a complaint from me (and I rarely make them). 

Ed


----------



## BrianWI

You guys are too funny. I have you the EXACT numbers to give me the loss of alleles. I even told you the answer was over 90% (and hinted it was very close to the original 97.5%)

In other words, I can breed a simple color mutation without any significant loss of alleles, and the only shift in frequency will be at the single locus.

End point: it CAN be done.

I'll wrap up here.

H-W has flaws. Unless you can document what imports came in, how many made it into to hobby after import, and how they were handled, your individual goal, AT BEST, is preserving what you got from the guy that sold you the frogs.

These are NOT wild animals. They are captive. You are not preserving wild animals. You are keeping pets.

Selection is not bad. Random mating is not bad. Line breeding is not bad. Outcrossing is not bad. Crossbreeding is not bad. All are valuable tools. All can be done well. All can be done poorly.

No matter what you think is influencing breeding decisions, your biggest factor in a large hobby is money. Making a new morph by constant inbreeding to save time and make more money is ALWAYS bad. If someone is charging a any more for a morph than the standard, they probably were motivated soley for money and took shortcuts. Even if you are OK with morphs, this guy is one to avoid. I contend that this is the guy that ruins any breed on the by far largest scale.

Blaming a morph for losing POTENTIAL breeding space isn't real. It is a cute theory, but in the examples I gave, you have to truly believe that the people who owned new morphs would have otherwise owned the original. Same logic, when a new wc morph is imported and people stop breeding the ones they have to try their hand at the new one, the same thing can be said. The new wc morph MAY cause the loss of potential space for the original bred frogs. Should we stop importing WC frogs to do that? Do you know anybody that moved on to a new morph and left the old behind? I bet you did. Did you blame them for selling off the old stock instead of keeping the space devoted to it?

Some selection occurred in the frogs before you got them. You will add to it. The same people who publically scream mating must be random will mate their two favorite frogs. Others would never think of "breaking up a couple".

If you REALLY want to create a morph, a designer frog, etc., but don't know how to do it well, but will do it anyway, PM someone like me. Its similar to the birth control in schools debate. They are going to do it anyway, might as well make it safe


----------



## Roadrunner

If you can learn from numbers on a page more power to you. I need the visualization of the diagrams to make it easier.
No, it's more complicated, I think. Say you have 100 things that you say we can't cull for which nature does cull for(arm length, agility, toe tapping, toepad size, proportion of light and dark colors, scent ability for homing purposes, colorblindness, ability to produce sufficient toxins w/ little energy expenditure, good vocal chords,albinism, melanism, etc.etc. If you then have a 1% chance for any of those bad traits to appear and you randomly pick 100 individuals to breed, what are the chances your picking the right ones and what are the chances you'd end up w/ x animals w/ one or more of those deleterious traits and how long till 50% has one or more of those traits? What if you collect all animals that were populations sinks in the population, will they represent the same alleles as the producers?
Seems to me the most important thing in a 100 - 500 year plan would be getting each pair to live to 20+ to cut down generational turnover. It seems to me, since frogs produce hundreds of offspring throughout their life and only 2 ever survive to replace their parents(essentially) that there's a whole lot of cullin goin on in the wild and I think that shapes the population more than anything. Without it the populations gets sloppy, look at humans. 

But if it works it works whether or not I buy it. I'd have to understand a lot more before I bought it though.
I'm out. 


MonarchzMan said:


> I'm not entirely sure I follow your logic, but I think that you're still focusing on the recessive trait and ignoring the dominant one, and I think you're making it more complicated than it needs to be. You don't have to deal with punnett squares because that deals with expected frequencies from a given pairing.
> 
> I also think that you're confusing number of individuals with frequency.
> 
> Albinism is a rare trait, right? So individuals with it breeding would also be rare, right? The common trait, normal coloring, is going to be breeding in a far greater amount, right? This is going to be proportional to how many there are. What could happen is that the number of albinos is going to increase, but the population also will increase with normal individuals. The proportion will remain the same. If you have 1 albino in a population of 100, that albino is 1% of the population, just like if you have 1,000 albinos in a population of 100,000. While there are more albinos in the second population, they still represent the same proportion of population.
> 
> I think that this is where you're getting confused. You think that increasing number of albinos will mean increasing the allele frequency, which is not necessarily true because the normal individuals will increase even more.


----------



## Rusty_Shackleford

BrianWI said:


> If you REALLY want to create a morph, a designer frog, etc., but don't know how to do it well, but will do it anyway, PM someone like me.


Yep that pretty much sums it up.



BrianWI said:


> this guy is one to avoid.


I couldn't agree more.


----------



## jacobi

BrianWI said:


> If you REALLY want to create a morph, a designer frog, etc., but don't know how to do it well, but will do it anyway, PM someone like me.


So... you have successfully bred dendrobatid species?



Jake


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> You guys are too funny. I have you the EXACT numbers to give me the loss of alleles. I even told you the answer was over 90% (and hinted it was very close to the original 97.5%)


Impressive that you came up with that considering you were spouting off babble.



> These are NOT wild animals. They are captive. You are not preserving wild animals. You are keeping pets.


They are wild animals. At best, they are a couple generations removed, but they are wild. Just like tigers at the zoo are wild animals, the PDFs we have are also wild. Yes, they are captive, but that does not mean that they are not wild.



> Selection is not bad. Random mating is not bad. Line breeding is not bad. Outcrossing is not bad. Crossbreeding is not bad. All are valuable tools. All can be done well. All can be done poorly.


When breeding for best vigor and preservation of genetics, any sort of breeding where you remove alleles is bad. We've given you plenty of resources to show that crossing, line breeding, etc. is not necessary for dendrobatids in captivity.



> No matter what you think is influencing breeding decisions, your biggest factor in a large hobby is money. Making a new morph by constant inbreeding to save time and make more money is ALWAYS bad. If someone is charging a any more for a morph than the standard, they probably were motivated soley for money and took shortcuts. Even if you are OK with morphs, this guy is one to avoid. I contend that this is the guy that ruins any breed on the by far largest scale.


You're arguing to do this. Your original argument was to create new morphs by hybridizing existing ones so that you could sell those and relieve pressure from getting wild caughts. Clearly, you're saying you're one to avoid. I couldn't agree more.



> Blaming a morph for losing POTENTIAL breeding space isn't real. It is a cute theory, but in the examples I gave, you have to truly believe that the people who owned new morphs would have otherwise owned the original. Same logic, when a new wc morph is imported and people stop breeding the ones they have to try their hand at the new one, the same thing can be said. The new wc morph MAY cause the loss of potential space for the original bred frogs. Should we stop importing WC frogs to do that? Do you know anybody that moved on to a new morph and left the old behind? I bet you did. Did you blame them for selling off the old stock instead of keeping the space devoted to it?


This is quite humorous because on the one hand, you say the theory that a morph taking up space for another isn't real. And then at the end of the paragraph, you ask if we know anyone who had done precisely that, thereby proving the theory!



> Some selection occurred in the frogs before you got them. You will add to it. The same people who publically scream mating must be random will mate their two favorite frogs. Others would never think of "breaking up a couple".


Really? Because when you asked what I did with my frogs, and I said that I just tossed them together, you left it at that? Why? Because that is random mating. And make no mistake, I'll mix them up too.

But, you also miss Ed's point a long time ago when you asked about breeding azureus without need for wild caught supplementation. He said that, if managed, they can be bred for 100-500 years, but the problem in the hobby is that they're not managed properly, hence the need for WC specimens. There are a number of us who will collaborate with one another and manage frogs so that they follow H-W. It is a big part of what TWI does.



> If you REALLY want to create a morph, a designer frog, etc., but don't know how to do it well, but will do it anyway, PM someone like me. Its similar to the birth control in schools debate. They are going to do it anyway, might as well make it safe


Yes, because you clearly have a wealth of experience breeding dart frogs. How'd you overcome SLS, I am curious, since so many have issues with that?


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> You guys are too funny. I have you the EXACT numbers to give me the loss of alleles. I even told you the answer was over 90% (and hinted it was very close to the original 97.5%)
> 
> In other words, I can breed a simple color mutation without any significant loss of alleles, and the only shift in frequency will be at the single locus.
> 
> End point: it CAN be done.
> 
> I'll wrap up here.
> 
> H-W has flaws. Unless you can document what imports came in, how many made it into to hobby after import, and how they were handled, your individual goal, AT BEST, is preserving what you got from the guy that sold you the frogs.
> 
> These are NOT wild animals. They are captive. You are not preserving wild animals. You are keeping pets.
> 
> Selection is not bad. Random mating is not bad. Line breeding is not bad. Outcrossing is not bad. Crossbreeding is not bad. All are valuable tools. All can be done well. All can be done poorly.
> 
> No matter what you think is influencing breeding decisions, your biggest factor in a large hobby is money. Making a new morph by constant inbreeding to save time and make more money is ALWAYS bad. If someone is charging a any more for a morph than the standard, they probably were motivated soley for money and took shortcuts. Even if you are OK with morphs, this guy is one to avoid. I contend that this is the guy that ruins any breed on the by far largest scale.
> 
> Blaming a morph for losing POTENTIAL breeding space isn't real. It is a cute theory, but in the examples I gave, you have to truly believe that the people who owned new morphs would have otherwise owned the original. Same logic, when a new wc morph is imported and people stop breeding the ones they have to try their hand at the new one, the same thing can be said. The new wc morph MAY cause the loss of potential space for the original bred frogs. Should we stop importing WC frogs to do that? Do you know anybody that moved on to a new morph and left the old behind? I bet you did. Did you blame them for selling off the old stock instead of keeping the space devoted to it?
> 
> Some selection occurred in the frogs before you got them. You will add to it. The same people who publically scream mating must be random will mate their two favorite frogs. Others would never think of "breaking up a couple".
> 
> If you REALLY want to create a morph, a designer frog, etc., but don't know how to do it well, but will do it anyway, PM someone like me. Its similar to the birth control in schools debate. They are going to do it anyway, might as well make it safe


Brian,

You have not provided any proof, you have provided conjecture and opinion as fact. You have yet to substantiate any of your claims and instead of factually stabstantiating the claims, preferred to attempt to insult, and/or ignore anything that was contrary to your opinion. 

You have yet to discuss the risks of hybrids, and outcrosses despite outbreeding depression having been documented both within and between species of anurans (I've provided the link to the first, you can find the second). 
You have yet to acknowledge much less discuss the risks of inbreeding depression when direct selection for color variations despite inbreeding depression having been documented as a risk to captive populations of non-domesticated species and domesticated species alike. 


It is a little premature to claim victory since all you have done is provide unsubstantiated claims and conjecture that refuse to acknowledge any of the risks or even demonstrate a solid understanding of the risks and issues both in the short term much less the long term.. you seem to also have problems applying it when it comes to the preservation of genetic diversity within a captive population (note captive does not mean domesticated..). 
If you want to discuss this civially then by all means continue but as I said, baiting/taunting are violations of the TOS... 

Ed


----------



## BrianWI

Ed,

No attack here. Just how I see it:

Your opinion is that I have not provided fact. Mine is that you have not provided fact and have dodged those points that are fact. I really have no need to prove myself right or prove you wrong. As evidenced by my private messages, the people who want and need to hear my message have heard it. While the oppression of opinion like I have received does seem to keep people "underground", they are, as I suspected, still there. I found them.

I don't deny that poor breeding can hurt a captive breed. I do deny good selection has to hurt them. In fact, I assert it can help them. Nature has gone so far as to produce viable clones in herps! I also define conservation of wild species as including habitat and therefore reject that keeping pet frogs is practicing conservation. If you want to conserve dart frogs, ban all importation. Ban the pet trade in them. And ban the ability to keep them. This whole butchering of conservation is what is leading to so many new, goofy laws. If you keep a closed mind, someone else will be even more strict in their interpretation. In this case, it is laws banning exotics.

I don't particularly have problems with your knowledge, more of your context, viewpoint and application.

As for my viewpoint, there are PLENTY of examples of captive and domesticated animals that exist with great genetic health. I also know there are those thru poor breeding and changing application, are all but unsalvageable. Fixing a handful of alleles is not the problem.

I REALLY am saying I have wrapped up here with those against some selection. I am AVAILABLE to those who are open to the same ideas and have actually learned of a few I will seek out. This kind of attack against ideas is not new to me. I see extreme views all the time. And just like other times, I will practice what I say and will succeed. Even JP has to admit (OK he could lie) that the last time we argued about who was right about a breeding project, MY WORK won the shows, and graced the covers of books on the breed. I care about results, not posturing. Not to mention I was MUCH quicker in learning that the importer was all about greed, by a couple years!

Good luck on your random matings! I do hope you produce great frogs for a long time, sincerely do.


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> Your opinion is that I have not provided fact. Mine is that you have not provided fact and have dodged those points that are fact. I really have no need to prove myself right or prove you wrong. As evidenced by my private messages, the people who want and need to hear my message have heard it. While the oppression of opinion like I have received does seem to keep people "underground", they are, as I suspected, still there. I found them.


You're kidding, right? Ed and I have provided extensive amounts of sources supporting our positions. You have produced a grand total of 5 links, which, as I pointed out, actually support my position. You have not provided any evidence to support yourself. It has been all opinion and conjecture without any experience.

I'm betting I've received more PMs encouraging me to keep on schooling you, though.



> I don't deny that poor breeding can hurt a captive breed. I do deny good selection has to hurt them. In fact, I assert it can help them. Nature has gone so far as to produce viable clones in herps! I also define conservation of wild species as including habitat and therefore reject that keeping pet frogs is practicing conservation. If you want to conserve dart frogs, ban all importation. Ban the pet trade in them. And ban the ability to keep them. This whole butchering of conservation is what is leading to so many new, goofy laws. If you keep a closed mind, someone else will be even more strict in their interpretation. In this case, it is laws banning exotics.


Then you don't really know what conservation is about. By your logic, we shouldn't hunt anything either, and by your logic, we should ban hunting. Hunters are adamant that they are conservationists. And, many, in fact, are. There is plenty of evidence that hunting is important in conservation. The fact of the matter is that just like deer and ducks, frogs are a renewable resource, and can be harvested sustainably. You're talking about preservation, not conservation, which if you had a background in conservation, you'd know the difference.

By your definition, zoos aren't doing conservation either. Sure, some zoos advocate for habitat protection, but a zoo's primary purpose is breeding (not to mention, that they don't protect habitat for all species that they breed). Keep in mind you have no education in conservation, why not let the people who do dictate what is, in fact, conservation?



> I REALLY am saying I have wrapped up here with those against some selection. I am AVAILABLE to those who are open to the same ideas and have actually learned of a few I will seek out. This kind of attack against ideas is not new to me. I see extreme views all the time. And just like other times, I will practice what I say and will succeed. Even JP has to admit (OK he could lie) that the last time we argued about who was right about a breeding project, MY WORK won the shows, and graced the covers of books on the breed. I care about results, not posturing. Not to mention I was MUCH quicker in learning that the importer was all about greed, by a couple years!


Again, trying to bait me, but it won't work. You're the extreme view here. If you want to do designer morphs, go get some bearded dragons or ball pythons or leopard geckos whose wild genome has been so bastardized that many people probably do not know what the natural coloration actually is. Dendrobatids are just great as they are. There is pretty much no color that can't already be found in the wild. You can say that you'll succeed all you want, but given that you've A. never even bred dart frogs, B. don't even know the genetics of the frogs, and C. don't understand that dart frogs are not comparable to chickens for many reasons, I personally doubt your success.


----------



## BrianWI

JP, you can't help yourself from spouting nonsense, can you. Not an attack; an observation. No one was even talking to you.

Yes, I believe if you want to conserve dart frogs, you must preserve habitat. I am sorry that escaped you. This is why all your arguments tend to be invalid. You go after some way to distort fact by painting a tiny picture of something meaningless.

In the end, just like I achieved my objective in the other common breed we worked on, I will again succeed. I succeeded the last time and you did not. No different.

I know you have that fatal flaw that no matter how ridiculous you look, you need the last word. Go ahead. I need to concentrate on people that aren't stuck on their wrong assumptions. Time to work on frogs with others!


----------



## MonarchzMan

BS, I've got the sources to back up my position, and you do not. Not only that, but you addressed me specifically in your post. Perhaps you had missed that. And, I would suggest that if you really have a one on one conversation with someone, you PM them and not post it on an open forum for all to see.

Habitat preservation is important in conservation, but it is not the only facet of conservation. Many groups advocate protecting habitat, but don't focus on species, others focus on species, but not habitat. They are each engaged in conservation. You do not need to have all to be able to conserve the animals. It is quite possible for people to concentrate on breeding programs and actively engage in conservation. It is complete fallacy to say that it is not conservation do engage in a breeding program, and this is one reason why no one should listen to you. Again, people shouldn't listen to someone who has never done any conservation work as to what constitutes conservation.

To anyone who wants to try and line breed and develop designers, keep in mind that BS is the guy who can't back up his opinion with facts. This has always been the case with him, nor does he have the experience to actually say anything with confidence. There have been a number of reasons presented in this thread, with actual backing, as to why it's not a good idea. The evidence speaks quite clearly.


----------



## BrianWI

Last word.


----------



## Rusty_Shackleford

jacobi said:


> So... you have successfully bred dendrobatid species?
> 
> 
> 
> Jake


Jake, according to his posts here on DB, he got his one and only viv 21 days ago today. I'm not sure he even has frogs, but he's certainly an expert. 

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/beginner-discussion/79434-new-small-viv.html


----------



## yours

0.0.2 D. t. azureus -- certainly one of the larger of the dart frogs in our hobby -- in a 12 x 12 x 18 enclosure, screams EXPERTISE and all around abundance of dart frog WISDOM and KNOWLEDGE as it relates to our hobby.

Oodles.

When can this EXPERIENCE be imparted on to the rest of us? 

=====================================
To the original topic pertaining to the title of this thread and article attached: I think I'll just wait for UNDERSTORY ENTERPRISES and MARK PEPPER to head up the venture(s), in bringing in any specimens to our hobby. As they have been doing all of this time, thus far....


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> Ed,
> 
> No attack here. Just how I see it:
> 
> Your opinion is that I have not provided fact. Mine is that you have not provided fact and have dodged those points that are fact. I really have no need to prove myself right or prove you wrong. As evidenced by my private messages, the people who want and need to hear my message have heard it. While the oppression of opinion like I have received does seem to keep people "underground", they are, as I suspected, still there. I found them.


Then it is clear that you have not bothered to read the various links and citations I have provided. A failure on your part to review the data does not invaldiate my position nor does it imply, infer or construe in any way that my data is opinion as opposed to fact. You have provided no references that indicate that inbreeding in domesticated livestock does not equate to the loss of alleles and is not a threat to the long-term persistence of the much less than that it is a desirable course of action in a captive non-domesticated population. I have provided free access citations that demonstrate the risk for both types of populations. 

You have provided zero references that outbreeding is not a risk to the captive non-domesticated animal populations. I have provided information that indicates it is not only a risk but is a risk to captive populations but wild populations as well... I have also provided a reference that compares the risks of the two... 

If you are going to continue to make that claim, then I will simply cite the relevent posts in this thread... 




BrianWI said:


> I don't deny that poor breeding can hurt a captive breed. I do deny good selection has to hurt them. In fact, I assert it can help them.


Except that you have refused to discuss the methodology instead you keep supplying vague inferences, while avoiding the direct issues.



BrianWI said:


> Nature has gone so far as to produce viable clones in herps!


While an interesting factoid (and I am more than well aware of normal and facultative parthenogenesis across several taxa), irrelevent to the discussion. 



BrianWI said:


> I also define conservation of wild species as including habitat and therefore reject that keeping pet frogs is practicing conservation. If you want to conserve dart frogs, ban all importation. Ban the pet trade in them. And ban the ability to keep them. This whole butchering of conservation is what is leading to so many new, goofy laws. If you keep a closed mind, someone else will be even more strict in their interpretation. In this case, it is laws banning exotics.


This is a very clear statement that indicates a total lack of understanding of what actually works in long-term conservation practices much less what the actual risks are to the majority of dendrobatid populations in the wild.... It is clear that you did not bother to review the write up and more importantly the associated bibliography (comprising multiple references) that I posted in this thread many pages ago that directly indicates that a ban on imports is not effective conservation. 



BrianWI said:


> As for my viewpoint, there are PLENTY of examples of captive and domesticated animals that exist with great genetic health. I also know there are those thru poor breeding and changing application, are all but unsalvageable. Fixing a handful of alleles is not the problem.


If you have to try and fix a handful of alleles then the population's long-term persistence is in doubt. A handful of alleles can mean the difference between succombing to a novel pathogen and survivial. 



BrianWI said:


> I REALLY am saying I have wrapped up here with those against some selection. I am AVAILABLE to those who are open to the same ideas and have actually learned of a few I will seek out. This kind of attack against ideas is not new to me. I see extreme views all the time. And just like other times, I will practice what I say and will succeed. Even JP has to admit (OK he could lie) that the last time we argued about who was right about a breeding project, MY WORK won the shows, and graced the covers of books on the breed. I care about results, not posturing. Not to mention I was MUCH quicker in learning that the importer was all about greed, by a couple years!


This is also irrelevent since the persistence of a domestic population is not a apples to apples comparision. I made that point clear a number of posts ago.. 
Actually you were the person who went on the attack (remember the mocking comments circa "scientists needing logic lessons").. I simply flagged the unsupported opinions that were being presented as facts. 

If you are referring to the claim about "getting a registry to open again", then I should also point out that this means that it technically was a failure and it should be noted you cannot recapture the original genetic diversity that was inherent in the population before the population tanked. This is an inherently recognized theme for heritage breeds globally.. (see for *one* example http://hubrural.ak-project.com/IMG/pdf/gtz_swaziland_wshp_may2001.pdf#page=20) . A failure to recognize this is a technical flaw which can have long ranging impacts for a number of these anurans since more than a few are unlikely to ever be reimported in the pet trade (some tinctorious morphs for example). If the genetics end up significantly compromised we can see the extinction of the captive populations as has occured in other captive animal hobbies (for example killifish). 

Ed


----------



## Bcs TX

While this thread has brought out some good info and plenty of dedicated froggers input with plenty of experience and research first hand, my popcorn is stale and I think Ed, JP and others need to put band aids on their typing fingers and let Brian play in another sandbox where maybe 1 person will listen to his fluff.
I am probably high jacking this thread but have a hard time seeing what he is spouting helps anything to do/help with the hobby.
Maybe this needs to be moved to the TD where everyone can pull up their sleeves....
Brian do whatever you do with your 2 tincs in a too small of a viv and call it a day.

- Beth


----------



## BrianWI

Guys, I told you, I am gone. You can continue to be wrong. Get it??


----------



## yours

BrianWI said:


> JP,
> 
> For me, it is a constant. Unlike you I guess, I value the life experience of all animals. I would no sooner create a poor chicken or a poor dart frog. Quality of life is important to me, and I have always done my best to do my best to provide animals with a great quality of life.


A 12 x 12 footprint for your only two D. t. azureus does not support this statement of yours...


----------



## Ed

Bcs TX said:


> While this thread has brought out some good info and plenty of dedicated froggers input with plenty of experience and research first hand, my popcorn is stale and I think Ed, JP and others need to put band aids on their typing fingers and let Brian play in another sandbox where maybe 1 person will listen to his fluff.
> I am probably high jacking this thread but have a hard time seeing what he is spouting helps anything to do/help with the hobby.
> Maybe this needs to be moved to the TD where everyone can pull up their sleeves....
> Brian do whatever you do with your 2 tincs in a too small of a viv and call it a day.
> 
> - Beth


Why wouldn't you expect me to have significant calluses on my fingers by now? 

I think if it got moved to the dome, then people wouldn't even consider trying to play within the rules and would really disregard actual references and citations.... 

Ed


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> Guys, I told you, I am gone. You can continue to be wrong. Get it??


You've not had one person agree with your statements, yet you think everyone else here is wrong.

I've got an idea, since we're all apparently wrong, and don't know about dart frogs, genetics, breeding, or anything really, why don't you just leave? Like completely off of the board. You apparently think you know everything about everything, so why even bother staying here. You don't need us.

[/sarcasm]


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> Guys, I told you, I am gone. You can continue to be wrong. Get it??


Brian, 

this is not only more opinion but irrelevent to the discussion. If you were really going to drop the discussion you would have dropped it at the post where you claimed the "last word". 

You have absconded from the discussion without providing proof that any of the claims that you understand population management for non-domesticated species are viable much less supported by real data. I'm flagging this not as an attack or "a taunt" but to continue to point out that even after multiple pages of claims, you have not provided support for them. I got drawn into this discussion by the fact that you were tossing opinions around as fact. If you do not throw opinions around as fact then I will probably not respond to any further posts of yours. 

Ed


----------



## mantisdragon91

And just to put a face to all the lies and outrageous claims that BS has made on here, a link to our boy in the flesh and his actual experience and expertise( which is somewhat diffrent from his claims on this and other threads)

Frontier Communications Telecommunications Services. High Speed DSL Internet and Telephone for Business


----------



## jacobi

Rusty_Shackleford said:


> Jake, according to his posts here on DB, he got his one and only viv 21 days ago today. I'm not sure he even has frogs, but he's certainly an expert.
> 
> http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/beginner-discussion/79434-new-small-viv.html


Yes. I know. I was waiting for him to respond, but he has failed to respond to any of my (polite) posts asking about his experience and/or education. His posts leave me wondering as to whether he is arguing because he actually cares about conservation or whether he discovered that a tiny frog that can be kept on Sphagnum moss in a Tupperware container will breed and produce multiple offspring which sell for $50-$100 or more...

Jake


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## Golden State Mantellas

BrianWI said:


> Guys, I told you, I am gone. You can continue to be wrong. Get it??


I am sure I'm not the only one who is relieved that the troll went back under his bridge.


----------



## MonarchzMan

Golden State Mantellas said:


> I am sure I'm not the only one who is relieved that the troll went back under his bridge.


I can speak from experience and say that he won't be gone long. He'll spew his uneducated tripe again, just because he likes to tick people off. For now, it's a nice respite, but unfortunately, it's only a matter of time.

For now, he's trolling around and attacking everyone in TD.


----------



## JRoe

I don't even remember what this thread was about.....Brian ruined it. lol

Every thread he ruins...


----------



## jacobi

In an attempt to move this thread in a positive direction... What is the best way for me (and anybody else) to participate in conservation efforts with dart frogs I own, in regards to ownership and breeding? 

Jake


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## frogparty

Join TWI/ASN and participate in any taxon management plans provided for those species. 
Keep records of your frogs lineage, ie import date/source if available, importer, and F # of your breeders and offspring


----------



## MonarchzMan

There is also great value in breeding and experimenting with the most effective techniques to get frogs to breed. Zoos often looks to the private sector for breeding techniques since hobbyists often are more successful, or faster, at breeding animals. Best example I can think of are uromastyx, which have been bred for a long time by hobbyists, but only have been successfully bred by zoos in the last few years.


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## Golden State Mantellas

Documentation is critical though (I fully support the two previous posters suggestions). Track your frogs' lineage through TWI/ASN. And self-track your breeding success, it will matter in the eyes of any conservation organization!


----------



## Ed

jacobi said:


> In an attempt to move this thread in a positive direction... What is the best way for me (and anybody else) to participate in conservation efforts with dart frogs I own, in regards to ownership and breeding?
> 
> Jake


Support a non-profit conservation organization that helps fund grants (TWI does this as one example) for research, support sustainable imports (such as those that originate through Understory Enterprises as an example), do not purchase frogs of dubious origins, support organizations like Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center (see the links in this post http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-4.html#post586940). 

Ed


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## Ed

frogparty said:


> Join TWI/ASN and participate in any taxon management plans provided for those species.
> Keep records of your frogs lineage, ie import date/source if available, importer, and F # of your breeders and offspring


 
Or help develop a TMP for a species not listed yet. 

Ed


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## Roadrunner

Factors influencing allele frequency or deviations from hardy- Weinberg Equilibrium
The Hardy-Weinberg explanation of equilibrium in the allele frequency pattern of a population required three assumption (1) individuals with each genotype must be as reproductively fit as those of any other genotype in the population; (2) the population must consist of a large number of individuals; and (3) random matins must occur throughout the population. The Hardy-Weinberg theorem with its assumptions does not account for any change in allele frequency within populations. That is just what Hardy and Weinberg intended because their formula described the statics of a Mendelian population. Something more was required to formulate a mathematical explanation of change or dynamics in terms of allele frequencies. 

Considering albinos aren't as reproductively fit as hets(selected against breeding in nature), wouldn't they be excluded from breeding according to 1? Or does that refer to ability to copulate and release sperm?

Factors Influencing Allele Frequency or Deviations from Hardy- Weinberg Equilibrium, Hardy-Weinberg Theorem, Allele Frequencies, Gene Frequencies, Darwin-Wallace Theory, Mutation, Meiotic Drive and Migration Pressure


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## MonarchzMan

That really refers to the ability to copulate and release sperm. Albinism is selected against, but keep in mind that H-W also requires that there is no selection on phenotype. What you can get from this is that this doesn't happen in nature, so the population has to be evolving.

What genetic conservation does is stop evolution as best as possible (what we strive for in captivity). In some genotypes, they are reproductively less fit than their counter parts as a function of having that genotype. But for albinos, they are just as capable of breeding as a normal colored individual, it just so happens that most of the time, they don't reach that point because a predator picks them off.


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## Roadrunner

Unless that phenotype shows a genotype that is not as reproductively fit.


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## Roadrunner

What percentage of animals do you expect to fall w/in the original parameters of the animals collected for things such as toepad size, arm and leg length, percentage dark/light contrast in patterning, weight/size, recessive traits, etc. after each generation?


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## MonarchzMan

Assuming no selection and random mating, there shouldn't be any difference. Now, that is not likely completely true as there are some selective forces, however minimal, in captivity, and some similarity is lost between each generation, but it is probably a very minute amount and would only really show after many generations.


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## Roadrunner

2 questions.
I've always heard of albinism, hypo etc. called mutations. Is that wrong terminology? Is it a mutation when it first appears and then becomes integrated or something?

Second, I've always thought that insects and amphibs(that have thousands of offspring a year or in their life) would throw more "outliers" in chance of speciation, much moreso than something like say a horse or cow, which has much fewer offspring. Am I right? Is there a difference in change to the population depending on what "group" an animal or plant is in?


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## MonarchzMan

Well, there are a few sort of "levels" of mutation. If you get a nucleotide base pair change, then that is a mutation. Of course, these will, at some point, translate into phenotypic changes like albinism. I guess mutation is most commonly used to describe a trait that deviates from the norm (such as albinism). Even though albinism is quite integrated into many species, albeit, at low levels, I would still call it a mutation.

Having lots of offspring is quite important for selection to be able to act, but I think generation time is generally more indicative. Take sea turtles, for example, they'll lay hundreds of eggs, many of which will hatch, but only a very small percentage will survive to adulthood, which could be a couple of decades. As a result, the evolution of sea turtles is pretty slow. Compare that to an insect that may only have tens of offspring, but has several generations each year, evolution can move a lot faster because selection acts on those few offspring, and then they can quickly reproduce and pass on their genes to the next generation. Number of offspring is a big factor, to be sure, but if an animal has a thousand offspring, but it takes those offspring years to get to adulthood and reproduce, the population isn't going to change very quickly.

There are differential mutation rates (here, I mean changes in genetic code) between animal (and plant) groups. As to why there are different rates between groups, I do not know.


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## Roadrunner

Since darts mature relatively quick would you be breeding young or old or both? If you only use breeders past a certain age would you be choosing for longevity traits? It seems that youd want to use old breeders to keep down the # of gens but if you do your choosing for longevity.

According to this:
Evolutionary Genetics: H-W Equilibrium

Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium describes the null model evolution. For a population to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, five conditions must be met:

1. No Genetic Drift (Infinite Population Size)

2. No Migration (No Gene Flow)

3. No Mutation

4. No Selection (No Differential Selection)

5. Random Mating (No Differential Reproduction)

It seems that albino or others would be considered mutation, which would null any population w/ albinos, hypos, etc. 
Also 27 individuals doesn't come close to infinite population size. Will you have to increase the # of individuals w/ each generation?

I don't know if this was a "good source" EvoTutor: H-W Equilibrium

Just read further and it said for the frequency NOT to change you need infinite #'s. That's where the 27 individuals and 97% of the alleles comes in? So if you have already lost 3% of the alleles that doesn't represent much difference for "choosing" what to even start w/? So if you only loose 5% over 100 years your down to 93% representative of the population?
It makes me wonder what percent of deleterious alleles your starting w/ and whether your loosing good or bad alleles and what percentage of those are not useable anymore since they have moved to a new environment. It seems to me that it would be good to do a random, non related breeding program where you randomly pick individuals from a group of animals which are w/in the outward characteristic guidelines for the looks of the original imports while choosing some animals for things like disease resistance, outgoingness(are animals that hide often helping them in captivity, it seems these animals either are usually more stressed so they don't breed as well and people generally don't "choose" shy animals) and general health. I'm in no way saying your idea doesn't have merit it just seems to me that we shouldn't close ourselves off from other methods, which may possibly help them in captivity. I'd like to see what percentage difference there would be in allele frequencies over time and be able to measure which animals are "better for captivity".

If something like shyness is a deleterious allele in captivity, which is better to have more alleles or not be around at all?


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## Roadrunner

Also, how do you "choose" an animal to mate from a particular pair? Is it a choice of all the offspring that individual produces or is it a "choice" from one clutch from that pair?


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## MonarchzMan

frogfarm said:


> Since darts mature relatively quick would you be breeding young or old or both? If you only use breeders past a certain age would you be choosing for longevity traits? It seems that youd want to use old breeders to keep down the # of gens but if you do your choosing for longevity.


H-W generally figures in for life time reproductive fitness. Obviously, this is different from individual to individual, and as I said, there is no perfect solution for captive management. However, that said, you would be selecting for longevity if an individual just started breeding or if it bred after 10 years. How old it is will not affect the genes it passes on. And presumably, if you're keeping it random, it would have just as much chance at breeding with long lived individuals as it would short.



> According to this:
> Evolutionary Genetics: H-W Equilibrium
> 
> Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium describes the null model evolution. For a population to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, five conditions must be met:
> 
> 1. No Genetic Drift (Infinite Population Size)
> 
> 2. No Migration (No Gene Flow)
> 
> 3. No Mutation
> 
> 4. No Selection (No Differential Selection)
> 
> 5. Random Mating (No Differential Reproduction)
> 
> It seems that albino or others would be considered mutation, which would null any population w/ albinos, hypos, etc.
> Also 27 individuals doesn't come close to infinite population size. Will you have to increase the # of individuals w/ each generation?
> 
> I don't know if this was a "good source" EvoTutor: H-W Equilibrium


First, for no mutation, you're thinking of two different things. Albinism is a mutation. What they are talking about with this is the act of mutating. I.e., nothing new pops up in the population when it was not there before, hidden or otherwise. Albinism already popped up and is represented in the population. Mutation is something we cannot control, but it happens very slowly, so that is where the estimate comes in for being able to keep a population for 100-500 years. It is presumed that in this time, no significant mutation would occur that would affect the captive population.



> Just read further and it said for the frequency NOT to change you need infinite #'s. That's where the 27 individuals and 97% of the alleles comes in? So if you have already lost 3% of the alleles that doesn't represent much difference for "choosing" what to even start w/? So if you only loose 5% over 100 years your down to 93% representative of the population?


The idea behind an infinite population is genetic drift: the random removal of alleles from a population. In the wild, this could be that a landslide takes out part of a frog population. It doesn't matter how fit those individuals were, they were just in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Now, with captive populations, we can largely control genetic drift. We don't have landslides come through and wipe out our populations. Now random removals can happen: vivs get too warm and kill the frogs, power goes out for days, issues with shipping, etc. But by and large, these are very minimal risks. So, in essence, we can control for genetic drift. We might have small populations, but individuals in those populations are very secure. So don't get bogged down on infinite population size, but rather think of it as genetic drift.

As for the 97%, that mostly has to do with sample size. Think of it this way. We had to randomly choose 27 humans to start up a colony on Mars. Do you think that those 27 individuals would represent all of the genetic diversity currently seen in the human population? No, they wouldn't. They would, if chosen randomly, represent a large chunk of the genetic diversity, but not all of it. If we were to increase that colony to 100 or 200, we would be far better at capturing nearly all diversity represented in humans.

The loss over 100 years largely has to do with the selection that is happening even if we can try to control for it (i.e., some individuals do better in glass cages than others). Remember, selection removes alleles, by and large.



> It makes me wonder what percent of deleterious alleles your starting w/ and whether your loosing good or bad alleles and what percentage of those are not useable anymore since they have moved to a new environment. It seems to me that it would be good to do a random, non related breeding program where you randomly pick individuals from a group of animals which are w/in the outward characteristic guidelines for the looks of the original imports while choosing some animals for things like disease resistance, outgoingness(are animals that hide often helping them in captivity, it seems these animals either are usually more stressed so they don't breed as well and people generally don't "choose" shy animals) and general health. I'm in no way saying your idea doesn't have merit it just seems to me that we shouldn't close ourselves off from other methods, which may possibly help them in captivity. I'd like to see what percentage difference there would be in allele frequencies over time and be able to measure which animals are "better for captivity".


Keep in mind that this is what TWI is pushing and what zoos do. This is NOT what is happening in the hobby because there isn't much coordination between breeders. However, if you keep to breeding to this method, you would not need to import frogs and get new blood because you wouldn't be losing alleles for inadvertent selection (i.e., shy vs. bold). The deleterious alleles shouldn't be of concern because if they pop up, they shouldn't pop up any more than they normally would in the wild population. But, unless, the parent population is inbred and highly homogeneous, there shouldn't be much concern about the deleterious mutations popping up with much frequency, unless you start selecting (inadvertently) for them.



> If something like shyness is a deleterious allele in captivity, which is better to have more alleles or not be around at all?


I wouldn't really say that shyness is deleterious. There are lots of examples of frogs that are shy, but breed well enough (vittatus are a good example). It is possible that they may be more stressed, but that is something that the breeder needs to control for. H-W assumes that everything is equal, but if you have environments where some individuals are comfortable and breed better, while there are other environments where individuals are stressed and don't breed well, you're selecting for temperament. H-W assumes that you can keep the same stress level among individuals in the population.



> Also, how do you "choose" an animal to mate from a particular pair? Is it a choice of all the offspring that individual produces or is it a "choice" from one clutch from that pair?


Not sure I understand your question. Choice of animals for breeding pairs should be random. Grab a random female and grab a random male and toss them together. If you have a number of individuals in the population, then you should mix them up from time to time (unless, of course, you have a species that forms monogamous pairs).


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## Roadrunner

Have you thought about how breeding unrelated animals may transmit disease and parasites from one collection to another? Whether by native diseases or parasites, diseases from others in those collections(some have brazilian frogs, some venezuela, some peru, columbia, panama, costa rica, etc. and there are still wc coming in) or diseases or parasites native to different parts of the US. There may be more inherent risk w/ random breeding than there is w/ inbreeding.
If disease culls some of the population in the program will this affect the expected allele frequency?

The more I learn the more I think that there are inherent risks w/ any program and until you get a way to give numeric value to each peril there is no way to know which is any "better" than any other. I'm sure there are but it looks like it's much more complicated than it may seem. 

Thoughts?


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## MonarchzMan

Again, H-W assumes everything is equal. We're just dealing with genetics. When you put pairs together, it is assumed that they have been quarantined such that they do not have diseases or parasites to pass around.


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## Roadrunner

I don't know how to multiquote so forgive me. 

Yes but you'd want to breed from animals that are older so that you reduce the # of generations to slow genetic drift.

Confusing having 2 different definitions for the same word. How do you know albinism was there in the first place? Probability matching offspring produced?

Ok, but I'm still wondering what the allele frequency would be if such incident happens. If your starting out w/ 97 and you get "selection" for a disease trait would that significantly reduce allele frequency? What would be caught in a group of 10 individuals, randomly bred, in the same facility? There is a tradeoff point that would secure a certain # of alleles w/out running the risk of cross contamination. 

Sorry, won't be able to finish, my friends just pulled up to go turtlin and froggin.

Deleterious is referring to purchasing. We almost lost blue auratus(panama) because of their shyness. Bottleknecking, crap, gotta go.



MonarchzMan said:


> H-W generally figures in for life time reproductive fitness. Obviously, this is different from individual to individual, and as I said, there is no perfect solution for captive management. However, that said, you would be selecting for longevity if an individual just started breeding or if it bred after 10 years. How old it is will not affect the genes it passes on. And presumably, if you're keeping it random, it would have just as much chance at breeding with long lived individuals as it would short.
> 
> 
> 
> First, for no mutation, you're thinking of two different things. Albinism is a mutation. What they are talking about with this is the act of mutating. I.e., nothing new pops up in the population when it was not there before, hidden or otherwise. Albinism already popped up and is represented in the population. Mutation is something we cannot control, but it happens very slowly, so that is where the estimate comes in for being able to keep a population for 100-500 years. It is presumed that in this time, no significant mutation would occur that would affect the captive population.
> 
> 
> 
> The idea behind an infinite population is genetic drift: the random removal of alleles from a population. In the wild, this could be that a landslide takes out part of a frog population. It doesn't matter how fit those individuals were, they were just in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Now, with captive populations, we can largely control genetic drift. We don't have landslides come through and wipe out our populations. Now random removals can happen: vivs get too warm and kill the frogs, power goes out for days, issues with shipping, etc. But by and large, these are very minimal risks. So, in essence, we can control for genetic drift. We might have small populations, but individuals in those populations are very secure. So don't get bogged down on infinite population size, but rather think of it as genetic drift.
> 
> As for the 97%, that mostly has to do with sample size. Think of it this way. We had to randomly choose 27 humans to start up a colony on Mars. Do you think that those 27 individuals would represent all of the genetic diversity currently seen in the human population? No, they wouldn't. They would, if chosen randomly, represent a large chunk of the genetic diversity, but not all of it. If we were to increase that colony to 100 or 200, we would be far better at capturing nearly all diversity represented in humans.
> 
> The loss over 100 years largely has to do with the selection that is happening even if we can try to control for it (i.e., some individuals do better in glass cages than others). Remember, selection removes alleles, by and large.
> 
> 
> 
> Keep in mind that this is what TWI is pushing and what zoos do. This is NOT what is happening in the hobby because there isn't much coordination between breeders. However, if you keep to breeding to this method, you would not need to import frogs and get new blood because you wouldn't be losing alleles for inadvertent selection (i.e., shy vs. bold). The deleterious alleles shouldn't be of concern because if they pop up, they shouldn't pop up any more than they normally would in the wild population. But, unless, the parent population is inbred and highly homogeneous, there shouldn't be much concern about the deleterious mutations popping up with much frequency, unless you start selecting (inadvertently) for them.
> 
> 
> 
> I wouldn't really say that shyness is deleterious. There are lots of examples of frogs that are shy, but breed well enough (vittatus are a good example). It is possible that they may be more stressed, but that is something that the breeder needs to control for. H-W assumes that everything is equal, but if you have environments where some individuals are comfortable and breed better, while there are other environments where individuals are stressed and don't breed well, you're selecting for temperament. H-W assumes that you can keep the same stress level among individuals in the population.
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure I understand your question. Choice of animals for breeding pairs should be random. Grab a random female and grab a random male and toss them together. If you have a number of individuals in the population, then you should mix them up from time to time (unless, of course, you have a species that forms monogamous pairs).


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## varanoid

I finally found out what a troll is! I have heard about them but didn't know what they were referring too exactly.


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## skylsdale

An article posted on the BBC yesterday on the same topic...this time it specifically mentions Dendrobatids: BBC News - Should the location of newly discovered species be hidden?


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## dneafse

This discussion has matured into something interesting. 

Monarchzman and Ed, lots of good points. I'm certainly not as knowledgeable as you guys about frogs, but I'm a population geneticist and have a few comments:

Breeding only those frogs that live past 5, or 10, or more years <would> in principal select for longevity, as frogfarm suggested. Breeding frogs as soon as they mature imparts no fitness differential to those that will ultimately live for 4 years vs. those that will live 10 years or more. This would be a very time consuming project, however!

Lengthening generation time will slow the captivity-induced effects of selection but ultimately not affect neutral genetic drift. A lot of early molecular clock literature found a difference in the rate of amino acid change accumulation between rodent and primate lineages, for example (with short and long gen times, respectively), but Subramanian and Kumar (PNAS, 2002) found no effect of generation time on the mutation accumulation rate at neutral fourfold-degenerate synonymous codon sites, which don't change the encoded amino acids of proteins. Drift is a function of the theta parameter in population genetics, which is a product of 4*population size*mutation rate, and longer generation times mean an effectively higher mutation rate because germline mutation occurs faster in older organisms. So, yes, short generation times and large population sizes facilitate adaptive selection, but drift is relatively unaffected by those factors.

In fact, waiting longer to reproduce may ultimately result in the decreasing fitness of a small population. Here's an interesting recent paper about the consequences of delayed reproduction and reduced selection in industrialized societies on the rate of deleterious mutation accumulation in humans:

Rate, molecular spectrum, and conse... [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010] - PubMed - NCBI

The allele frequency spectrum in most populations is usually distributed in a nearly exponential fashion, so the largest classes of alleles are those that are extremely rare (present in only a few members of a large population). No small captive population of an organism can therefore hope to capture 'most' of the genetic variation in a wild population. These goals are usually corrected with a qualifier, like 'most of the genetic variants present at a frequency of 5% or more', which is more easily achievable because there are many fewer alleles at frequencies >5% than <5% in most populations.

Does this matter? The human population genetics field used to think that most heritable trait variation was determined by common (high frequency) alleles of large effect. After hundreds of genome wide association studies for various human traits failed to account for most of the genetic basis of most traits, the field is tilting towards believing that rare (low frequency) variants of small effect and epistasis could in fact be more important for explaining heritable phenotypic variation in populations:

http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v13/n2/full/nrg3118.html

This has consequences for the aspirations of captive breeding programs aiming to preserve x% of the functional genetic variation in populations. But, it's not clear that there's a critical threshold of variation that absolutely needs to be preserved in most cases, so the importance of this point is not clear or amenable to productive debate.

Finally, I would agree that drift can be managed in most captive populations. Low frequency alleles will be lost in lots of individual demes of a captive meta-population, but be fixed in others due to random chance. The far more critical threat to the fitness of any captive meta-population is selection, which usually operates systematically in parallel across all the demes. All organisms maintained under artificial conditions experience relaxation of natural selection pressures as well as novel selection pressures they do not experience in the wild. This compromises their fitness relative to wild populations if captive organisms are returned to the wild. I work with mosquitoes, and fitness reduction from captive breeding is a major threat to the success of disease control programs involving release of sterilized or genetically modified lab-reared bugs. In captive zebrafish, the sex ratio gradually drifts to the point of population inviability. Malaria parasites maintained in vitro gradually lose the ability to produce their sexual (mosquito) stage, because they become reliant on lab technicians who maintain them indefinitely in petri dishes. Lots of organisms simply get 'lazy' in captivity, or change subtly in other ways that may not be apparent to us until fitness can be realistically measured against wild stock, and it's very hard to prevent this without fully replicating their natural habitat. 

I drop in and out of this forum, so apologies if this issue has been addressed ad nauseum before, but from my perspective it's selection rather than drift that could compromise the hobby's ultimate ability to contribute meaningfully to reintroduction programs. 

Hope this doesn't make me a troll! 

-Dan


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## ilovejaden

plz delete post my link was already posted


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## BrianWI

Oddly enough, you are now liking things I said 30 posts ago!

Seems maybe bashing was a priority over knowledge for a couple people


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## MonarchzMan

I thought you were gone, Brian. You're lying about what you said just like you're lying about disappearing.


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## BrianWI

> The idea behind an infinite population is genetic drift: the random removal of alleles from a population. In the wild, this could be that a landslide takes out part of a frog population.


Now I am hoping this discussion has calmed down. This statement is wrong, and if you can accept it, I will tell you why.

If a landslide took out a population, it would take out a random sampling of an "infinite" population. No change would occur. However, a landslide is selection, not random.

Looking at it from pure statistics, genetic drift "happens" only by random chance. Basically, if you flip a coin 100 times, you get 50 heads, 50 tails on average. HOWEVER, if you did it enough, at some point, you would get 100 heads and 0 tails. Not for any particular reason, just because speaking in terms of the possibilities and infinite tries (representing infinite population), it HAS to happen at some point. Nothing, not environment, not landslide, not comet or volcano or the frogs choice, causes genetic drift. Its basically the epitome of "shit happens".

That is the genetic drift. And when I said earlier that the small populations in captivity have a small number of alleles unique in the population, they will begin to show up in greater frequency, thus making your captive population no longer match the wild one.

dneafse has provided references (I will read them when I can), but hopefully now you can truly look at this as truth and skip the earlier hijinks.

Also, genetic drift doesn't mean alleles are removed. Just a frequency change.


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## BrianWI

I should add something else I said before, it could also make unique individuals that have no counterpart in the wild population.

Did some editing here, so if a post appears after this, it may not have all info....

JP, you may not like this, but it is NOT an insult. I have a big advantage over you when it comes to the math. I know these formulas and statistics as PURE math. I understand the exact theory behind them without the interference of a topic. That allows me to see things individuals using them in applications may not see.

H-W is an application of math. The same equations are used to build composite breeds. Further, the same equations are used in data encryption. Despite varying applications, the math is identical; the exceptions may differ.

Genetic drift is also based on mathematical equations that have multiple uses. Again, you could use this for data compression and errors. You can use it in nuclear physics applications. Or dart frogs.

That is why I understand them inside and out, application or not. Thats also why I see the errors that are introduced in application and discussions. I see the bigger picture; I see the purity of the original. Now, like the mistake on genetic drift, I can point these out to you. Accept them or don't, I am not going to hunt down links for you to find and then try to erroneously argue away from. It is OK to be wrong sometimes, you don't have to try to blame someone else.


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## MonarchzMan

I guess we're doing round two. Time for some more schooling.



BrianWI said:


> Now I am hoping this discussion has calmed down. This statement is wrong, and if you can accept it, I will tell you why.
> 
> If a landslide took out a population, it would take out a random sampling of an "infinite" population. No change would occur. However, a landslide is selection, not random.


No, Brian, you are wrong. Selection acts on particular phenotypes in a systematic manner. A landslide does not select one phenotype over another. Any frogs that happen to be in the path of it will be removed from the population. It does not matter what the genotypes or the phenotypes are of individuals in the path of the landslide are, they will be removed. Fit or not, they will be removed. This will change the ratios of the alleles in the population, going against H-W. 

Not only that, but you are also wrong in your idea of it being a random sampling. No population is randomly distributed across a small area as what would happen in a landslide. Populations are not grouped randomly in that small of an area. Hell, you even said as much when you suggested importers might take 9 frogs all from the same area. But, then again, we've seen you changing your arguments to whatever suits your needs.



> Looking at it from pure statistics, genetic drift "happens" only by random chance. Basically, if you flip a coin 100 times, you get 50 heads, 50 tails on average. HOWEVER, if you did it enough, at some point, you would get 100 heads and 0 tails. Not for any particular reason, just because speaking in terms of the possibilities and infinite tries (representing infinite population), it HAS to happen at some point. Nothing, not environment, not landslide, not comet or volcano or the frogs choice, causes genetic drift. Its basically the epitome of "shit happens".
> 
> That is the genetic drift. And when I said earlier that the small populations in captivity have a small number of alleles unique in the population, they will begin to show up in greater frequency, thus making your captive population no longer match the wild one.


You don't understand what genetic drift is, then, but that's not surprising as you have no training in genetics, biology, evolution, or anything related.

If there is random breeding, then there is no chance that rare alleles will pop up more than what their original frequency was. It is not possible, despite what you may say. The only way that could happen is if selection happens or genetic drift, which as Dan said, drift can be controlled in captive populations.



> dneafse has provided references (I will read them when I can), but hopefully now you can truly look at this as truth and skip the earlier hijinks.


You realize that the discussion calmed down and people were able to talk when the troll (you) left. Again, as you show, you're not going to provide backing to your assertions, and we've already established that you're a liar, so your word really can't be trusted at all.


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## dneafse

Brian,

I think you're still confused about a few things.



BrianWI said:


> If a landslide took out a population, it would take out a random sampling of an "infinite" population. No change would occur. However, a landslide is selection, not random.


A landslide removes individuals from a population regardless of their genotype or phenotype. It would therefore not be selection, by definition.

If you have a population 100 frogs, and a landslide randomly kills 50 of them, the frequencies of alleles/mutations in the remaining 50 will probably be different (by random chance) than they were in the original 100. This is drift.

But, drift ALSO happens in populations of stable but finite size, as you suggest. Let's say there are 10 copies of an allele in a population of 100 individuals in the current generation. In the next generation, even if the population size stays at exactly 100 individuals, by random chance that allele may be represented by 9, or 10, or 11, or ? copies. This is also drift. 

In a metapopulation of intermittently-connected sub-populations, though, the situation is a lot more complex. In one vivarium with a breeding pair of frogs, for example, an allele that's present at only 1% frequency in the wild population of a frog may be either entirely absent from the viv, or present at a high intermediate frequency, or 'fixed' if the alternate allele is lost. Eventually, in most tiny populations, variation is lost, and drift therefore stops happening. At the level of the metapopulation, however, variants are not lost. Just as a the coin flip may mean that an allele is completely lost from one vivarium, it could just as easily be 'fixed' by a coinflip and permanently maintained in other vivaria in the network. 

There's not really a point, from a conservation perspective or otherwise, in trying to 'freeze' all of the alleles in a population at a certain frequency. Alleles have a natural life cycle, and unless they're under selection, they are expected to be either fixed or lost within 4N generations of their creation by mutation, where N is the population size. Also, the vast majority of variation in most populations is selectively neutral and unimportant for organismal or population fitness. Alleles that are subject to selection race to fixation MUCH more quickly than 4N generations, and so you are unlikely to witness very many of them in transit within a single temporal cross-section of a population.

So, can we put down the conservation about genetic drift for now? 

-Dan


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## BrianWI

JP,

I will try again. I am truly sorry you don't understand this and need to argue. But you are doing a disservice by not trying to learn.

Have you never heard the "paint can" analogy for genetic drift? It is a pretty textbook example.

Genetic drift is not caused by anything. It is random chance. It is statistics. A landslide does not fit the application of genetic drift.

You are confused again at the point for a need of an infinite population. That is where you are having the problem understanding and invalidating your viewpoint. Your need to argue and think you are right is hurting your knowledge. I have no need to fight you. I won't from this point on in this thread. 

Hopefully, now we have an accepted population geneticist here. I assume you accept his expertise. He already corrected you on the breeding of older frogs causing selection (it does; you said it didn't). I hope you accept that now, too. Now, as he talks about genetic drift, he has lumped in fitness, as I argued earlier. In your earlier case, you talked about pure allele retention in a population. In this case, you argue more about the math than the result with me. However, fitness is the goal to me, so it will still apply when we move from drift to purposeful selection.

I do hope you choose to stop posting like you did in your last post. It was ALL WRONG. Again, not an insult. You just don't get it. I will try to explain these things to you in a helpful manner, but first you REALLY need to accept that you can be wrong.


----------



## BrianWI

> A landslide removes individuals from a population regardless of their genotype or phenotype. It would therefore not be selection, by definition.
> 
> If you have a population 100 frogs, and a landslide randomly kills 50 of them, the frequencies of alleles/mutations in the remaining 50 will probably be different (by random chance) than they were in the original 100. This is drift.


I would have to argue this may be just a matter of terminology. However, I am not sure what term would best definie this type of selection. It would be similar to the comets taking out dinosaurs (again, not genetic drift)

Genetic drift has no outlying factor other than statistics. NONE. It is random sampling error. So no, by the true definition this landslide is NOT drift. However, could this event cause a CHANGE (not drift) in frequency? YES. In fact, if we were using the H-W requirement of infinite population, a landslide would cause NO shift in frequency. This is why I am going to stick to the EXACT definition of genetic drift, based purely on chance and having no outside influence of selection (still have to use this word unless you offer a better one I am overlooking) including random events.

So we may both have to accept this landslide event is truly neither drift nor selection, even if we don't have a definition for it right now. Maybe it is just an EVENT.



> But, drift ALSO happens in populations of stable but finite size, as you suggest. Let's say there are 10 copies of an allele in a population of 100 individuals in the current generation. In the next generation, even if the population size stays at exactly 100 individuals, by random chance that allele may be represented by 9, or 10, or 11, or ? copies. This is also drift.
> 
> In a metapopulation of intermittently-connected sub-populations, though, the situation is a lot more complex. In one vivarium with a breeding pair of frogs, for example, an allele that's present at only 1% frequency in the wild population of a frog may be either entirely absent from the viv, or present at a high intermediate frequency, or 'fixed' if the alternate allele is lost. Eventually, in most tiny populations, variation is lost, and drift therefore stops happening. At the level of the metapopulation, however, variants are not lost. Just as a the coin flip may mean that an allele is completely lost from one vivarium, it could just as easily be 'fixed' by a coinflip and permanently maintained in other vivaria in the network.
> 
> There's not really a point, from a conservation perspective or otherwise, in trying to 'freeze' all of the alleles in a population at a certain frequency. Alleles have a natural life cycle, and unless they're under selection, they are expected to be either fixed or lost within 4N generations of their creation by mutation, where N is the population size. Also, the vast majority of variation in most populations is selectively neutral and unimportant for organismal or population fitness. Alleles that are subject to selection race to fixation MUCH more quickly than 4N generations, and so you are unlikely to witness very many of them in transit within a single temporal cross-section of a population.


This is all correct (except for ALSO) and is what I was trying to demonstrate to JP earlier, with more extreme examples so they are easier to see. However, that didn't work well 

So, really we two are separated by one thing. I am sticking to the PURE definition of genetic drift (pure statistical probability) and not allowing outside influences because that is what the math and theory really are based on.

Plus, it becomes important when we get into fitness and what may or may not cause it to increase or decrease.


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> JP,
> 
> I will try again. I am truly sorry you don't understand this and need to argue. But you are doing a disservice by not trying to learn.
> 
> Have you never heard the "paint can" analogy for genetic drift? It is a pretty textbook example.
> 
> Genetic drift is not caused by anything. It is random chance. It is statistics. A landslide does not fit the application of genetic drift.


Take an introductory biology class and get back to me. You're wrong, quite simply. Any biologist would say so.



> Hopefully, now we have an accepted population geneticist here. I assume you accept his expertise. He already corrected you on the breeding of older frogs causing selection (it does; you said it didn't). I hope you accept that now, too. Now, as he talks about genetic drift, he has lumped in fitness, as I argued earlier. In your earlier case, you talked about pure allele retention in a population. In this case, you argue more about the math than the result with me. However, fitness is the goal to me, so it will still apply when we move from drift to purposeful selection.


And said population geneticist says you're wrong about drift. Again, any biologist would say you are. Not only that, but you misunderstand what I meant by selecting for longevity. But that's no surprise. You like to put words in others' mouths to try to prove them wrong. 



> I do hope you choose to stop posting like you did in your last post. It was ALL WRONG. Again, not an insult. You just don't get it. I will try to explain these things to you in a helpful manner, but first you REALLY need to accept that you can be wrong.


You are spreading lies and misinformation. Had you actually had a background in biology, you would understand this.


----------



## BrianWI

> If there is random breeding, then there is no chance that rare alleles will pop up more than what their original frequency was. It is not possible, despite what you may say. The only way that could happen is if selection happens or genetic drift, which as Dan said, drift can be controlled in captive populations.


Dan,

JP trusts you. Can you reiterate your point earlier. I think he doesn't get this:



> Low frequency alleles will be lost in lots of individual demes of a captive meta-population, but be fixed in others due to random chance.


----------



## BrianWI

JP,

I again am telling you the math on genetic drift is pure chance. Do some extend it beyond the mathematical theory? Yes, they do. BUT IT IS NOT THE SAME. COULD they have similar outcomes. Absolutely. But for purposes of this captive population debate, the two remain separate. So lets call it drift by random event and drift by probability. The reason this separation must be made is that infinite population issue again.


----------



## MonarchzMan

Again, BS, you have everyone saying you're wrong. And you insist that everyone is wrong. We have evolutionary biologists, population geneticists, and zoo curators telling you that you don't know what you're talking about. Not only that, but we've been asking for you to back up your positions, but you have not been able to. And you've said that you won't. Again, we've shown that you're a liar, why would anyone actually take you for your word?


----------



## MonarchzMan

skylsdale said:


> An article posted on the BBC yesterday on the same topic...this time it specifically mentions Dendrobatids: BBC News - Should the location of newly discovered species be hidden?


I did want to comment on this because it does warrant discussion. It's very sad that this happens. I know that I, personally, am very reluctant to tell people where I've found new populations. I'm unlikely to do so unless I know the person and know their intentions.

It's just too bad that there is such a demand for these new and rare things. I was really surprised and disappointed to see that benedicta were having issues. I can understand the frustration about that.

As a hobby, we need to be careful about creating these demands. I know when benedicta came in, everyone was wanting them, which drove the demand to go get them. I would say if you don't know where your frogs come from, especially new ones, don't get them. It is vitally important to deal with companies like Understory Enterprises that actually deal with captive frogs coming in before.


----------



## dneafse

BrianWI said:


> So no, by the true definition this landslide is NOT drift. However, could this event cause a CHANGE (not drift) in frequency? YES. In fact, if we were using the H-W requirement of infinite population, a landslide would cause NO shift in frequency.


Brian, here's where you're getting tripped up. Drift does not happen in a H-W population, because population size is infinite. There is no meaningful insight that H-W populations can bring to this discussion.

A change in allele frequency, either up or down, in a population that is not driven by selection is by definition a result of drift. There are no other players in the realm of allele frequency change other than drift and selection.

I'm going to bow out of this conversation here, because it's not productive. I think JP is exasperated with you, but his suggestion is a good one. You should pick up a textbook on population genetics, because even if you understand the pure math you need to know the biological context to put things together and have a reasonable conversation. It's unfortunate that population genetics has a lot of specialized terminology that is a barrier to entry for newcomers, but once you learn it, you can have dialogues that really move your understanding forward. 

-Dan


----------



## jacobi

BrianWI said:


> Looking at it from pure statistics, genetic drift "happens" only by random chance. Basically, if you flip a coin 100 times, you get 50 heads, 50 tails on average. HOWEVER, if you did it enough, at some point, you would get 100 heads and 0 tails. Not for any particular reason, just because speaking in terms of the possibilities and infinite tries (representing infinite population), it HAS to happen at some point.


Purely for the sake of argument... Incorrect. The 100 coin flips are separate events, each event has a separate 50/50 probability of heads or tails. Furthermore, it also involves the strength of the person flipping the coin, wind at the present moment, area on the coin that is struck, movement of the arm prior to the flip... etc. Each and every flip is a new event with a new probability, each with many different factors that are almost impossible to control. If you want to start throwing math around, make sure you understand the math to begin with, particularly when that math applies to a biological perspective. If you dont understand math as it applies to flipping a coin, you dont have a clue when it it comes to applying mathematical eqautions to biological problems. I am going to call you out. I have politely asked you on numerous occasions for your experience, training, and references. I have had it with you belittling the experts who have contributed to this thread, whom I thank for teaching me so much. Conservation is something I feel very strongly about. My family in Australia is actively involved in many conservation efforts, and I am extremely familiar with how our natural environment is threatened by greed and politics. Conservation is a serious matter. Millions of people around the world are appallingly uneducated for reasons that are not their fault, and this forum goes a long way towards dispelling some of that ignorance. You are posting and reading the contents of this forum. Going off of your previous antagonistic comments and posts, this suggests to me that since you do not seem to care about conservation, you are actively against it, purely for financial interests. Unless you can find a way to communicate without antagonizing the people here who have contributed all that they have, I have had it. You have raised some interesting questions that peaked my curiosity, but your degratory comments to the people who have answered your questions have ended any interest I may have had. Furthermore, your attempts to belittle people I have come to admire, plus your shameless grandstanding leave me with no interest in dealing with anything else you have to say. Good day.


Jake


----------



## BrianWI

Dan,



> Brian, here's where you're getting tripped up. Drift does not happen in a H-W population, because population size is infinite. There is no meaningful insight that H-W populations can bring to this discussion.


YES!!!!! We are getting somewhere. Dan, you will have to accept my apologies for some of this. I'm not sure if you read back all my posts, but I said A LONG TIME AGO that H-W required infinite population size. JP argued that this was not true, telling me over and over how that he needed to "school me" on this. I am glad we both agree. *JP, do you see this? H-W requires an infinite population, can you FINALLY admit you were wrong?*

And this goes to my point. What JP (and Ed) hope to accomplish in the pure sense is not 100% attainable. This has ALWAYS been my point (along with the fact that their is no need to attain it).

To have infinite population, you would also need infinite time and infinite resources.

jacobi - nonsensical arguments have no point. Control yourself.


----------



## MonarchzMan

Brian, you, again, are putting words in others' mouths to serve your own ends.

H-W deals with genetic drift. H-W contends that genetic drift cannot happen. One way, as Dan has pointed out, is that the population is infinite, but it all goes back to drift. The size of the population really is irrelevant as long as you can control drift. If you have a population of 4 individuals that will not die (and don't you dare argue that this is not realistic since an infinite population is equally unrealistic), you won't have genetic drift because there is no random removal of alleles. The population is not infinite, but fits in with H-W because of drift.

H-W has always been about drift. Infinite populations reduce the impact of drift. But captive populations are also controlled to make drift a non-issue for the population. Hence, population size is irrelevant. It is all about drift.

Take a class, and learn something because you're being wrong all the time is getting tiresome.

And Jake brings up good point, but you ignore them.


----------



## BrianWI

As for drift, it is a matter of definition.

The only thing really approaching random is what combination of genetics an offspring carries. How that statistically drifts differs from a "random" event is huge. How that changes allele frequency has many determining factors. Location plays a role. Size plays a role. Number of animals eliminated plays a role. Population segmentation plays a role. Therefore, it has to be considered a different type of event later on in some of the thinking.

I REALLY don't care what biology calls it. It may be my fault in trying to limit the terminology in this discussion. But it is a problem even more when people argue to try to be right rather than on merit. I try not to argue semantics, it is imprecise at best. I don't want to use terminology that, honestly, lends itself to error. I am not stuck thinking textbooks are 100% accurate. We used to believe genetics was just Dominant and Recessive and that our inherited genes were randomly chosen 50% at each locus from each parent. We know that isn't true now, either.

The reason these topics don't produce anything is because resident "experts" aren't willing to learn, only to prove to their cliques that they are smart. The facts become irrelevant (just like JP arguing H-W didn't need an infinite population. He didn't care he was wrong, only to appear correct. Thank you for forcing him into seeing it).

In essence, when you cannot have an infinite population, things change. Errors are introduced. People should realize they CANNOT preserve the allele frequency of the wild. At best, you could preserve the sample... but again that requires an infinite population.

Even you have that biological bias I don't have. I also thought you had read my earlier posts. I was wrong. However, it does seem you are too a bit more interested in looking correct than being correct.


----------



## BrianWI

> *Drift does not happen in a H-W population, because population size is infinite*


Again, I said to be 100% correct, H-W requires an infinite population. Do you agree or disagree?



> If you have a population of 4 individuals that will not die (and don't you dare argue that this is not realistic since an infinite population is equally unrealistic), you won't have genetic drift because there is no random removal of alleles. The population is not infinite, but fits in with H-W because of drift.


Sigh. Now you are leaving H-W because you are missing that it deals with passing information from generation to generation. It isn't a static condition, H-W defines a dynamic condition.

I wish you weren't blocking your own ability to learn.


----------



## MonarchzMan

BS, the only one who doesn't understand drift, is you. There is no need to clarify or argue semantics. Genetic drift is the random removal of alleles. You trying to argue that a landslide is selection is laughable (please, do tell, what phenotypes and genotypes are being selected there).

It is amazing how you will try to side with people, and then when they tell you that you're wrong, you immediately attack them and call into question their expertise. The fact of the matter is that everyone here has more experience with biological systems, education, and training than you do. We are the experts. And I did just show you that H-W deals with genetic drift, not population size.



BrianWI said:


> Sigh. Now you are leaving H-W because you are missing that it deals with passing information from generation to generation. It isn't a static condition, H-W defines a dynamic condition.


So have this small immortal population breed. Still isn't subject to drift because none of the alleles are being randomly removed from the population. Population size is irrelevant. It's all about genetic drift.

But, we're making progress:



BrianWI said:


> I was wrong.


Keep saying that. Because it is as true now as it is when you started this conversation.


----------



## BrianWI

> And I did just show you that H-W deals with genetic drift, not population size


How does H-W eliminate the effect of genetic drift?

A landslide doesn't act alone. If the local population it hits is identical to the general population, no damage is done. If the local population is different (has a local adaptation) that the population at large, then it can changes the allele frequency (again, it doesn't have to eliminate alleles as you said in error earlier). However, selection is certainly involved, even if indirectly related. With statistical drift, there is ZERO immediate factor that causes it.


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## varanoid

He's baaaaack! I'm going to go make some popcorn and watch.


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## BrianWI

> So have this small immortal population breed. Still isn't subject to drift because none of the alleles are being randomly removed from the population. Population size is irrelevant. It's all about genetic drift.


OK, so to use your example, you want H-W to use INFINITE TIME. If we bastardize it to your thinking, then yes, with inifinite time and no change, the equation would work. But it would not be H-W anymore. However, it is IDENTICAL to the real need for infinite population. You actually just proved it yourself, whether you know it or not. The need to have something be INFINITE is real, and in H-W it is population size.


----------



## MonarchzMan

What phenotypes are being selected against in regards to a landslide? There is no selection. You are wrong, just like you said.

And I didn't say anything in error. A landslide would remove alleles. That does not necessarily mean that it drives those loci to fixation as a result. It removes alleles from the population, which changes the overall frequency of alleles in the population.

And again, H-W only deals with alleles and allele frequencies. Population size is irrelevant. It's drift. Read a book

Schooled.

And, yes Mike, Brian is the epitome of troll.


----------



## BrianWI

Wow, you are getting good at avoidance.

How does H-W eliminate the effect of genetic drift?



> A landslide would remove alleles


Really? 100% of the time? If a landslide took out a small pond with the froglets from 1 pair of frogs, yet the parents were able to hop away in time, what alleles were eliminated from the population?


----------



## MonarchzMan

H-W eliminates the effect of genetic drift by not allowing allele frequencies to change randomly as a result of random events, such as landslides.

BS, you're scenarios are getting more and more ridiculous. You keep on trying to find little points that are really irrelevant to the argument because you know you're wrong. Not all landslides may hit a given population. Does that mean that landslides cannot be a source of genetic drift? No. It is a random event.

Now, what phenotypes are selected for in a landslide?

Just give it up, you are wrong. Everyone sees that you're wrong. Let's really deal with the facts:

1. You're not a biologist, have no training in biology, and have no expertise in the subject matter.
2. You are a liar, for many reasons, but it is clearly evident that your positions are suspect because your word can't be trusted.
3. You won't give any sources to defend your positions because they don't exist (and when you try and are shown that they actually do not support your position, you discount them).
4. You have evolutionary biologists, population geneticists, zoo curators all calling you out, and you try to undermine their years of expertise because you're convinced you're right.
5. You're a troll.
6. You're wrong.

Those are the facts, deal with it. Why don't you actually take your own advise and be gone. For good.


----------



## BrianWI

> H-W eliminates the effect of genetic drift by not allowing allele frequencies to change randomly as a result of random events, such as landslides


How does it eliminate those effects? Does it stop landslides?


In the exact scenario I gave you, it removed NO allelic information from the population. 

And you just said H-W could do the EXACT same thing, eliminate genetic drift from random events such as landslides. You, my friend, just contradicted yourself!


----------



## ChrisK

I like Cocoa Puffs.


----------



## MonarchzMan

Show me that a landslide would remove all of the offspring of one pair of frogs, while the parents will escape and only those offspring (and all the offspring, none actually survived) are killed while the rest of the population remains intact. You are grasping at straws.

And make no mistake, we are not friends. Not at all. I do not want that association.



ChrisK said:


> I like Cocoa Puffs.


This is great, and entirely humorous since it adds infinitely more to the thread than BS ever has!


----------



## BrianWI

I will post this again in case you require more proof:



> Hardy–Weinberg law) states that both allele and genotype frequencies in a population remain constant—that is, they are in equilibrium—from generation to generation unless specific disturbing influences are introduced. Those disturbing influences include non-random mating, mutations, selection, *limited population size*


Wikipedia



> Frequencies
> 
> Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium
> 
> Evolutionary Genetics
> 
> Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection
> 
> Speciation
> 
> Study Questions
> 
> Population and Evolutiionary Genetics Overheads
> 
> Population and Evolutiionary Genetics WWW Links
> 
> Genetic Topics
> 
> The Hardy-Weinberg Law
> The unifying concept of population genetics is the Hardy-Weinberg Law (named after the two scientists who simultaneously discovered the law). The law predicts how gene frequencies will be transmitted from generation to generation given a specific set of assumptions. Specifically,
> 
> If an *infinitely large*, random mating *population* is free from outside evolutionaryforces (i.e. mutation, migration and natural selection),
> 
> then the gene frequencies will not change over time and the frequencies in the next generation will be p2 for the AA genotype, 2pq for the Aa genotype and q2 for the aa genotype


NDSU



> The Hardy-Weinberg law assumes random mating in an *infinitely large population*


GENETICS - By Benjamin Pierce



> THE HARDY-WEINBERG EQUILIBRIUM
> 
> The Hardy-Weinberg equilibium, which is also known as the panmictic equilibrium, was discovered at the beginning of the 20th century by several researchers, notably by Hardy, a mathematician and Weinberg, and physician.
> The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is the central theoretical model in population genetics. The concept of equilibrium in the Hardy-Weinberg model is subject to the following hypotheses/conditions:
> 
> The population is panmictic (couples form randomly (panmixia), and their gametes encounter each other randomly (pangamy))
> *The population is "infinite"* (very large: to minimize differences due to sampling).
> There must be no selection, mutation, migration (no allele loss /gain).
> Successive generations are discrete (no crosses between different generations).


Atlas of Genetics and Cytogenetics in Oncology and Haematology


----------



## BrianWI

> Show me that a landslide would remove all of the offspring of one pair of frogs, while the parents will escape and only those offspring (and all the offspring, none actually survived) are killed while the rest of the population remains intact. You are grasping at straws.


My frogs are a subpopulation of the breeders. He still has the parents. If my house is buried in a landslide, no allelic loss has occurred.


----------



## BrianWI

By the way, for those wondering how, as JP says, H-W eliminates the effect of genetic drift by not allowing allele frequencies to change randomly as a result of random events, such as landslides *by assuming an infinite population.*

I do wish you could get past having an issue being wrong.


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## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> My frogs are a subpopulation of the breeders. He still has the parents. If my house is buried in a landslide, no allelic loss has occurred.


One can only hope, but irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Keep grasping at straws.


----------



## MonarchzMan

BrianWI said:


> By the way, for those wondering how, as JP says, H-W eliminates the effect of genetic drift by not allowing allele frequencies to change randomly as a result of random events, such as landslides *by assuming an infinite population.*
> 
> I do wish you could get past having an issue being wrong.


BS, you're wrong. Like I said, infinite population size has to do with the idea of genetic drift. *If you can control genetic drift, which we largely can in captivity, then population size does not matter*. Your problem is that you look at words, but don't understand meaning. I do. Since I have training in biology.

I wish you didn't have issues with learning from those superior to you.


----------



## BrianWI

Irrelevant?

What if that was a house fire? A cat? A disease? Poor care? New hobbyist mistake? And if ultimately we are working with a captive population, this is VERY MUCH a possible scenario.



> By the way, for those wondering how, as JP says, H-W eliminates the effect of genetic drift by not allowing allele frequencies to change randomly as a result of random events, such as landslides by assuming an infinite population.


By the way, is the above a valid statement?


----------



## BrianWI

OMG! REALLY?!?!?



> Like I said, infinite population size has to do with the idea of genetic drift. I


You have said H-W deals with genetic drift. Now you are saying infinite population has to do with genetic drift. While you are avoiding saying it directly, you just showed that H-W deals with infinite population size!!!! Because all 3 are related.

HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA! I'm sorry, but it is just TOO funny not to laugh!


----------



## MonarchzMan

BS, you again, are putting words in my mouth. H-W deals with genetic drift. Your websites talk about infinite population size. Like I said, you see words, I actually understand them. I have already explained that they talk about infinite population size because the random removal of alleles (i.e., GENETIC DRIFT) will not affect the allele frequency of the population as a whole (again, I said that H-W deals with allele frequencies). 

Now, if you can control genetic drift, which we can, then population size is irrelevant. Like I have always been saying.

Give it up, BS. You're wrong. Deal with it.


----------



## BrianWI

> BS, you again, are putting words in my mouth. H-W deals with genetic drift. Your websites talk about infinite population size. Like I said, you see words, I actually understand them. I have already explained that they talk about infinite population size because the random removal of alleles (i.e., GENETIC DRIFT) will not affect the allele frequency of the population as a whole (again, I said that H-W deals with allele frequencies).


OMG, you did it AGAIN. This time in one statement!!!



> Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium describes the null model evolution. For a population to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, five conditions must be met:
> 
> 1. No Genetic Drift (Infinite Population Size)


From another source. If, to be in H-W equilibrium, one MUST have no genetic drift, and to have no genetic drift means to have an infinite population size, then one MUST have infinite population size to be in H-W equilibrium. Really, you still don't understand this???

What you are saying is logically flawed. First, as I keep saying, to be 100% with H-W, you must have infinite population to control genetic drift. If you don't, you are introducing error of some type. If you are saying you can control genetic drift 100%, then you need to tell me how you control genetic drift 100%.

So, how do you do it?


----------



## varanoid

I am proud to say I never owned one of these.


----------



## MonarchzMan

BS, give it up. You're just trolling right now. I've proven you wrong so many times, it's no longer funny. You have shown yourself to be ignorant of topics about conservation genetics, and keep on twisting words to suit your own needs.

You do *NOT* understand the concepts people are talking about here, and you clearly have no interest in learning by someone who is smarter than you (e.g., me). I have said these things over and over ad nauseum. If you are so slow as to not be able to go back and see that, then it's not my concern. I think everyone here has learned that you, BS, are full of BS. I and others have provided ample sources to support our positions, and you have not.

The conservation was going so well when you weren't part of it. Do continue to not be a part of it.


----------



## BrianWI

Back to the cut and run approach! Love it!! I PROVED YOU WRONG AGAIN, THE LINKED SOURCES PROVED YOU WRONG AGAIN, YOU PROVED YOURSELF WRONG AGAIN and now you want to avoid the topic on controlling genetic drift because you don't have an answer! I mean come on, while the clique mentality is strong, they still see it. You argued yourself to the same conclusion because you can't admit you are wrong!! I LOVE IT!!!!!

JP, you are so smart, why don't you join Mensa as well??? LOL!!


I will recap reality.

HW equilibrium requires infinite population size to control genetic drift.

You cannot do it 100% in captivity. I contend, you don't need to. Again, selection is not bad.


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## varanoid

Got my popcorn


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## BrianWI

Don't let clique mentality limit your thinking! In fact, seek out others with different opinions and different knowledge. Never form a conclusion based on one source of information.

For instance, you may want to listen to JP that H-W doesn't need infinite population. However, I told you it does. If you read back...



> Drift does not happen in a H-W population, because population size is infinite.


That was Dan telling you the same thing I did. Then you had all the links I provided you that had the same information. So no matter how much you WANT to believe JP as a clique leader, he is the only one who seems to hold this opinion. If you think it out, follow the math, you see JP is wrong. Best just acknowledge that and hope he is right next time.


----------



## Ed

BrianWI said:


> Don't let clique mentality limit your thinking! In fact, seek out others with different opinions and different knowledge. Never form a conclusion based on one source of information.
> 
> For instance, you may want to listen to JP that H-W doesn't need infinite population. However, I told you it does. If you read back...
> 
> 
> 
> That was Dan telling you the same thing I did. Then you had all the links I provided you that had the same information. So no matter how much you WANT to believe JP as a clique leader, he is the only one who seems to hold this opinion. If you think it out, follow the math, you see JP is wrong. Best just acknowledge that and hope he is right next time.


Brian, 

you are making a fundamental flawed assumption on which you have based your position on the H&W. I am going to draw a direct analogy..if you remember your chemistry you were taught about an equation that goes like this PV=nrT (pressure times volume equals the number of moles times a constant times Temperature in degrees Kelvin). This is the ideal gas law.. It describes how an ideal gas behaves under specific conditions.. Does it tell you exactly how a real (non-ideal) gas behaves.. no, but generally it will put you into the correct part of the ball park. The H&W equation functions as an idealized predictor if you have an infinite population however not having an infinite population does not invalidate the equation nor the application when using populations of less than infinite size.... This is where you have a flawed understanding of the equation and how it functions in smaller populations. 

Some comments,

Ed


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## MonarchzMan

Ed said:


> Brian,
> 
> you are making a fundamental flawed assumption on which you have based your position on the H&W. I am going to draw a direct analogy..if you remember your chemistry you were taught about an equation that goes like this PV=nrT (pressure times volume equals the number of moles times a constant times Temperature in degrees Kelvin). This is the ideal gas law.. It describes how an ideal gas behaves under specific conditions.. Does it tell you exactly how a real (non-ideal) gas behaves.. no, but generally it will put you into the correct part of the ball park. The H&W equation functions as an idealized predictor if you have an infinite population however not having an infinite population does not invalidate the equation nor the application when using populations of less than infinite size.... This is where you have a flawed understanding of the equation and how it functions in smaller populations.
> 
> Some comments,
> 
> Ed


Ed, I actually disagree. I think he knows this, but he sticks to these irrelevant details so that he doesn't have to admit that we are actually right and know what we're talking about. He has always had issues when people know more than him.


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## BrianWI

Ed,

No, that is not the problem. The REAL problem is people like JP (I won't comment on you as you'll start talking TOS and everything else, another odd tactic to get out of a debate one is losing) not wanting to be shown wrong.



> The H&W equation functions as an idealized predictor if you have an infinite population


Over and over again JP has denied this fact. You have also just said he is wrong. This is IDENTICAL in my statement that to be 100% correct, H-W needs an infinite population. NEVER have I said H-W wasn't useful without one. I have said that H-W being what it is, you have to figure in the error induced by not having infinite populations, beginning with sample that may not represent the gene pool at large. However, to avoid being seen wrong even on this small item, JP felt the need to argue his erroneous statement. That is not my fault. That is his (and yours for not calling him out on it).

I can move on to the next issue now that Dan, Ed, several referenced resources and I all agree that JP was wrong in denying the fact I have pointed out all along. That would lead to how to use H-W within the limitations it needs to be used in, and whether or not allele frequency is important in a captive population of pets.


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## MonarchzMan

BS, you put words into others mouths quite often. It is hilarious that you try to admonish me by twisting the words of others, which is clearly baiting (and against the TOS). Like I said, you don't actually understand what the H-W equilibrium is about, so you argue irrelevant points. You ignore all that I've said to stick on one point to try to say how the whole thing is worthless. But it is not, since zoos and organizations like TWI use this very concept to manage their captive populations.


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## Ed

MonarchzMan said:


> Ed, I actually disagree. I think he knows this, but he sticks to these irrelevant details so that he doesn't have to admit that we are actually right and know what we're talking about. He has always had issues when people know more than him.


Just the facts... stick to just the facts. 

Ed


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## Scott

Short time out while Cleanup on Aisle NUTS is initiated.

s


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