Releasing Monarchs

Paul C Weaver beavis5 at utkux.utcc.utk.edu
Thu May 22 14:47:21 EDT 1997


Finally someone with some good practical population biology knowledge on
this subject. Genetic diversity is through numbers. There's is no major
artificial selection going on here, the population is not being infused
and confined through numerous generations. IF anything the release of
captive monarchs should help the native population to a small degree.
Monarchs are a strong species that have overcome many obstacles in their
evolutionary journey on planet earth. The freeze in Mexico would have
changed the gene pool to a far greater extent than any breeder will even
come close.  Breeders always seem to get a bad rap but the biological
knowledge they obtain on captive lepidoptera is extremely valuable to the
scientific community.

Thanks
Paul
On Thu, 22 May 1997, Bob Greback wrote:

> I don't think anyone on this list can tell me how many reared monarchs it 
> would take to change the genome of any "regional" population of monarchs as to 
> notice ANY difference harmful or otherwise.  Unless your exposing them to 
> radiation to increase the genetic load (and even that would probably not be 
> enough), it would take one farfetched or astronomical piece of "luck" to rear 
> a population with chaotic enough alleles to do any "damage" or change the 
> region's or nation's monarch population in any noticeable way.  They are 
> migratory and have a high degree of dispersal built into their ethology.  
> There's no artificial selection going on here, the population is not being 
> infused and confined through numerous generations. 
> 
> I wonder what E.O. Wilson would have to say about the infusion of reared stock 
> into natural populations.  Probably not much.
> 
> Thanks!
> Bob Greback
> 



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