I need help.......

[Patrick Foley]

Linda and other leppers,

    Don't jump on Neil Jones; just argue out the science. Most butterfly
population biologists would probably agree with Neil for the most part that
butterfly releases should be done very circumspectly if at all. His is not an
arbitrary obstinacy.
    This is not to say that Bruce Walsh is mistaken in his points. Most of Bruce's
points I agree with, but some clarifications should be made. 1) You are not
quoting Bruce directly I assume, since there are many spelling and grammatical
errors in your paraphrases. 2) Bruce seems to assume that the burden of proof
should lie with on the anti-releasers. This is point of view would not be held by
anyone working in biological control. 3) There are some dangers (discussed by me
and others in posts last year) that Bruce is not mentioning, such as disease,
transposons, runaway sexual selection etc. that could cause major problems from an
apparently minor release. 4) Releases would bollox up many kinds of future
scientific studies on phylogeography (the geography of micro- and meso-
evolution). Bruce might actually agree if put to the test. 5) There are many
things we can't even think of now that could matter.
    It is amusing that Bruce and I would come to different attitudes from a
similar academic training. One of his academic fathers is my academic grandfather
(Joseph Felsenstein). We were both trained in quantitative genetics by Michael
Turelli at UCDavis. He teaches at U Arizona where I did my MS. Perhaps Bruce is
just more optimistic that evolution just sorts things out. My understanding of the
very complex biogeography of Lepidoptera (obtained partly from Art Shapiro,
another connection) and the highly fine-tuned mimicry adaptations, together with
our still weak understanding of the evolution of their dispersal (despite the
massive work of Robin Baker) leads me to be more skeptical of Bruce's optimism. He
is probably right about most cases; it is the other cases that haunt us.

Patrick Foley
patfoley at csus.edu

Linda Rogers wrote:

> At 01:38 PM 5/3/2000 GMT,
>
> Neil Jones wrote:
> In article <390985D4.23E96982 at epix.net> butrfly at epix.net "Rick Mikula" writes:
>
>         "Dave (No Spam, Please)" wrote:
>         I read an article recently which suggests
>         that releasing butterflies at weddings isn't
>         such a great idea.  NABA has a copy on their site.
>
>         If you would like to considered other views concerning
>         this topic you may consider visiting    http://Butterflybreeders.org
>         Then click on the menu item "What scientist
>         Are Saying" or "Why releases are okay."
>
>         Perhaps you may want to view both sides before
>         drawing any conclusions.
>
>         R. Mikula
>
> ***************************************
> Neil Jones replied:
>
> I have no wish to start a flame war. Those who know me know that I have
> often spoken out against lawbreakers and dubious salesmen.
>
>         WHO ARE THE LAWBREAKERS?  WHAT DUBIOUS
>         SALESMEN?
>
> Those who peddle untruths in an attempt to deceive the innocent.
>
>         ARE THEY UNTRUTHS BECAUSE THEY AREN'T YOUR
>         VIEWS/BELIEFS??  WHAT UNTRUTHS DO YOU
>         REFER TO?
>
> I am not doing this to pick a fight but because I know something that I
> believe that someone else should know before they make a judgement. That is
> to say that someone is trying to deceive people into believing something
> which is  not truthful. I am a conservationist and I know there are a
> number of anti-conservation activists about so I risk attracting flames.
>
>         NO FLAMES, BUT DEFINITELY A RESPONSE.
>
> The web site which Mr Mikula refers to is not truthful.
> The fact is that ALL insect conservation bodies oppose what this site is
> peddling.
>
>         BECAUSE SOMEONE'S OPINIONS ARE IN OPPOSITION
>         TO YOURS, THIS MEANS THEY ARE UNTRUE?
>
> My concerns are that while it could be argued that there are two sides to
> an argument, this "breeders" website contains information which the
> informed will know thoroughly discredits them. I consider that since I know
> this I should say so. After all it is only good citizenship to point out to
> your fellows when someone is trying to get them to buy a product or an idea
> which is peddled by marketing that is not truthful.
>
>         IT IS JUST AS IMPORTANT TO POINT OUT TO
>         PEOPLE THAT THEY NEED TO READ ALL THEY
>         CAN TO MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS, AND NOT JUST
>         LISTEN TO ONE PERSON'S IDEAS.  DON'T YOU
>         THINK PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF FORMING
>         INTELLIGENT OPINIONS WITHOUT YOU TELLING
>         THEM WHAT THEY SHOULD THINK AND BELIEVE?
>         THEY CAN READ YOUR IDEAS AND OPINIONS
>         AND THOSE IDEAS AND OPINIONS ON THE
>         WWW.BUTTERFLYBREEDERS.ORG WEBSITE, AND
>         FORM A PERSONAL OPINION ALL THEIR OWN
>         WITHOUT YOU TELLING THEM IT IS ALL WRONG.
>
> The website quotes a scientist as saying that the kind of releases that it
> supports are OK when in fact he is saying the opposite. That releases
> should only be performed as part of a scientifically controlled process,
> NOT at the wedding of "Bimbo and Rambo" :-)
>
>         IF YOU ARE GOING TO QUOTE SOMETHING,
>         AT LEAST DO IT ACCURATELY:
>
>         From The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the
>         Butterfly World by Paul Smart--
>         last page of the introduction,
>         last sentence:
>
>   "... A positive contribution may be made by aiding
>         conservation projects and by helping to
>         breed and release healthy butterflies in
>         suitable habitats, though this should always
>         be done as part of a documented and
>         properly organized project."
>
>         NOT "SCIENTIFICALLY CONTROLLED PROCESS" AS
>         YOU WROTE.  DON'T TWIST THINGS AROUND.
>
>         BIMBO AND RAMBO??  WHAT A WITTY ONE YOU ARE.
>
> Now there are two possible reasons why they say this :-
>
> 1. They are deliberately deceiving people.
> 2. They do not know the subject well enough to comment.
>
> Either way they are discredited. By all means visit the site but remember
> the information is wrong.
>
>         WE DO KNOW THE SUBJECT AND HAVE SCIENTISTS
>         WITH ACCREDITATION EQUAL TO OR EXCEEDING YOURS
>         THAT DISAGREE WITH YOU.  SINCE WE BELIEVE
>         WE "KNOW" THE SUBJECT, THEN WE ARE NOT
>         DELIBERATELY DECEIVING PEOPLE.  WE SIMPLY
>         HAVE OUR BELIEFS, AS YOU DO.
>
>         BELOW IS A SUMMARY OF ONE SUCH SCIENTIFIC
>         PERSON'S OPINIONS ON THIS SUBJECT,
>         FOR ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO READ IT.
>         MR. JONES CHOSE NOT TO MENTION IT.
>         THIS SUMMARY ANSWERS MOST OF THE CONCERNS
>         RAISED ABOUT BUTTERFLY RELEASES.
>
> ***************************
>
> Dr. J. Bruce Walsh, Associate Professor
> University of Arizona
> Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
>
> In addition to being an Associate Professor of Ecology and
> Evolutionary Biology, Dr. Walsh is a geneticist, lepidopterist and
> co-author of the acclaimed "Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits."
>
> Dr. Walsh is a Member of the Center for Insect Science; a
> Faculty Member of the Graduate Interdisciplinary Genetics
> Program; and is a Member of the Applied Mathematics Program
> at the University of Arizona.
>
> For more information about Dr. Walsh, please refer to his
> website at:
> www.nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/
>
> Below is a summary of the question and answer exchanges
> which have taken place to date on the monarch transfer issue as
> it relates to genetic disruption concerns.
>
> CONCERN #1:
> Releases of western Monarchs in the East poses a serious
> problem, due to the influx of western genes that will mess up the
> gene pool for migratory Eastern populations.
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE:
> Suppose "western" genes reduced fitness by 50% when
> appearing in Eastern populations. In order for the frequency of
> such deleterious alleles to be even 1%, the number of monarchs
> transposed across the continental divide EACH GENERATION
> during the summer breeding period must amount to 0.5% of the
> entire eastern monarch population.
>
> If the eastern monarch population is composed of, say
> 200,000,000 butterflies, this amounts to transposing 1,000,000
> monarchs EACH SUMMER BREEDING GENERATION just to
> get a one percent frequency of these deleterious alleles. If
> introductions are stopped at any point, this frequency quickly
> decays to zero.
>
> So introduction of deleterious alleles (if indeed these
> are there, this has not yet been demonstrated) from
> transfers do not poses a threat.
>
> One can always be worried about possible risks, however risks
> need to be demonstrated as being real or potential.
>
> If potential, there needs to be data to support this case, such as
> east-west hybrids having reduced fitness coupled with transfer
> rates being such that the majority of the population is due to
> transfers.
>
> CONCERN #2:
> The amount of gene flow between E-W is probably very low. If it
> is substantially less than 1% per generation it is certainly
> possible that the E and W monarch populations are genetically
> distinct. Low rates of migration could keep the populations
> homogenized at neutral loci which could be why the few genetic
> studies that have compared eastern and western monarch
> populations haven't found differences. But if eastern and western
> monarchs are differentiated at non-neutral loci, transfers will very
> likely mask any degree of natural differentiation at neutral genetic
> loci presently occurring in natural populations.
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE:
> If a loci (neutral or non-nuetral) has any significant negative
> effects on fitness (as seems to be the concern here), it is rapidly
> removed by natural selection. This is especially true if it starts
> out at a low frequency to begin with.
>
> CONCERN #3:
> Mildly deleterious alleles could be carried for many generations
> as long as the adaptiveness of the whole organism remained
> high.
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE:
> Natural selection removes deleterious alleles so that the
> population mean fitness has no significant moderate or
> long-term decline.
>
> Further, the frequency of any such (hypothetical) deleterious
> alleles introduced during a transfer would be low --- if the
> deleterious allele were fixed in the western populations, then its
> frequency would be no greater than the fraction of the entire
> population due to transplants.
>
> CONCERN #4
> We do not have a yardstick to judge at what level of genetic
> divergence is it okay to introduce two allopatric populations.
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE:
> It is common for natural selection to produced sibling species
> that similar at 99% of their genetic loci, but have distinct
> differences at a few genetic loci. Similarly, we don't know
> whether there are small, but evolutionary significant differences
> in the western and eastern population.
>
> I am unconvinced that the definitive genetic study has
> been conducted on Monarch butterflies.
>
> If there has been even a trivial amount of gene flow
> historically (say through the continental divide) then
> these issues are largely moot.
>
> CONCERN #5:
> There may have been enough isolation that the two populations
> may have some parapatric genetic variation going on that could
> reduce the resistance to disease, predation or some other
> environmental factor.
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE:
> In other words, deleterious alleles would be introduced.
>
> Natural selection removes these alleles.
>
> CONCERN #6:
> When a large number of loci underlie a trait (for example, fitness
> is a trait influenced by a large number of loci) natural selection
> may retain deleterious alleles because of so much selection
> occurring on other loci.
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE:
> Selection is extremely efficient. If a loci has any significant
> negative effects on fitness it is rapidly removed by natural
> selection. This is especially true if it starts out at a low frequency
> to begin with.
>
> The thread of this concern seems to be pleiotropy --- where a
> gene effects several characters. For example, a particular allele
> might have some local benefit but then become deleterious (say
> larvae grow faster, but are poorer migrators). In such cases, the
> overall selection is still deleterious, and the alleles are removed
> as before, requiring strong amounts of migration (via
> transplantation) to keep the allele frequencies above trivial levels.
>
> CONCERN #7:
> You are assuming that the deleterious gene gets introduced into
> a large randomly breeding population; suppose that it gets
> introduced into a very small localized breeding group?
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE:
> With such a metapopulation structure, a deleterious allele that
> gets fixed by drift in a local deme must spread to other demes.
> Monty Slatkin has looked at fixation probabilities under such
> schemes. The net result is that fixation probability of a
> deleterious allele is not significantly increased by such a
> population structure.
>
> CONCERN #8:
> Releases would undermine future attempts to look at the
> historical migration patterns. In other words, it would be
> impossible to sort out historical migration patterns if recent
> transfers have occurred.
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE:
>
> If the concern is that transfers may confound attempts
> to use population-level variation to sort out the
> historical levels of migration, no need to worry.
>
> A variety of standard approaches (such as the levels of local
> linkage disequilibrium for closely-linked molecular markers) can
> be used to distinguish between a historical low background level
> of gene flow versus a recent (perhaps man-induced) pulse. If
> historically there has been a low-level of migration (perhaps a
> few strays across the divide each generation), then the pattern
> of genetic variation is structured differently from the pattern
> produced by recent migration. In particular, rare alleles (common
> western alleles rare in eastern populations) will be more evenly
> spread across haplotypes different combinations of alleles at
> other loci), while under recent migration, rare western-specific
> alleles will tend to be much more clustered.
>
> DR. WALSH RESPONSE IN MORE DETAIL:
>
> Upon reading some of the recent (and past) posts on transfers, I
> was struck that a major (perhaps the driving) undercurrent is not
> really biological concern for the population, but rather that such
> releases would undermine future attempts to look at the
> historical migration patterns.
>
> As I briefly commented on recently, this need not be
> the case if some of the more recent molecular marker
> methods are used.
>
> With our ability to quickly look at the DNA sequence of just about
> any gene from just about any organism, we can directly score
> variation at the DNA level. Two types of variation in the sequence
> of DNA bases have been used as molecular markers --- Single
> nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, often pronounced "snips")
> and Simple tandem arrays (STRs, often pronounced "strips").
> SNPs are differences in single base pairs between some
> individuals in the population at a particular location in the DNA,
> while STRs are changes in the size of DNA regions showing
> repeats. For example, GGATATATATCG is a region of DNA with
> three "AT" repeats, while GGATATATCG has only three repeats.
> Such simple short repeats tend to mutate at high rates (and
> hence give different array sizes), while SNPs have far lower
> mutation rates. Because of these differences in mutation rates,
> one can use a linked pair of SNP-STR sites to actually gauge the
> age of this DNA region relative to a standard from which it was
> drawn. For example, if (say) at a particular SNP, western
> populations tend to have an "A" allele, while eastern populations
> have another base (say "C"), when we can estimate the age of
> the "A" allele in our sample (from its western origin) by looking at
> the frequencies of linked SNPs.
>
> This allows us to distinguish between very recent migration
> events (such as might occur via transfers) from historical
> migration events (those which have occurred at lower
> frequencies, but at a relatively constant rate over long periods of
> time). This approach has been widely used by human population
> geneticists (such as the Kidds at Yale) to date both recent and
> historical human migrations.
>
> DR. WALSH GENERAL COMMENTS:
> The concern about transfers have never been stated in terms of
> explicit models with
> parameters and assumptions that we can examine/debate.
> Clearly, I'm sure some of my numbers may be too high or too
> low, but we can examine the consequences of those changes to
> see if they have a real impact. In other works, we can do
> hypothesis testing.
>
> Are there examples where introduction of individuals from one
> closely-related population (at low levels) of the same species
> into another have had significant consequences?
>
> This is the working assumption against transfers, but in order
> to claim it as a problem, there must either be
> reasonable models as to why it would pose a threat or
> at least previous examples demonstrating this indeed
> has happened.
>
> "The sun shines not on us, but in us.
> The rivers flow not past,
> but through us."
>                   -- John Muir