Inbreeding?

I am considering starting a breeding project of sorts, and I have some questions before I actually go ahead with doing anything.

I would be starting with slings, probably Poecilotheria, and all the slings will likely come from the same sac. Is this a problem when breeding tarantulas? Does inbreeding cause genetic defects like in some other animals? I wouldn't be able to buy them in batches from different dealers, because in all probability they've come from the same source/sac anyway.

Question two, is it possible to rear males and females into maturity at the same time with pokies? For example, once they are sexed, slow the males down and speed the females up? I know I have read of people doing this, but I wasn't sure if the slings all started out the same size or not. Or is it better to just rear the females to maturity and then start looking for males or vice versa? If it is a rare species this would not be too easy.

Also, to guarantee at least one female, would buying 4-5 slings be enough?

Thanks in advance!

I definately wouldnt suggest it.

Inbreeding in any situation with any animal on earth can lead to abnormalities.

type 'inbreeding' in that box up there that says 'search' and you can find lots of information.

Amazing how useful that tool is.

Lorgakor said:

I am considering starting a breeding project of sorts, and I have some questions before I actually go ahead with doing anything.

I would be starting with slings, probably Poecilotheria, and all the slings will likely come from the same sac. Is this a problem when breeding tarantulas? Does inbreeding cause genetic defects like in some other animals? I wouldn't be able to buy them in batches from different dealers, because in all probability they've come from the same source/sac anyway.

Question two, is it possible to rear males and females into maturity at the same time with pokies? For example, once they are sexed, slow the females down and speed the males up? I know I have read of people doing this, but I wasn't sure if the slings all started out the same size or not. Or is it better to just rear the females to maturity and then start looking for males or vice versa? If it is a rare species this would not be too easy.

Also, to guarantee at least one female, would buying 4-5 slings be enough?

Thanks in advance!

Click to expand...

Yes, major problem will arise if you inbreed. There is no way around this.

What proof, flightless fruit flies show problems with inbreeding, roaches show problems with inbreeding. Alot of species have been brought in to this hobby with very few numbers, inbreeding happens. But if it goes unchecked, it will led to major problems down the road.
thedarkfinder

casesensative said:

I definately wouldnt suggest it, especially for your first breeding project.

Inbreeding in any situation with any animal on earth can lead to abnormalities.

type 'inbreeding' in that box up there that says 'search' and you can find lots of information.

Amazing how useful that tool is.

Click to expand...

I never said it was my first.

I'm under the impression that for arthropods inbreeding is not nearly as bad as in any other type of animal. For the other questions sorry I wouldn't know . I just love have many of you post information and not knowing for sure what you guys are talking about. I don't know much either or have first hand experience which is why I'm just gonna comment on what I see.

i've never bred t's.... but i think that males mature faster than females for most species (i'm not too familiar with Pokies yet) so if you were planning on doing the slowing down thing, you'd want to speed up the females and slow down the males to get them to reach maturity at the same time. anything with inbreeding i don't really know about, but genetic variation is important for the survival of the species... although as long as you didn't continue to inbreed, it might be ok for the first sac. whatever you choose to do, good luck!

JCola said:

i've never bred t's.... but i think that males mature faster than females for most species (i'm not too familiar with Pokies yet) so if you were planning on doing the slowing down thing, you'd want to speed up the females and slow down the males to get them to reach maturity at the same time.

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Oops, that's what I meant, I had it backwards in my post! I fixed it.

When we keep Ts, what do we do? We try to recreate their habitat. We try to control humidity, temperature, etc. Males mature faster than females in the wild. Inbreeding probably doesn't happen that often. So when we stick the human hand in the pot we try to make our pets more convenient for us. So now you are messing with their nature. Instead of manipulating their growth (which otherwise would not be happening in nature), why not try to just buy a male when your female matures?

There is probably a reason why males mature faster. The reason might be to reduce the probability of inbreeding. Nature, evolution, it happens for a reason.

T.S.

I hope somoene with actual experience will post. Its pointless for all of us to post on just what we see. I have seen a 3 generation inbred pokie with no adverse effects so you guys could just keep saying "its bad all day" and someone like me saying "its good" but none of us are actually experts. Lets have an actual person with experience answer?

Scorpiove said:

I hope somoene with actual experience will post. Its pointless for all of us to post on just what we see. I have seen a 3 generation inbred pokie with no adverse effects so you guys could just keep saying "its bad all day" and someone like me saying "its good" but none of us are actually experts. Lets have an actual person with experience answer?

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If it doesn't happen in nature all that often, you probably shouldn't do it n captivity though. Sure 3 generations may seem normal, but what about the 4th? Defects can lie in dormancy. What might happen if a 3rd gen inbred mates with a different 3rd gen inbred down the road?

I like the run things close to what it is in nature. Plus, inbreeding doesn't allow the "only the strong survive" factor. Think about it this way. Females in nature look for the strongest and healthiest mate so the offspring will be stronger and healthier. If you keep inbreeding, there will be no variation. Outside, and otherwise, necessary genes will be absent. A weak mother and weak father mate and have weak offspring. The weak offspring mate and have more weak offspring. What will you be left with?

T.S.

Soulsick said:

If it doesn't happen in nature all that often, you probably shouldn't do it n captivity though. Sure 3 generations may seem normal, but what about the 4th? Defects can lie in dormancy. What might happen if a 3rd gen inbred mates with a different 3rd gen inbred down the road?

I like the run things close to what it is in nature. Plus, inbreeding doesn't allow the "only the strong survive" factor. Think about it this way. Females in nature look for the strongest and healthiest mate so the offspring will be stronger and healthier. If you keep inbreeding, there will be no variation. Outside, and otherwise, necessary genes will be absent. A weak mother and weak father mate and have weak offspring. The weak offspring mate and have more weak offspring. What will you be left with?

T.S.

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Those are good points. But what if you take the best of the best from that egg sack? Woudln't that be the same as in nature? Given any two random tarantulas that are not inbred I bet on average they both will have the same ammount of good genes and defective genes. Now take two tarantulas that are related that have the same Good genes and the same bad genes.....(bad genes being recessive because of natural selection) wouldn't the outcome be the same in both cases. Or even maybe a little better for the inbred tarantula?

Scorpiove said:

I just love have many of you post information and not knowing for sure what you guys are talking about.

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I love a person that does not even know me, can say I do not know what I'm talking about.

That aside.
But 6 years of classes in genics, biology, zoology, and botany, one does have a tenedancy to learn things.
thedarkfinder

TheDarkFinder said:

I love a person that does not even know me, can say I do not know what I'm talking about.

That aside.
But 6 years of classes in genics, biology, zoology, and botany, one does have a tenedancy to learn things.
thedarkfinder

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Lets keep it friendly friends, have you inbred tarantulas? As somoene who has experience in genetics, biology, zoology, and botany, did you study arachnids too? Everything is different. Ive seen results that would counter your claims many times over buy I don't have first hands experience. Which is why I'm not gonna say someting as fact when I don't know for sure.

Scorpiove said:

Those are good points. But what if you take the best of the best from that egg sack? Woudln't that be the same as in nature? Given any two random tarantulas that are not inbred I bet on average they both will have the same ammount of good genes and defective genes. Now take two tarantulas that are related that have the same Good genes and the same bad genes.....(bad genes being recessive because of natural selection) wouldn't the outcome be the same in both cases. Or even maybe a little better for the inbred tarantula?

Click to expand...

Firstoff:
You won't just get the best of the best in a captive bred eggsac. You will get the worst and the best. Captive bred slings have a better chance at survival in captivity. The weak and defective in nature would either die or get eaten, leaving the best behind. But in captivity, you give the weak and defective a chance to survive due to the lack of predation. So again, you still have weak ones.

Secondly: In regard to the inbred and non comparison.
Two non related animals' offspring will have a better chance for survival because of the mix of good genes. Sure they will have bad genes, but when you introduce stronger good genes, they trump the bad ones. This increases the chance of having less weak Ts.

An inbred couple will introduce no new stronger good genes. And like I said above, since they are in captivity, the probability of keeping the weak alive is higher, thus leaving the weak ones to mate.

Anyone want to guess how many female L. parahybana are the mothers of EVERY single specimen in the hobby? (or A. geniculata or P. rufilata or a slew of other species)

Inbreed away.

Soulsick said:

Firstoff:
You won't just get the best of the best in a captive bred eggsac. You will get the worst and the best. Captive bred slings have a better chance at survival in captivity. The weak and defective in nature would either die or get eaten, leaving the best behind. But in captivity, you give the weak and defective a chance to survive due to the lack of predation. So again, you still have weak ones.

Secondly: In regard to the inbred and non comparison.
Two non related animals' offspring will have a better chance for survival because of the mix of good genes. Sure they will have bad genes, but when you introduce stronger good genes, they trump the bad ones. This increases the chance of having less weak Ts.

An inbred couple will introduce no new stronger good genes. And like I said above, since they are in captivity, the probability of keeping the weak alive is higher, thus leaving the weak ones to mate.

Click to expand...

Good points yes.

I found this old thread while trying to find this one thread kellygirl posted she was gong to inbreed some rare spider to get it into the hobby. I can't remember what it was exactly though. But here is an interesting thread I did find

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=1044&highlight=kellygirl+inbreeding

Martin do you still have pics of those oddly color spiders? Were they inbred?

Scorpiove said:

Those are good points. But what if you take the best of the best from that egg sack? Woudln't that be the same as in nature? Given any two random tarantulas that are not inbred I bet on average they both will have the same ammount of good genes and defective genes. Now take two tarantulas that are related that have the same Good genes and the same bad genes.....(bad genes being recessive because of natural selection) wouldn't the outcome be the same in both cases. Or even maybe a little better for the inbred tarantula?

Click to expand...

Yes and no

Yes if you selected the best inbred traits, then you will have a better specimen. Not as good as a non inbred specimen but better then an inbred. Now if you take the best with the best, you are still missing genic material. The offspring will not get that back, cross over events alow very little change. But keep doing it and you will run into problems.

A great example of this is elephant seals have been taken down to less then 100. They have rebound to about 160,000. Tests on this population have been done. They have lost skull size, and are now being tested for reproductive problems.

I dont expect anyone to read them but there is some interesting reading.

Saccheri IJ, Brakefield PM, Nichols RA. 1998. Severe inbreeding depression and rapid fitness
rebound in the butterfly Bicyclus anynana (Satyridae). Evolution 50: 2000–2013.

Templeton AR. 1980. The theory of speciation via the founder principle. Genetics 94: 1011–1038.

Wayne RK, Modi WS, O’Brien SJ. 1986. Morphological variability and asymmetry in the cheetah,
a genetically uniform species. Evolution 40: 78–85.

Waddigton CH. 1957. The Strategy of Genes. New York: Macmillan.

Le Boeuf BJ. 1974. Male-male competition and reproductive success in elephant seals. American
Zoologist 14: 163–176.

Adern SL, Lambert DM, Rodrigo AG, McLean IG. 1997. The eVects of population bottlenecks
on multilocus DNA variation in robins. Journal of Heredity 88: 179–186.

Bouzat JL, Lewin HA, Paige KN. The ghost of genetic diversity: historical DNA analysis of the
greater prairie chicken. The American Naturalist 152: 1–6.
<page turner>

Bryant EH, McCommas SA, Combs LM. 1986. The eVect of an experimental bottleneck upon
quantitative genetic variation in the housefly. Genetics 114: 1191–1211.
<another page turner>

Ellegren H, Mikko S, Wallin K, Andersson L. 1996. Limited polymorphism at major histocompatibility
complex (MHC) loci in the Swedish moose A. alces. Molecular Ecology 5: 3–9.

Goodnight CJ. 1987. On the eVect of founder events on epistatic genetic variance. Evolution 41:
80–91.
<great article>

Hartl GB, Hell P. 1994. Maintenance of high levels of allelic variation in spite of a severe bottleneck
in population size – the brown bear (Ursus arctos) in the western Carpathians. Biodiversity and
Conservation 3: 546–554.

Johnson MS. 1987. Founder eVects and geographic variation in the land snail Theba pisana. Heredity
61: 133–142.

O’Brien SJ, Wildt DE, Bush M, Caro TM, Fitz-Gibbon C, Aggundey I, Leakey RE. 1987.
East African cheetahs: evidence for two population bottlenecks? Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the USA 84: 508–511.

Also look up ebsco host at the library.

Look up founder effects.
thedarkfinder

GoTerps said:

Anyone want to guess how many female L. parahybana are the mothers of EVERY single specimen in the hobby? (or A. geniculata or P. rufilata or a slew of other species)

Inbreed away.

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And you apply it to captivity. How about you release those guys in the wild and see how long they survive? Track their generations.

So tell me the numbers and the span of years it has happened. I'll go with this - it'll be fun.

You are talking about something that is understudied and uncertain. You can't condone inbreeding until we know something about it. We can apply inbreeding being bad in many animals, so why not apply it here and wait until there is something profound?

T.S.

Scorpiove said:

did you study arachnids too?

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Yes, I have extensively studied arachnids, have you?

TheDarkFinder said:

Yes, I have extensively studied arachnids, have you?

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Why are you so defensive? I haven't insulted you. I never said you were "dumb" or never studied certain subjects. I did doubt though you and the OTHER posters aswell had experience in inbreeding tarantulas, and no I haven't studied arachnids although I thought I already made that clear. So how many times have you inbred a tarantula how many times was it a bad thing. How many times was it a good thing. Do you have experience with this? or maybe with another arthropod?