Re: Selecting Parenting Characteristics.(was: cichlids without their parents

[IDMiamiBob@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/25/99 1:02:52 PM Mountain Standard Time,
mike@datawest.net writes:

> If the colors and other physical characteristics of fish can be selected in
>  just a few generations, why can't behavior as well be selected in a short
>  span of time?
>  
>  Natural selection of a species of moth in England took less than 10 years.

Because parenting characteristics are not the same as color.  The color
variation from fish to fish is not critical to survival, except in cases like
the aforementioned moth where the soot darkened the trees, and the carker
moths had a camoflage advantage.

Parenting instincts have been critical for so long, that the genes controlling
them have been virtually fixed, by virtue of the elimination over the millenia
of the "bad parent" gene.  If you breed a quality pair of black angels, you
will never get back to the original silvers, because the gene for silver has
been selectively eliminated.  Likewise, the genes responsible for parenting
instincts now dominate the distibution of the Apistogramma and related genera.
The "bad parent gene-set {BPGS}", if I might call it that without a fight, has
been diluted to the point that only one in a zillion fish carries it, if even
that many.  It appears that with Singapore rams the BPGS has managed to
surface and has succeeded in dominating the bloodlines of those fish, They are
more than likely a single bloodline that has been bred by egg-snatching, and
the breeder who first started working with these fish just happened to get
that one-in-a-zillion.  That is certainly a possibility.  However, with all
the apisto-keepers raising their fish around the world, it is unlikely that
bad parenting will survive in a given blood-line, and that that bloodline will
come to dominate the market for that particular species.  If a mass-breeding
commercial effort like the one with the Singapore rams started out with the
wrong one-in-a-zillion fish, it might happen.  But if we work conscientiously
with our fish, and exchange breeders with each other once in a while, that is
not likely to happen with any Apisto in the near future.  Not even if half of
the fry in the hobby were artificially hatched.

Bob Dixon


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