Genetic trait (Was f1 spawning)

[Michael Meyer <mikeymeyer@sprintmail.com>]

I can relate this to a condition that my wife has.  It is called Celiac 
sprue.  It's a term to describe people that cannot absorb glutens in their 
stomach.  Glutens are found everywhere.  Wheat which is a main staple in 
many people's diets is a major contributor of gluten.  Many people are 
unaware of this condition.  People end up wasting away because they cannot 
digest these glutens.  Interestingly, it is much more common in Ireland. 
 Probably because the staple food in Ireland was potatoes (which does not 
contain gluten), whereas, much of the rest of the world uses wheat for 
breads, pastas, and thickening for soups and sauces. This is a genetic 
condition and that's where I'd like to relate it to Bob.
Since it is easy for people with Celiac sprue to live in Ireland, this 
genetic trait did not effect the population there.  However, people in 
other locations were weakened by this disease and more susceptible to other 
problems causing many of those people to die. Most died at a young age. 
Thus reducing their population due to this genetic trait. I know this is a 
little bit of a tangent, but it is interesting to be able to relate 
genetics to fish to real life, isn't it?

-----Original Message-----
From:	IDMiamiBob@aol.com [SMTP:IDMiamiBob@aol.com]
Sent:	Sunday, March 14, 1999 7:45 AM
To:	apisto@admin.listbox.com
Subject:	Re: f1 spawning

Vern writes:

<snip>> If it is diet are we slowly weakening our
>  fish over time?

Not really.  It's like people.  Each of us metabolizes the various 
nutrients
in our diets defferently.  For example, some of us can eat all the fatty, 
high
cholesterol stuff we want without any negative results.  Others can eat one
slice of whole-milk cheese and send our LDL levels to the moon.  The same 
type
of thing may be happening with the fish.  Within the wild population, some
fish need to get more of certain nutrients than others, and this is a 
result
of the genetic variations within the population.  Because their diet is
varied, they get some things with higher levels of those nutrients.  Once 
we
restrict the population to a single breeding pair, and restrict the diet to
BBS, which isn't even a natural food for freshwater fish in the wild, we 
risk
getting fish which appear to have developed properly, but which may not 
have
gotten the necessary levels of a given micronutrient at a critical time.
Feeding a wide diet after they are more mature may or may not overcome 
this.

But within the genetic variations given off by our single breeding pair, 
some
of those babies may have had no problems at all getting enough of what they
needed from the limited fare they recieved.  So these guys become our next
breeding generation, and the genetic tendency to be nutritionally 
shortchanged
diminishes in succeeding generations.  That doesn't necessarily make them
weaker, just better adapted to life in captivity.  If the tenth or twelfth
generation were then re-introduced into the wild, would they survive on the
wild food?  Sure they would.

Again, this whole line of reasoning is purely speculative, but from my
understanding of human nutrition, it kind of follows suit.  Do what you 
will
with this idea, but don't take it as Gospel.  No guarantees, explicit or
implied.

Bob Dixon


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