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Not sure this would work but here goes.
If you want to breed animals you have to wait till they are old enough to be able to get pregnant.
This limits the no. of generations that you can select upon for a given time period.
So to speed this process up I suggest that we breed from embryos that
show the characteristics we are looking for.
For example if we want to breed really large manatees for farming. Then we grow lots of manatee embryos and once they have developed to the point where we can harvest their eggs and sperm, we guess which ones will continue to be the larger individuals based on perhaps which are the largest, and then create the next generation from these in a test-tube.
This way we might be able to accelerate the speed we can breed animals by 10x or more.
It also is much less resource intensive as embryos don't 'eat' as much.
Manatee kidneys
http://k-srasra.blo...anatee-kidneys.html
[normzone, Sep 03 2008]
[link]
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I think the problem here is the line //we guess which ones will continue to be the larger individuals// - there isn't necessarily a correlation between success at the embryo stage, and success in the outside world. |
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I'm not sure how long it is in an organism's development that eggs and sperm become viable. Are those things fully formed at that stage, or does a creature need to mature a bit first? |
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Historically the reason one waits for sexual maturity in a breeding organism is it's the only way to tell which offspring carry the traits you're breeding for. It's convenient that they happen to be able to pass on those traits at that point. |
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If you could tell, at the genetic level, which embryos carried the characteristics you were breeding for, why not just manipulate the genetic material to begin with? That is, you could take any number of potential lifeforms and modify their genes for the traits you want or simply cull those that don't already. |
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In the case of the manatee, an animal in danger of extinction, I wouldn't quibble about the size of the adult. Any manatee is a good manatee. |
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You'll be selecting for embrios most likely to really be cancers, as long as they have reproductive organs. Essentially, you'll be making a new species that is not viable outside of the womb. |
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the thing is then you'll selectively breed into the animals you are doing this process. |
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1) A rather short lifespan |
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--Well if they don't need to get to breeding age to breed, why get there at all? |
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2) The 'illusion' of desirable traits appearing early on. |
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--How would you tell which is which, as long as the animals breed it don't matter does it... it would mean progeny that carry that illusion gene and over X number of generations of breeding based on blind guesswork... |
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>Then we grow lots of manatee embryos and once they have developed to the point where we can harvest their eggs and sperm. |
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This point is when they have reached sexual maturity, and I'm guessing for a manatee this would be a few years after it is born. |
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We have been doing this for millenia with cattle, dogs, horses, and various crop species. |
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I think you would probably want to occasionally let an animal go full term or longer. Who knows: every 20 generations? |
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And sure it might be an illusory trait, but without testing it by letting the occasional generation go full term or longer, we'll never know for definite. |
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Isn't assuming the trait is illusory (without testing - i.e. evidence)almost as bad science as assuming it isn't? |
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Not saying it would work but it would be interesting to try. |
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The lifespan is definitely an issue as I remember reading an effective way of getting long-lived fruit flies is to only let old flies breed. So forcing young organisms to breed might have the reverse effect. |
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[normzone] beat me to it!. Breed 'em for that Sweet, Sweet, Kidney! |
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