In the second stream, the rapid infusion of new fish almost completely eliminated pure residents—an outcome conservationists usually hope to avoid. That result suggests “a slow trickle of immigration might be preferable,” Fitzpatrick says
Genetically speaking, populations of species that are separated from one another begin to diverge fairly rapidly. In as many as eight generations, visible and measurable morphological differences appear. On a genetic level even one or two germ stations may begin to drift, through epigenetics and the influence of the environment on survival of offspring, among other variables.
Realistically, this means that any sudden influx of new genes changes the population. In severe cases, as above, it can overwhelm the original culture altogether. And cause extinction, with the best of motivations.
Comments
7 responses to “Guppies and Population Growth”
Extinction of our resident population IS the goal.
No argument. But there are few who are in on the secret, and many more misguided do-gooders.
Well, I should HOPE so!
That’s how I came to be, after all. Blue-painted nutcases running around the hills, screaming and attacking each other. Vikings, Romans, Brits of one era after another. Always somebody coming to steal yer stuff and tax what you have left.
The solution is simple: Let’s go for a BOAT RIDE!
(NOTE: that didn’t work out so great for the ancestors of my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA. Yeah, after a few centuries of assimilation, it’s a much better deal. Next time, though, she says she’s going to tell the boat owners to pick their own damn cotton. She’s busy.)
Of course, conservationists have a different agenda. It works GREAT, too! That’s why we have such a lovely population of dinosaurs today, because clearly, it’s possible to control everything in the environment, if you really want to. (Another Chixulub? No, I don’t think that could happen. We are FAR too enlightened for something like THAT! Ha!)
Sudden influxes are always catastrophic to the populations until an equilibrium is reached.
just this time the boat is going to be a bit more complex.
My family came to the US from Ireland, and settled into Boston at the height of the “No Irish need apply” days of the city. My mom grew up in the aftermath of the forced assimilation, where speaking Gaelic was deeply frowned upon in public, and in WWII, where half the city of Boston didn’t want the Germans to win, but sure wanted the British to lose.
It’s illuminating now to look bad at how BAD the result of the Irish influx was for Boston until assimilation took place a generation later. Crime, poverty AND corruption that just didn’t exist in any form similar to that of the time of the influx, and even among the descendents, the second and third-gen people with Irish blood, who controlled the city until old age forced them out 10 or so years ago, but who still control the organized part of the crime that still exists there. I am NOT convinced that the US benefited much from the Irish influx, but we sure did suffer when the Irish criminals took over Boston’s politics and sent their kids to Washington.
23 skidoo