Sufficient humans to repopulate?

S

Specialist

Registered Senior Member
I was wondering if 4 males and 4 females is sufficient
to repopulate the human race. If not that what is
the minimum?

In terms of repopulating is 6 males and 2 females
equivalent to 4 males and 4 females?

EDIT: fix female
 
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1. why would you want to?
2. good god are you going to put 4 males with only 1 poor lil ol female? poor thing!
 
I'd say a lot more than 4 and 4, and more women than men. Maybe 8 Males and 20 females to keep the grandkids from being "slow" after inbreeding.
 
I remember 30 was the minimum for a genetically stable population, below that and your going to end up with freaks. It was things like this that made the Icelanders the way they are today… did I say that out loud?
 
id say 25 females and 10 males might be suficiant. ideally they should be as genetically divrse as possible. try geting mice (they breed relitivly fast) and have sevral big cages w/ difrent numbers of mail and female and see wich cage after a few years has only retards. mice and men are similar.


actually that wouldnt hellp at all but arnt mice just so cute!

~ ~
U
 
If you let the mice produce as many offspring as they possibly could in a competitive enviroment I think they might do better. The retards would be outcompeted by any nonretarded siblings.

Just because the resulting mice might be nonretarded dosnt mean they would in any other way resemble their ancestors. Most new breeds of mice were originally developed through inbreeding.
 
biologist's perspective

a single pregnant female could be enough

there is a lot of data out there asking and trying to answer this question with a variety of different organisms

may i suggest going here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ , choosing pubmed, and search databases using some search term like "founding population" or "minimum viable population"
 
:rolleyes: obviously genetics isn't either.

tell me how a single pregnant female can repopulate a entire species? Don’t tell me: her son going to mate with her or no to twin a male and female? Unfortunately this kind of inbreeding would most likely result in still-born or infertile children after 2-3 generations.
 
The buildup of "bad genes" (usually recessive) is what causes problems for inbread animals. These can be removed by natural selection.

If she has 12 offspring every 3 months (being a mouse) and each of her offspring has 12 offspring every 3 months you will have a sizeable breeding pool. Many will suffer nasty side-effects from the inbreeding but some will most likly not be carrying any debilitating recessive genes. They will breed far more than those afflicted with genetic disorders and live to do it again and again. Thus the species continues.

Human women can't breed that fast though.
 
biologist's perspective

genetic problems depend on the load. if the recessives aren't present, or can be weeded out, then no problem.

Clockwood: actually, Templeton wrote a paper based on data for Speke's gazelle (breed once per year, i.e. less frequent than human female) and reported the load was eliminated.

So, it could be done with humans. Which is my point.

If you're gonna argue with me, you ought to do the literature search first.
 
Re: biologist's perspective

Originally posted by paulsamuel

If you're gonna argue with me, you ought to do the literature search first.
Click to expand...

wow, dude. you really are full of yourself. you should realize that most of us in this forum are biologists as well. you're not that rare a breed my friend. rein in that ego before someone loses an eye.
 
reply to swede

if you're a biologist, then you should know that knowledge is based on empirical structure or logical structure or (usually) a combination of both. things aren't true just becasue somone says they are.

stick to the topic instead of attacking the response
 
Your the last person to stick to a topic paulsamuel.

Why don't you explain how a single pregnant female can make a legitimate repopulation without resulting in major genetic and phenotypic changes from the original population?
 
I'm sorry I though I already posted a reply to that, mut be the insomina getting to me.

No I don’t believe you could ever find humans without any recessive genotypes, in the inbreeding the recessive would build and the resulting offspring (if fertile) would be very genetically distinct from the original species, if you don’t believe me I take this from a seminar by a ecologist that calmed he was having the same problem with a group of moths he is try to perceiver here in Minnesota.
 
fetus

you are my bitch!

finding a human without recessives is irrelevant.

you continue to refuse to learn. you just need one with no or few deleterious recessives.

your contention is that there's no one in all human future and history that would not have deleterious recessves.

i'm saying it's possible, and if this individual is female and pregnant, then that's all you need, and not even that extreme. some deleterious recessives are allowable if they can be weeded out.
 
but very unlikely, hence a recommendation of 30 was made is some nature article several years ago about the genetics of low populations (I can remember when and the title).

If only you were/are a women then I would be like "More mistress, more!"
fouet.gif


good night! and sleep dreaming of me ;)
 
fetus

well. do i detect humility?

yes, unlikely but possible, hence my first post.

dude, do you have too much time on your hands? (re: making that smiley face S&M scene), but i have to admit, it made me laugh.
 
If you have the whip, some wicked spiked leather bondage equipment, and breast then sure humility or what ever you want to call it. In reality though humility is when I tell you out right I'm wrong... since that has not happen yet don't get your hopes up.

you like the smilies do you here some more:
lsvader.gif
007.gif
battle.gif


*Fetus falls over dead form lack of sleep.*
 
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