The cheetah

there are chemicals that induce mutations and are used for this purpose in research, but what would probably be most effective for the cheetah is to provide them with plenty of stable environment.

Actually, Asguard,...it is quite an interesting idea of yours. Could we speed up evolution, by creating more mutations? Could we stabilize a population suffering from lack of genetic diversity?


what would we need for this?

*a good mutagen (mutation inducing agent)

*a fairly large population

*and some selection process
 
anything over 1000 is surpose to be statanable (im not sure about that but i THINK its what i read when i was reading up about the possablility the tassi tiger survives), we can work on the enroment and who knows WHAT the armys of the world can do with virus's and bacteria now
 
hint of education

for anyone interested type in 'zebrafish and mutagen' in google if you want to learn more about the use of mutagens in biological research
 
Hi guys,

Please bear with me just a bit longer ;-)

Someone suggested that a genetic bottleneck accounts for the cheetahs' genetic uniformity.

So let's say that long time ago something horrible happened and almost all the cheetahs died out; there was only a handful left and so they had no choice but to inbreed. Today they share the same gene pool. Fine.

But is it possible that this bottleneck affected only one species, the cheetahs? I can't imagine that any bottleneck can be that selective. And If it did affect other species as well, how come all but cheetahs were able to redevelop their genetic diversity?
 
Asguard: The only thing is, when a virus is inserted into most eukaryotic cells, it becomes inactive. What good is a fast mutating virus that doesn't replicate. I see what you are getting at though, and it certainly is an intersting thought.

Circe: I won't speak for the others, but I don't mind your questions at all. If I can help in any way, then I will try my best. I just hope that you are satisfied with the answers offered.

About the bottleneck affecting only cheetahs...I think that it likely affected all the species that existed at that particular time. It seems to have happened when a lot of the other large mammals went extinct. With other animals though, they might not have all in the same geographic location after the bottleneck. There could have been pockets of them spread out over a very large area. These small pockets would then inbreed for a few generations and expand in population. Then, if there were two pockets relatively close together, then two of the pockets could join together and begin interbreeding (so long as a speciation event didn't take place, but I don't think 20 or 30 generations is long enough for that). See what I am getting at? Other animals could restore genetic diversity by having varying habitats within the species after the bottleneck.

edit: fixed typos and redundancy
 
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See my previous link. Cheetahs were a wide spread animal, throughout several continents. Whatever happened (I've got a theory connection maybe) it wiped out many of them totally, along with other types of mammals. Today's cheetahs are the ones who could just barely rebound from the few survivors in that area. Some other mammals that exist today may have had a larger number, so better diversity. It's an interesting question though, what the current genetic state of life is today, which are plentiful and which are on the borderline.

As for my theory, I hadn't realized there was a minor extinction 10-12,000 years ago. That date eerily coincides with several dates of the supposed destruction of Atlantis, and more importantly, Otto Muck's timeline and theory of an asteroid impact in the Atlantic causing this destruction. Crackpot theory maybe, but there are remnants of craters there, and the timing is about right.

Could have been something else as well...
 
some human extrapolations

some human populations are more inbred than others. You could also consider them to have gone through a genetic bottleneck if you like to look at things losely. The people of finland for instance. Many recessive disorders then pop up and have a higher frequency of occurence than normal. Why did it happen in finland, because it was semi-isolated physically. Sometimes cultural isolation is enough for some serious inbreeding.
 
Circe:

Not a bad question at all about "genetic bottleneck". Humans are thought to have gone thru one about 75k yrs ago. In the cheetah's case, I think it is more recent-- ie, historical times.

An interesting side note: Look on Yahoo Science news today and you will see that scientists in India want to revive the extinct "Indian cheetah" by cloning the cheetahs that inhabit Iran. Cheetah's in Iran today?? How would've thunk it. At any rate, surely those Iranian cheetahs are a different breeding population than their African kin.
 
Cheetahs indeed in Asia

John Mace: Cheetahs in Iran today?? Whow would've thunk it. At any rate, surely those Iranian cheetahs are a different breeding population than their African kin.
Click to expand...
Yes, there are cheetahs in the Mideast. One of the principal tasks assigned to Saluki dogs (a breed of coursing hound of that region) was to hunt cheetahs. It took two of them running in relay, but they could do it. No, nobody wanted to kill the cheetahs, just capture them. In royal times captive-bred, more-or-less tame cheetahs were the prize of the sultan's court.
 
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