Is the electric blue gene a man made trait?

[FluffySackson]

As the title says. I have always wondered if the electric blue gene is a man made gene similar to red severums. Are they either an extremely rare trait that occurs in the wild that man has expanded through mass breeding or are they another disgusting man made mutation?

 

[justarn]

natural mutant!-)

 

[koltsixx]

As the title says. I have always wondered if the electric blue gene is a man made gene similar to red severums. Are they either an extremely rare trait that occurs in the wild that man has expanded through mass breeding or are they another disgusting man made mutation?

What do you mean by mutation? Are you equating mutations with hybrids? Because they're not the same.

All color morphs from Snow Aro's to Red Oscars to EBJD's are man influenced. Through natural selection, nature has made every fish the colors they are to best enable them to survive in their environment. How ever hidden in their DNA there are other colors that could be expressed but due to the negative impact on survival these genes for these colors get shelved with other traits that would have a negative impact on survival.

Man comes along and decides he wants a more colorful fish. Well it turns out some of Jack Dempseys produce throw backs to a color trait that's would be a negative in nature but is appealing to us. So when man stumbles upon it he determine whether the trait is recessive, dominant, heterozygous or homozygous through breeding and observation of the fry and the traits passed on to them and learns how to reproduce these EBJD's consistently.

Now this particular example will occur in nature but will die way before being able to reproduce. Not just because they stand out to predators but because along with the genes that produced the color other genes that also effect the fish negatively have been expressed even though we can't detect them with the human eye. As such these fish come off as sickly when compared to the pure surviving machine nature created with Jack Dempseys. Regular JD's are geared to survive EBJD's are compromised. Will this always be the case? With the differences between aquarium survival and nature who knows what generations down the road may adapt to?

 

[justarn]

A mutation is a naturally occurring variant which may or may not be common/successful (not common in the jd's case), mutations are the main process of evolution and survival of the fittest according to darwin. As kolt wrote the reason the blue variant isnt so common is because its not as camouflaged thus more susceptible to predators, and the fact that the blue gene is recessive anyway doesnt help.

 

[justarn]

add to that the very restricted gene pool (due to its rareness) and constant in breeding by hobbiests with the stock available and you get many miss shaped and dis-figured fish, mutants for sure!-)

 

[koltsixx]

A mutation is a naturally occurring variant which may or may not be common/successful (not common in the jd's case), mutations are the main process of evolution and survival of the fittest according to darwin. As kolt wrote the reason the blue variant isnt so common is because its not as camouflaged thus more susceptible to predators, and the fact that the blue gene is recessive anyway doesnt help.

Thanks J, I should've explained about mutations as it would've made my post clearer. As J said mutations are common they occur all the time and are a part of evolution(as we know it, that is) Recessive genes are made recessive for many reasons but one of the reasons is that they can have a negative impact on survival so DNA does what it can to make sure these imperfections are less likely to be produced in offspring.

 

[ehh]

I don't think there is proof confirming either side of the argument.

I however think it's possible that the ebjd is a mutation. But I think all other electric blue variants are human influenced.


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[RD.]

In regards to JD's, to the best of my knowledge there has never been any definitive evidence that proves that the "electric blue" gene naturally occurs in this species.

 

[FriedFlowerHornFillet]

Weird color morphs happen all the time in nature. There are even accounts of blue tiger in S.China. I'm assuming every hunter in S.China with a rock/club/spear/bow/rifle made sure blue tiger descendants were either not blue or not alive long enough to pass it on. There were even a clan of blue people that lived in Kentucky the Fugates.
[h=3][/h]

 

[peathenster]

Spontaneous mutations + artificial selection