myxodex
Well-Known Member
I agree with the "col" idea raised by Lance B. However, I would like to add the comment that species survive in nature over time because of genetic variation within the species ... it is this variation that allows species to survive changes in their enviroment, such as new strains of pathogen etc. The survival of an idividual plant is irrelevant if it's neighbours are lucky enough to have the appropriate resistance. While I don't know about orchids, I am aware of research into the species populations of crop plants. New strains of crop plants have a limited time or horizon in which they will be agriculturally useful. This is because they are grown in fields as "clones" and when a new strain of a pathogenic fungus say mutates it's "attack"
receptor to hit this clone it suddenly has a whole field of identical plants to attack. There is a classic case where this happened to rice in the east (can't remember where but I can find out) and it caused a famine. The farmers who where not hit by this were those who used the old traditional methods in which they planted out last years seed from a genetically diverse population. Thus they had selected on a population over the years rather than "clone" breeding as in modern agriculture. Anyone interested in this could read the works of Raoul Robison at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_A_Robinson
With this in mind I believe that re-introducing species into the wild is difficult unless you can plant out a population with enough genetic variability. On a purely theoretical point, if we define a species as population with a given intrinsic genetic variation, then once extinct you are not able to replace what was there but only replica of it. This is of course better than nothing .... so long as it survives! I'm willing to bet that it won't if it is line breed, but might if it is a genetically variant population.
Cheers,
Tim
receptor to hit this clone it suddenly has a whole field of identical plants to attack. There is a classic case where this happened to rice in the east (can't remember where but I can find out) and it caused a famine. The farmers who where not hit by this were those who used the old traditional methods in which they planted out last years seed from a genetically diverse population. Thus they had selected on a population over the years rather than "clone" breeding as in modern agriculture. Anyone interested in this could read the works of Raoul Robison at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_A_Robinson
With this in mind I believe that re-introducing species into the wild is difficult unless you can plant out a population with enough genetic variability. On a purely theoretical point, if we define a species as population with a given intrinsic genetic variation, then once extinct you are not able to replace what was there but only replica of it. This is of course better than nothing .... so long as it survives! I'm willing to bet that it won't if it is line breed, but might if it is a genetically variant population.
Cheers,
Tim
