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scpg02

Thriving Hybrid Salamanders Contradict Common Wisdom

Thriving Hybrid Salamanders Contradict Common Wisdom
September 25, 2007

Quote:
A new UC Davis study not only has important findings for the future of California tiger salamanders, but also contradicts prevailing scientific thought about what happens when animal species interbreed.

The study, by former UC Davis doctoral student Benjamin Fitzpatrick (now on the faculty of University of Tennessee, Knoxville) and professor Bradley Shaffer, was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' online edition.

The salamander experts studied the survival rates and genetic makeup of three types of salamanders: native California tiger salamanders (Ambystoma californiense), which are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act; barred tiger salamanders that were introduced in California from Texas in the 1950s (Ambystoma tigrinum mavortium); and the hybrid offspring born when the two species mated.

They found that more of the hybrid young survived in the wild than did young of the native or the introduced species -- quite a surprise, since animal hybrids are usually less fit than their parents ("hybrid vigor" is largely limited to plant crosses).


http://www-news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8316
Andre

If that is so, then it should be the same species.

This is the Californian animal



and the Texan tiger:



So if species get geographically divided, they may evolve differently further on but long as breeding produces fertile offspring, then I think by definition it's the same species. It's not the looks that determines species.

These are the same species too:



and

scpg02

LOL!

Out here in CA they try and make them two different ones so that they can restrict land and water use. It's not about the environment, it's about government control.
Baywax

Higher survival and reproduction rates in a hybrid species may not be an
indication of species survivability. There's a lot to be said for naturally
occuring population control in a species. This is something that, every day,
humans fight against with hosptials and numerous excercises in sounding
alarms about diseases and so on.

Funny enough, the stress that is the result of all the alarms is causing more
deaths via stress disorders such as heart attachs, suicide and wars. So,
naturally occuring population control seems to be pretty hard to shake.

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