[Ed]

Keep in mind that blue truncatus are more common on the west coast of the US as opposed to the east coast where yellow truncatus are more common.

Ed

 

[Ed]

Three things i'll mention. First has been mentioned already. In order to maintain a species you have to reproduce them. You have to be prepared for the possibility that no one will want your frogs. That means having a huge space dedicated to tanks to keep your offspring in.

Second, in order to maintain a species you can't just work with a single pair or a single bloodline. You need to gather as many bloodlines as possible in an attempt to maintain genetic diversity.

If there are other people who are dedicated to a species, then you don't have to gather up as many of the bloodlines as possible, but you should hold back some offspring to make sure that in case something happens to your frogs, you have some backup.

Actually it is more than just breeding the frogs.. you have to actually look to maximize the genetic diversity of the frogs that are breeding. The most common practice in the hobby is to get a group from a single breeder and then make one or more pairs from what are usually siblings or closely related cousins. This causes a loss of genetic diversity over time and puts the populations at risk not only from the popularity cycles but inbreeding depression.

Some comments

Ed

 

[Ed]

Thanks, Ed. I wanted to be more specific, but I was on my phone and typing too much with the thumbs hurts....

I wouldn't even attempt to answer a post like this on my phone, your a braver man than I.

Ed

 

[Ed]

I should add, that it is also impractical for most if not virtually individual hobbyists to maintain enough frogs to sustain the maximal genetic diversity. As an example, to maximize genetic diversity for between 100 and 200 years, you need to start with at least 50 individuals of that population and preferably more thsn 100 individuals of that population and then breed them in a manner to maxize the genetic diversity to prevent inbreeding risks. The method that is used by the majority of the hobby doesn't do anything to ensure survival of a population of the frogs because even getting frogs from different breeders doesn't necessarily indicate degree of unrelatedness of the frogs and frogs that are well adapted and produce large numbers of offspring can swamp the population diminishing the less common alleles or contributions by frogs that do not reproduce as frequently. When this is added to the popularity cycles, the outlook for the frogs over the next 50-100 years is grim. In a different thread, it was noted that one population of dendrobatid frog has gone extinct due to a failure to ensure that it was sustained, and there is a substantial risk that other species may follow. People have to get past the idea that simply breeding a frog is ensuring that the population is doing well....

Ed

 

[Ed]

Only M. aurantiaca was left out, mainly due to the high number of keepers (both vets and novices) having such success breeding them.

I wouldn't leave them off as they were fairly scarce just a few years ago and very little interest. I can remember a certain IAD where a breeder had captive bred animals and sold none during the course of the show.. the recent imports are what put some life back into that species.

Ed

 

[Ed]

You mean like Amphibian Steward Network | Tree Walkers International


Ed

 

[Ed]

One thing I've noticed that could use some work is having a longer-term commitment to the locales (in need of viable presence in the hobby). It seems like some people switch out their frogs for "cooler" ones too readily. And then there's folks like Ray who often pick their frogs based on trying to sustain them in the hobby.

If you're gonna sell off your frogs and they aren't, as a population, in great shape in the hobby, try to sell them as a group rather than scattering them to the wind.

Just my two cents.

I would actually prefer to see people working with the frogs that do not have locality data as much as those that do since those frogs also represent a significant history for the hobby and to simple disregad them since they aren't locality specific would be to lose more than a little of what got the hobby going....
The problem with locality specificity can be seen in other hobbies (as well as this one) where they are attributed a higher status and value... The non-locality frogs in the hobby are just as important as those with locality data.

Ed

 

[Ed]

I can understand that, but to me the site specific frogs are still more important. Mainly when it comes to frogs that are represented by both a known locality, and a non locality population. Like with Copperhead fants, I think keeping the INIBICO line going is more important than the old line. Just my opinion though.

The problem is that the frogs from the unknown localities not only have history attached to them but they could actually represent a snapshot before the changes occured to thier enviroment. Check out the discussion on panguana lamasi on frognet...

a snippet from the discussion from Tor Linbo

I have 6 groups of "panguana" that represent 6 distinct past
importations... I'm not talking about the "standard" yellow... I have
those too... but they are very different.

But off these 6 groups... they are different... it's the same
species... but not the same population... or at least they seem to
be distinct populations. I read the descriptions as there is an area
that once had distinct populations... these populations lay along a
path that had a road put in... that road created habitat that was
colonized by the frogs (we know dart frogs are trash frogs... that's
why they populated islands well... live in areas with people... )
these populations start to smear...

but what if you set back and collected the populations when the road
was going in? when they were still separated?

Here we have a potential example of populations that due to habitat alterations potentially resulted in them intergrading.

Ed

 

[Ed]

I get that and others are free to keep what they like. But for me, I like the known local frogs better. The old line Copperheads have history in the hobby from before we had local data with frogs, but now we have ones that have data. It makes sense to me to go for the ones with data, especially if they look similar.

Sounds like those Panguanas have local data with them...

Not really.. It's kind of like assigning "locality" to farmed pumilio...

I have significant concerns about greater status being assigned to locality specific frogs since there are "locality specific" frogs that have a very small founding population while the ones without a locality have been supplemented with founders repeatedly over time (some of the auratus populations for example). Assigning higher status to locality specific animals can result in a large number of frogs vanishing from the hobby even when there isn't a known locality available since they won't carry the same status as other frogs from known localities.
In the last 10-15 years we have seen a shift from larger dendrobatids like the tinctorius group to thumbnails and then when Panama reopened a mad rush for the farmed pumilio (with huge emphasis on assigning locality based on pattern from pictures)... now we are seeing emphasis on "locality specific" frogs..... Particularly with no way to ensure people won't assign unknown frogs to locality to increase status of the frogs... If non-locality frogs and locality frogs are of the same status we don't have to worry about it...

If you want to concentrate your collection on locality specific frogs, that is okay but care should be taken on how it is presented since it could result in the loss of frogs in the hobby and increased demand for wild collected animals (smuggled for example and then assigned to that population...)

As I've noted, it is a big threat to populations and I've seen divestment and loss of entire captive populations (which drove greater wild harvests), to meet the status of having specific locality crazes..(rosy boas for one example).
I'm getting off the soapbox on this topic so you don't have to worry about further pontificating on my part.

Ed

 

[Ed]

Ok, I'm not a scientist or even a particularly knowledgeable frog person, but, couldn't we breed between our pairs to help out with that? I don't mean all of us who have Bill's offspring, but, maybe Bill's with UE? Theirs did not come from Bill and even look a little different than Bill's Lorenzos. Maybe they've been separated long enough.

But not if we don't even know who has them or is trying to breed them.

The first thing you have to do is to try and work out issues that are the result of the impacts of husbandry... as an example (not saying it fits here), if lack of survivial to the froglet stage is due to hypovitaminosis of A in the form of retinoids.. or insufficient D3 is causing them to feed inefficiently..... It is also possible that the frogs are adapted to a different husbandry regimen and what you are seeing is due to maladaption traits.

The second thing needed is to backtrack them to determine how many generations seperate the frogs in different locations. If they are all from the same parents, and are F1, then you are unlikely to be able to resolve the issue with crossing. What you are thinking of is called purging the genetic load. It doesn't always work and it can result in significant issues in the long term as this is also accompanied by losses in genetic diversity in important genetic groups (like the major histocompatability complexes which changes it's ability to resist disease and parasites (for example the susceptiabilty of rottweilers to parvovirus infections is an example of this sort of problem).

Ed

 

[Ed]

More or less, either way it's just my preference and opinion.

Which is perfectly acceptable. I'm just worried that this could become a trend.

Ed

 

[Ed]

Did anyone with these locale or site specific frogs gain the info as to what generation theres have been bred to as well as find out exactly how many unrelated frogs were brought in? The common problem is people grab up 2-3 frogs and breed them and it continues to go this way further breeding down the lines. Very few actually seek out unrelated frogs fewer realize how limited they are to gaining unrelated blood. What I do like about the continued imports right now is that some people are realizing the long term benefits now of managing them and they are buying iin larger groups to establish unrelated wc breeding pairs sowe can start offering truely unrelated offspring.

The problem is that unless the frogs and the offspring are tracked, within a generation or two, determining which are actually unrelated or distantly related will be a big problem. All it takes
is for a couple of keepers to be more successful than others in producing froglets to swamp the genetics of the population and determining this down the road can be difficult. Even institutions can have trouble with this down the road. When AZA brought in new stock of azureus one of the reasons was because when they tried to make a studbook to track the population, they couldn't determine degrees of kinship for the frogs.

With respect to your question about ZIMS, they supposedly made changes to how the offspring are tracked to deal with animals with large clutch size (and dendrobatids are small potatos compared to say A. zeteki where individual clutches are in the hundreds). A lot of this depends on how the individual or institution decides to track the animals. Individual tracking of each animal from egg onward is possible under both ISIS and ZIMS. However under ISIS, it is a logistical nightmare for the person entering the data since they have to account for each egg, tadpole and subsequent froglet. This requires an individual number for each egg, which has to be updated when it hatches, or doesn't hatch, when it metamorphs or doesn't, if it dies, is sold or paired up. Under ISIS one of the ways to deal with this is to assign a colony number to each clutch and then update it after they metamorph (at which time they can be kept as a colony or assigned individual numbers or assigned individual numbers when transferred to a new keeper).
Under ZIMs, this process is supposed to be easier, as well a possibility that more people can do the entering with oversight by several individuals. One of the main problems that has been seen under ISIS is incomplete information being submitted, or incorrect information is used (such as incorrect numbers, sexes etc, and not updated until it gets flagged by the system which is a lot of work for the person doing the entries).

Some comments,

Ed

 

[Ed]

I know some have been crossed for study, like the strawberry dart frogs. They learned a few things. I know crossbreeding for collections is bad, but using data from such study should have followed the parent frogs. Because some of these were found to be simple recessive genes, you do start building some genotype knowledge without doing any gels.

Phenotype difference between locales must exist. Are they recorded?

Coloration in O. pumilio appears to be polygenic while pattern (spotting) appears to be single locus within the populations tested. This is different than what you are implying. See BioOne Online Journals - Cross-Breeding of Distinct Color Morphs of the Strawberry Poison Frog (Dendrobates pumilio) from the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Panama (not free access)

There are also issues using some of the methods for determining whether pigmentation is controlled by simple recessives or not see for example (free access) Revista de Biología Tropical - Phenotypic and molecular variation in the green and black poison-dart frog Dendrobates auratus (Anura: Dendrobatidae) from Costa Rica

Some comments,

Ed

 

[Ed]

There could be conservation value in it. It would be useful to be able to identify, for example, particular genes that may be linked with particular traits. Or identifying rare genes in a given population. However, if folks bred frogs like they do in zoos, knowing those things would be a nice quirk, but not necessary for conservation breeding programs.

Most of the studies I know of really inquire about regions of the genome that control particular things in frogs. My lab is involved with figuring out the locus of the gene that controls red color in Heliconius butterflies, for example. Understanding the genetics helps us understand the diversity seen in the organisms of interest. But, at this point, most times it's not feasible for hobbyists to do the studies because they require more advanced techniques than they have available to them.

In general there is little value in it for conservation programs unless you are looking for hybridization or outbreeding events that render an animal without value as a breeder for a conservation program. This for example was the case for virtually all of the Amur (Siberian) tigers held outside of zoological institutions since they had been outcrossed with Bengal tigers (different subspecies) to spread the white tiger phenotype. Typically what they do in cases of suspected hybridizations or outcrosses is to simply look for a marker gene that can distinguish between the two (or more) populations since it is just as effective for the purpose of conservation programs since you don't need the whole genome to determine if it is part of a targeted population or not. It is much more important to track degrees of kinship and how much a founder is represented in the captive population as that gives you degrees of inbreeding and risk to sustainability of the captive population (and why simply breeding like to like is a risk to the long-term stability of a population).

As a hypothetical example, I can easily see how determining if a captive population is pure or not could put a wild population under significant risk... for example, the initial founder population of the azureus morph of tinctorious started with ten frogs with subsequent illegal and quasi-legal founders added occasionally.. If the captive population was determined to be hybrids, I can easily see a demand for pure frogs which would put the population in Suriname under risk....

Ed

 

[Ed]

And some things that were never looked at are now lost.

My aunt is a zoologist works for a major zoo. I am going to get to talk to the dart frog keeper there now. I have been behind the scenes for other area (the poisonous snakes was a bit scary) but this will be the first time in this area. Hopefully this summer.

There are several keepers and ex-keepers on here that are from major zoological institutions.. for example I spent almost 19 years working for the oldest Zoo in the United States, specifically with a specialization on amphibians including several different general of dendrobatids.....

Ed

 

[Ed]

If there are two locales of the "same" frog, is anyone keeping any notes on the phenotype/ genotype differences between the populations?

Ed I said what you said, just without needing as big a breath..."It could tell me if something is a cross" is the same

Actually no you didn't. If you examine the start of your position on genotype, it is clear you are referring to the whole genotype and how it is expressed as the whole phenotype. You made that clear when you were implying that Monarchman doesn't care about knowledge... This is very different than what I pointed out... Either you actually don't understand the difference or you are simply acting as a troll by deliberately misunderstanding the information. I suggest reading the TOS since baiting and insulting people even in a backhanded manner are a violation of the TOS....

Ed