[Will]

One reason to at least keep track of a albino producing pair, or breed a true albino line, is for developmental research. While this is not an obvious reason, but should a researcher ever decide to characterize gene expression patterns in PDFs, having albino tads would help a great deal as pigment will not obscure visualizing the probes.

Deciding what to consider a wild type standard and consequently breeding towards that ideal in a controlled environment can be difficult. The only real candidates for such a project would be captive populations with specific collection data which can be safely crossed to form lines. Definitively knowing a group of frogs are from a specific location would allow for greater mixing without overt selective pressures (ie: crossing frogs which closely resemble each other).

There are other color anomalies which are not as obvious as albinism but also occur with low frequency. Mutations in the pathway for red pigment can produce all blue Costa Rican pumilio. Collection and breeding of this blue ‘morph’ would not reflect a wild population even though it could have good collection data.

As Brent was saying with regard to establishing breeding guidelines (for those who have the ability follow them), recessive traits would not need to be excluded completely but instead could be introduced randomly.

 

[Will]

Perhaps a better example for this discussion is pumilio (more research data available). It is likely that the driving factor behind the vast array of pumilio color morphs is visual mate choice. Morphs are more likely to breed within group vs. hybridize. So in this case, even a territorial overlap would not necessarily result in hybridization.

People have also noted on this board that when they have different tinc group pairs in a mixed tank that they breed true (not suggesting that no hybrids can result). It is possible that most dart groups have strong ‘within morph’ mate choice.

 

[Will]

To clarify things a little bit...

The Summers ‘Visual Mate Choice in Poison Frogs’ paper was between morphs from different islands, in this case Pope Island and Nancy Key. Again, preference seemed to be based on color.

A detailed field study on the mate choice of the Bastimentos population specifically would be interesting. It is possible that color preference is not as prominent on this island, or that other selection cues take precedence. It is probable that frogs collected within a territorial range form a breeding population (ie. the frogs in the Yeager pic). One question which Justin Yeager might be able to answer is whether there are overall densities of one color or another within different territorial ranges?

In the recent Summers paper where he cross-breeds different morphs, the Bocas Island (looked similar to the yellow/green basit in the Yeager pic) x Almirante (red) resulted in a phenotype similar to the muddy white/red basit in the Yeager pic. So it is possible that Bastimentos population is color mixing to some degree.

An aside about pumilio territories: a paper by Pröhl found that females maintain territories with good tad rearing sites, and that males defend territories which have higher female densities. Females have larger range territories and do visit several males for courtship, which makes it likely that they will have the opportunity to select ‘like colored males’ should they choose.