MACROevolution vs MICROevolution - what is it?

I did not say there would be any problem breeding between members of the same species, I thought the puma and panther were different species that could still interbreed. If not, my mistake. I totally absolutely disagree. All it takes in some species to come to a point where interbreeding is impossible is the loss of genetic diversity through selection over a number of daughter populations.ABE: This would be the same genetic situation as the cheetah's and the cheetah cannot interbreed with other cats. Nonsense. For one thing mutations are only variations on existing alleles and if new gene frequencies of those existing alleles aren't enough to lead to genetic incompatibility, there's no reason to think a functioning allele brought about by mutation would behave differently. A mutation is NOT microevolution, it's a single change in a single allele, utterly lost in a population unless selected. EVOLUTION REQUIRES SELECTION, requires the proliferation of that mutation at the very least, and OF COURSE speciation isn't going to happen from one mutation. DUH and a half. Speciation isn't what I'm focused on but it could happen from extreme reduction of genetic diversity in a whole population with new gene frequencies of alleles whether mutated alleles or not. Oh blithering nonsense. This does not happen.Even if you got all new phenotypes you'd still have the problem of loss of GENETIC diversity due to SELECTION, which is necessary to the formation of new species. Mutations alone cannot produce new species. Selection is necessary to evolution whether the genetic material is built in or produced by mutations, and when you have selection you have the replacement of some alleles by the new set of high frequency alleles, always always always the necessary reduction in genetic diversity brought about by selection/evolution.I was asking for a picture of what people have in mind when they keep saying mutations can overcome the necessary loss of genetic diversity brought about by selection.
'Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You don't know what you are talking about. An allele is a FORM of a gene. Sheesh.

The gene is only a location, it's the alleles that provide the genetic codes.

I did answer you. I said I was talking about alleles being lost, not genes.And PaulK said the same about alleles in Message 298: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't care about the difference between a puma and a panther. It's a side issue.

The difference between Florida panther and puma isn't a "basic fundamental error." The terms suggest two different breeds of cat. I don't have the time or the eyesight to research every side issue.

You aren't making any sense. I said the gene WASN'T lost, I said alleles are lost.

ALLELES ARE LOST FROM A GIVEN POPULATION WHEN THE GENES ARE HOMOZYGOUS.YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT AND THERE IS NO POINT IN CONTINUING THIS DISCUSSION WITH YOU.

Getting through that was a struggle. I'll probably have to do it again.What I want to know right now however, is where's the selection? I don't see any selection. My whole scenario is all about selection. Isolation and inbreeding occur after selection in order to homogenize the new set of gene frequencies brought about by the selection, meaning the reduced number of individuals separated out to be the founders of a daughter population. Your scenario looks like something entirely different, but again, I may have to read it another time.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm not even sure you can do what I'm talking about with plants. With animals you can [abe: RANDOMLY /abe] select out a number of individuals from a whole population of animals, and that selection as a population unto itself will have a new set of gene frequencies as compared with the parent population.Is there anything in your scenario comparable to this random selection?This is the first step. You mention drift but after isolation and inbreeding which is a different order.So this number of individuals is separated from the parent population and reproductively isolated.You mention ONE seed as selected. I'm talking about populations. How is one seed comparable to what I'm talking about?So my isolated limited number of individuals is now allowed to inbreed over whatever number of generations it takes to produce a new species, or variety, or population with all the same or roughly the same set of traits.The original selection itself reduces the genetic diversity but as the higher frequency alleles replace the lower frequency alleles over some number of genrations the loss of genetic diversity can increase as some of the low frequency alleles drop out of the population altogether.Do you still think your example is similar enough to what I'm talking about to ask me to think about it further?ABE: Note I added "randomly" in the first sentence in case it wasn't clear without it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Your scenario is alien to me, your terminology is alien, and I'm going to have to come back to it later anyway. Also, mutations, which is apparently your answer to what would bring about speciation, can't possibly bring about speciation, that takes selection, but just as a matter of fact I'm not focused on speciation, just any homogeneous population brought about by selection: species, variety, whatever.I'll be back later.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Huge SIGH. I don't get what's going on with the RIL scenario much better than I did before.I also don't know what exactly you are trying to say about my scenario. You seem to be saying at some points that it won't produce distinctive enough new populations? Blue wildebeests aren't distinctive enough from black wildebeests? All the species in ring species aren't distinctive enough from each other? All the different kinds of cattle brought about only by random selection of limited numbers of individuals from the original wild population aren't distinctive enough from each other or from the original population? All the different kinds of cats that came from the pair on the ark aren't sufficiently distinctive?Maybe I'm not getting what you are saying. That wouldn't be surprising. But if I have trouble following a post I'm not too likely to spend the time trying to figure it out. I'm not saying I won't, I'm just saying it's hard to follow and that's discouraging. I don't recognize my own scenario in it and I'm not much clearer about yours.Take this as a first reaction; there may or may not be more to follow soon.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes. Eh? I would expect the initial phase to produce a huge variety of different phenotypes by the third or fourth generation, that would become more homogeneous as the population continues to breed. Wouldn't you have random mating with just a dozen individuals? The population could get quite large before homogeneity is reached, and daughter populations could split off at any point. If the population grows to that point before splitting off new ones, that seems logical. But I think of the gigantic population of wildebeests or what must have been the original gigantic size of populations of wild cattle before they were domesticated as small populations captured by farmers. Plenty of unique combinations of alleles are clearly available in such populations upon selection. Phenotypically this should be the case if it persists a long time, but I don't think that implies the sameness of genetic material you think it does. It doesn't work that way in reality though. If you can get a whole new population of blue wildebeests from a limited number of black wildebeests there's something else going on genetically than what you are ijmagining.If there is sufficient genetic diversity left in the population that formed on Pod Mrcaru from the ten original founders, despite the fact that the are quite homogeneous now, if you took ten of them and isolated them somewhere else I have no doubt that you'd get yet another whole new population of lizards. After all the original population was of course quite homogeneous and yet the brand new Pod Mrcaru lizard was the result over thirty some odd yars.I'm not sure how to spell this out genetically, it just seems to be the case. So for instance take the salamander ring species in California. Each new species has a new set of colors and markings on its hide. Each population would have had time to inbreed and grow its numbers a great deal before a new daughter population formed, but each daughter population that splits off from such a numerous former population has entirely new colors and markings from all the others that get homogenized with inbreeding over some number of generations while it is growing.It is apparently a fact. How do you explain it?My guess is that there is still a lot of heterozygosity in each population.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sure it does. Except I'm claiming that is all there is, there is no such thing as macroevolution, and what is called speciation is nothing but the formation of a population of a given species that develops the inability to interbreed with other populations, over some generations of inbreeding in most cases I woujld suppose. If by new species you are using the usual definition of inability to interbreed with former populations I don't see why not, and in particular I don't see how mutations would make the difference which I suppose is what you are implying. All that has to happen is the increase in homozygosity at many loci and that can happen with or without mutations. How would mutations bring about a genetic mismatch any more predictably than the scenario I have in mind? Theoretically interbreeding should still be possible but something happens that prevents it. I don't think I completely understand this but I don't see that you do either.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I have been using the term inbreeding simply to describe breeding within the reproductivelyt isolated population, which is probably but not absolutely necessarily made up of nonrelated founding individuals. Should I be using a different term? Seems to me it is. Mutations I suppose? But as I've already said, why should mutations be genetically incompatible? If they are "beneficial" they replace an existing allele with a functioning allele, meaning it fits just fine in the gene and codes for a protein that codes for a phenotype. Where's the incompatibility?