Fortuna

Have I just been fooled here ?

This LarsGuy is doing a parody ?

Apologies. Though I live in the USA and have for some time now, english is still my second language and sometimes I don't understand the subtle words that would tell one this.
Or am I wrong ? I just cannot read it sometimes.

Toto

I don't know, Fortuna.

But we'll let the good folks in E/C take a stab at this thread.

Third_Choice

if 2 individuals is too little, then how do we have species that reproduce with just females? 1 individual is less than 2, yet it works.

llanitedave

I think there's a difference between the "smallest viable population" and a seed population. A population of a very few reproducing pairs can grow much larger in just a few generations. Yes, there are inbreeding problems, but once the overall population has increased enough, would those not start to get selected out? And those inbreeding effects wouldn't start to show until there had been multiple generations of it anyway. By then, the population could be significantly larger than the smallest viable size.

So the key with a seed population is a very fast initial growth rate. The "Founder effect" has to be what's at work here.

show_no_mercy

Is this some sort of variant to the Argument from Bull?

Imaginary Mark

This was why God had to magically POOF it back into existance every twenty minutes. This eventually made him very cranky.

And that, children, is the REAL reason God flooded the earth.

Pisano112

I believe when I was reading an article on cloning mammoths, and how many unique individuals would need to be cloned in order to restore the species. The number was between 20 and 30, so I'd guess for most mammals that'd be about right. I know that previous studies have indicated that populations risk extinction due to demographics stochasticity when they have less than 10-100 individuals. Some species would need more than 100, some would only need less than 10, but that's the rough window.

But inbreeding wouldn't necessarily drive the population extinct - the population would just rebound to large numbers more slowly.

Sven

Look up his looooong threads in BC&H. I also wondered if he's doing a parody, but he puts really much work into his posts. Thus I think he's sincerely mistaken (and needs lots of cognitive dissonance).

Boro Nut

Come now. If we could see the stars-for-signs through it, it was more than clear enough to let mere sunlight in.

And if ice wasn't the most environmentally friendly and efficient greenhouse material, do you think the Finnish government would waste practically their entire EU grant, spending billions of Euros to build the most efficient and productive market garden industry in the EU, based entirely on ice? Of course they wouldn't. They're not stupid. So they don't.

Boro Nut

Boro Nut

Ah yes. The argument from Bull. And Penis & Vagina. How could we forget.

Boro Nut