TheBiologySpace.BioBlog

Minute changes in the gene pool are necessary for a species to survive, after all the world is ever changing. This allows favorable traits to spread from a group of only a few to the entire population. When those traits can not be shared, they will disappear, leaving the population to fend for themselves. This leaves species vulnerable to diseases that are genetically linked or require certain traits to prevent the diseases that are genetic

I think the isolation of the Tasmanian Devil population has kind of targeted them for this mess. Honestly, I really do not think that there is much that we can do to help them. That might be a different story if more people cared….but with so many people being neutral to the decline of the earths species, I do not think a big movement is going to be set in motion.

The extinction of the Tasmanian devils was first caused by the predation of dingoes and then they were hunted by Tasmanian settlers. The further declining population should not affect the food chain too much because the ones that survived did so only because they were removed from the area populated by dingos. But the devils were to prevent the establishment of the Red Fox, an invasive species, in the Tasmanian forest ecosystem.

i agree jocelynn i think that if they isolated the little devils then that would give them to opportunity reproduce more unaffected devils. i think that its true that the more diversity would prevent the amount of devils that have cancer. but this arises the question that david posted and it could very well be true.. is it to late to save the tasmanian devils. I think they have a chance only if they are isolated with the hope that they maintain there unaffected chain of relatives that don’t have cancer.

Tasmanian devils live on that small island, so there couldn’t be too many of them. So after a certain point they must be all family. And so very similar in genetic makeup. And thats why the cancer is effecting so many of them. I don’t think we should do anything, just let them be. If they die, then thats the way it was supposed to be. Well atleast we’ll have Taz from loonie toones.

genetic diversity is very important. if the Tasmanian devils were more diverse and could develop a better immune system that could fight off these cancerous tumor, it would end the possibility of their extinction. the unaffected Tasmanian devils should be isolated and then the ones who are affected can hopefully be treated and given medicine to help fight off the disease.

Genetic diversity is important in this situation because if there are many diverse types of tasmanian devils, then some of them might be less vulnerable to the cancer, and they would be selected for. A possible reason for the lack of diversity could be that since they are in Australia, where there aren’t many mountains or things that could separate different places and stop breeding between two groups, the founder effect can not create diversity. For a certain gene, the best trait would go to all the members of the population because it would be favored and the other traits would diminish.

I agree with everyone about why the devils are not diverse and why they are dying, but I personally think that there is a very high chance that it maybe to late to save the species.

For example it is possible to create genetic diversity, but who knows if it will yeild a devil that is emmune to the virus. And even if it does, The bad trait can be dominant or recessive. If we are unlucky and the bad trait is dominant, then breeding out the bad trait will be extremely difficult because there is a low population of devils, a lower popualtion of devils that are healthy enough for reproduction, and an even lower amount of devils that will be homozygous recessive. Then the population of immune devils has to be will again be interbred and end up with little genetic diversity. Even if other healthy devils are introduced, it will not be enough create a highly diverse population. So in the end devils are once again “unfit.”

I agree with Kaitlin, in that the diversity must be increased. Because we have let the tasmanian devil population take care of itself and fall in the hands of nature, this species is in major danger. We can either let this species fall to a fate of perhaps becoming extinct, or even worse, having the individual organisms endure a life of misery, or we can step in a ‘be the hero’-a title that Americans typically enjoy. Though sad, I think that the infectious organisms should be isolated, and that we need to aid the others in reproducing to create a healthy tasmanian devil population again.

Isn’t it ironic how you learn of the facial tumors that plague the Tasmaian Devils which render them inable to eat while you’re eating a “tasty lunch”.

The lack of genetic diversity in the Tasmanian Devils are definately the key to what may be an entire extinction of the species. How then, can we stop this? By introducing new genetic material. The Tasmanian Devils are so unique a group animals that I find it hard believe that they can be saved by the introduction of new genes to diversify their population.

If the Tasmanian were to die out, as I presume they will in the wake of this virus, i think it will terribly effect Australia as a whole. Since the emergence of the facial tumors in 1995, the Tazmanian’s population has dropped about 20 50% . Nothing much feeds on the Tazmanian, and they tend to feed on carrion and small mamals, but Australia lays great stock in the Taz Devil. Once the Tazmainan Tiger (Thylacine) had become extinct in the late 1930’s, Australia went to great lengths to preserve this species of carniviorous marsupials.

It seems that the world just has it out for carnivorous marsupials, first the Thylacine, now prehaps the Taz Devil.

The Tasmanian devils are much like the fishes of the Sonoran dessert in that they interbreed creating an immense decrease of diversity amongst the populations. When there lacks diversity in a population, similar traits are passed down generation to generation. In such a small gene pool, the results may be chronic when an unfavorable trait appears (impacting a large portion of the population as we see here with the facial cancers in the Tasmanian devil population). Another impact on the lack of diversity of this population is that they reside in Australia, an isolated island (similar to the Sonoran fishes being isolated from other streams). So how to fix this problem? The only way to solve this problem is to increase their diversity and to do that we need to introduce this species to another, creating a gene flow. Although, the outcome may not be 100% recovery of the Tasmanian Devil population immediately, it would certainly be a push in the right direction for these little demons.

That picture is so sad. The poor things are so isolated on a very big island where the geography and climate vary little.This isolation limits how much their genetics can change over time. Because all of them are so similar they aren’t as able to have genes that could protect them from this rather horrible disease. Because the population is so small to save them humans would have to intervene and come up with a vaccine to protect the ones not yet affected and treat the ones who are. It is too late for them to pull themselves out of this decline, but if humans got involved then they just might have a good shot. If they are destroyed then the delicate ecosystem of Australia will be destroyed to because of this domino effect that occurs. SAVE TAZ!

I hate to not be “scientifically correct” but that STINKS!

This situation can obviously be compared to the fish study in the fact that the gene pool lacked so much diversity (due to the interbreeding of the population) that nearly all of the individuals of the population were affected by and then intern passed on the shortcoming. In this case, cancer to the FACE. What creates this lack of diversity is the fact that the place where they reside, Australia, just so happens to be an island in the middle of the ocean completely isolated from the rest of the world. This factor of isolation forces these animals to stricly breed within their own group, greatly increasing the frequency of similar genes that may not be so advantageous. The ever so trite answer for this problem would be to increase the diversity of the tasmanian devil population by bringing in others to breed with. So I guess if preppy dogs can ride first class on an airplane, why not send a tasmanian devil? Even if diversity could be introduced into the population, I still dont know how well off those little devils will be. If the cancer has afflicted too many of them, it would take years and year to repopulate the island to even begin the process of introducing diversity. Only experimentation will tell if the task is attainable.

Maybe if the tasmanian devils of Australia acted like the tasmanian devil from old school bugs bunny cartoons and spun like a cyclone everywhere they went, this problem might not have occured.

The Devils are much like the fish from the “Why Sex” video in such that they are interbreed. There isn’t a wide variety of the Devils due the fact that they are isolated on the island of Australia; therfore in order to reproduce offspring they interbreed within their species. There is not much diversity which leads to the passing along of the same infavorable genes, those which lead to the cancer of the face. To introduce diversity to the species monitored breeding would have to take place. It would take some time to diversify the species, and not a very big difference would be noticable I dont think because quite frankly the Devils aren’t naturally a diverse species to begin with. They are ONLY located in Australia, and there really is only one type of devils. It is very sad that the Devils are dying, i belive it is not to late to help them to reproduce in a monitored setting, however I feel it is too late for many wild devils already.