Hybrid discussions?

[Bas Pels]

Matt your idea does sound nicely, BUT

Currently, no certification excists, and thus no related costs are involved

Why would a LFS spend money on a certificate which does not represent anything - yet? Better to wait until others have spend the money involved with giving the certificate any meaning

This system would have to be broken up, before a certification will work: the currently well known, good, shops would be given a free certificate, with related public exposure, also for free, in order to give the certificate any mening in the commpn public's eye

Only then will LFSes be willing to pay for it - but before that quite a few $$$ will be spend

[dogofwar]

I agree - it makes absolutely no sense to having a certification program or starting to hand out certificates before guidelines exist

A preliminary step to such a program would be (for the ACA, perhaps in concert with its members and representatives from the vendor community) to develop and "responsible practices" guidelines.

The acceptance of the guidelines rests ontheir validity (do what they espouse truly reflect priority responsible practices by vendors?), implementability (are they practical and reasonable for the average vendor who cares?), and the participation of those impacted by them in their development.

Ask yourself: What are the things that a vendor can do to act in a responsible way? What are irresponsible practices that you commonly see?

We're not talking about whether a vendor stocks rare, wild cichlids. We're talking about whether the store commits to acting in responsible ways. Experienced hobbyists use these criteria to (mentally) assess a vendor (Me to myself: "The red devils are labeled as red terrors"...and their tank is filthy"). The vast majority don't have the experience or background. This is just formalizing what goes on in our heads...

The cost of such a program would be primarily to defray the costs of running such a program... and (of course) 100% would go to the ACA, which is a 501c3 not for profit. Perhaps select vendors that support the process of creating the guidelines could have their fees fees waived? There are a lot of operational details to be worked out... but the idea appeals to me because it actually does something to define the problem and proposes practical things that vendors can do to address being responsible. It also seeks to strengthen and support LFS and vendors who act responsibly...and promote and spread the ACA brand.

[Dean Hougen]

While it would be great to bring the stores in, I think you will find it is easier to get buy in from people who already care, rather than people who have to be convinced. This is why it makes more sense to concentrate on hobbyists rather than stores.


Dean

[Bas Pels]

I don't know about the USA, here in Europe we have some good shops. 1 very good one is 100 km - that is 61 miles - from my front door.

Only rarely do I buy fish from other sources. It happens, but not too often

I think that is the best way indeed: buy where you feel comfotable, and ignore the others, regardles of how tempting the occasionally very rare fish may be

[dogofwar]

"I think that is the best way indeed: buy where you feel comfotable, and ignore the others, regardles of how tempting the occasionally very rare fish may be"

I agree ... and people who are "advanced hobbysists" (0.4% of the market) know what a good store is... people who aren't need some guidance. The point of this is to provide a way for the stores to demonstrate this in a tangible way... and hopefully spark questions from their customers about why it matters and who the ACA is.

I also agree that the ACA should develop and adopt guidelines for responsible practices in, for example, labeling of fish in auctions and the trading post. This could both serve as an internal evaluation of the guidelines as well as address the issue of poorly labeled stuff in auctions.

I don't think it should stop internally, however.

[Bojan Dolenc]

Stelkens RB, Schimid C, Selz O, Seehausen O. 2009. Phenotypic novelty in experimental hybrids is predicted by the genetic distance between species of cichlid fish. BMC Evolutionary Biology 9 (online early version)
Background Transgressive segregation describes the occurrence of novel phenotypes in hybrids with extreme trait values not observed in either parental species. A previously experimentally untested prediction is that the amount of transgression increases with the genetic distance between hybridizing species. This follows from QTL studies suggesting that transgression is most commonly due to complementary gene action or epistasis, which become more frequent at larger genetic distances. This is because the number of QTLs fixed for alleles with opposing signs in different species should increase with time since speciation provided that speciation is not driven by disruptive selection. We measured the amount of transgression occurring in hybrids of cichlid fish bred from species pairs with gradually increasing genetic distances and varying phenotypic similarity. Transgression in multi-trait shape phenotypes was quantified using landmark-based geometric morphometric methods.

Results We found that genetic distance explained 52% and 78% of the variation in transgression frequency in F1 and F2 hybrids, respectively. Confirming theoretical predictions, transgression when measured in F2 hybrids, increased linearly with genetic distance between hybridizing species. Phenotypic similarity of species on the other hand was not related to the amount of transgression.

Conclusions The commonness and ease with which novel phenotypes are produced in cichlid hybrids between unrelated species has important implications for the interaction of hybridization with adaptation and speciation. Hybridization may generate new genotypes with adaptive potential that did not reside as standing genetic variation in either parental population, potentially enhancing a population's responsiveness to selection. Our results make it conceivable that hybridization contributed to the rapid rates of phenotypic evolution in the large and rapid adaptive radiations of haplochromine cichlids.
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