question about breeding in the wild

[Dankmeleon]

just curious if anyone knows how chameleons avoid inbreeding the wild, is there any research to suggest social communication, or awareness of genetic ties?

I'd imagine if a whole clutch hatch and half survived, and then there were 50/50 female to male ratio and they inhabited neighboring brush area, wouldn't it appear they have a good chance of naturally inbreeding?

can anyone shine any more light onto this subject please?

 

[dodolah]

I think it does happened; and the nature select them to not survive (the one with genetic defect).

IMHO, i don't think they would discriminate siblings and potential mate.
But, then again, i can be wrong

 

[PantherVeileD]

I would guess no? If your parents were to have 10 kids, 5 males 5 females living together.. You just don't do it! haha Then again I think I'm wrong... Look at hamsters .. Ok back to being confused all over again..

 

[spatulars]

A knowledgeable member of the forum did suggest in the chat that inbreeding doesn't start to affect reptiles for many generations, so perhaps they just rely on chance matings to offer new genetic material in the wild. Or perhaps inbreeding is just not a big deal for animals in the wild, although it seems like it does cause problems in captive breeding. Guess I thought I'd throw my thoughts in there. It sounds like an interesting study, and I'm interested to hear expert replies to your thread.

 

[Dankmeleon]

or at least if it it does happen, its is being diluted by all the others that succesfully mated with non family members, but with that being said, that would mean there genetic adaptation includes this even if its a very very slight trait

 

[Justin Carl]

Kenny, yes, it may happen, but out of the few people that have lost and found their chameleons, they usually end up finding them far away from the original spot they were lost. I would imagine males would be much more prone to roaming then a females. This is just my personal experience-which is very limited. My males tend to roam the whole cage during the day. The only time they bask is first thing in the morning or shortly after eating. If you keep your chameleons outside, then the males will roam even more. they don't need to sit under a basking bulb all day to keep their body temperature up. I do remember a member on the forum that lost his female pardalis. I think he found her a few hundred yards/feet away in a tree. She crossed roads and grass to get to that tree. I have heard some things about certain island locales being severely inbred. To the point that, when they are bred in captivity, they are having very low fertility. I guess the best way to find out how related they are is to do some genetic studies on the captive specimens. In order to keep things short...I don't think inbreeding is very prevalent in the main island of Madagascar's wild chameleons.

 

[kinyonga]

Just look at the Jackson's in Hawaii...they started from a very small gene pool and they seem to be fine.

 

[Dankmeleon]

hmmmm thats funny, cuz I read somewhere in some research on the florida wild veiled population, that when they were catching and releasing males, a lot of them were staying in a good radius

sort of like my current situation. I don't really have to worry about my male pardalis running away because he would never leave all the females, even if he went up in a tree he would stick around but who really knows

 

[Dankmeleon]

I would have to further back this claim up, so long as their is sufficient water and food chams tend to stay in a close area