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natural selection for tuskless elephants
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Author:  trekkie [ September 4th, 2013, 8:26 pm ]
Post subject:  natural selection for tuskless elephants
An increasing number of elephants have no tusks, according to a survey.

Research at the Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, showed that 15% of female elephants and 9% of males in the park were born without tusks.

In 1930 the figure for both male and female elephants was only 1%.

Experts say the reason why some elephants are tuskless is a result of a chance genetic mutation.

They say elephants are losing their tusks as a rapid and effective evolutionary response to escape slaughter by ruthless and resourceful poachers who kill elephants for their ivory trophies.

The BBC's Science Correspondent, John Newell, says the continuing change shows how rapidly evolution can react in response to pressures that threaten the survival of a species.

This allows them to live, breed more freely and produce more offspring without tusks.

Growing trend

Evidence of a trend in tuskless elephants has been reported elsewhere.

Mark and Delia Owens recorded an unusual number of such elephants in 1997 while carrying out research in Zambia's North Luangwa National Park.

Published on the National Wildlife Federation's Website, they write: "Our research indicates that more than 38% of Luangwa elephants carry no tusks.

"Other researchers have reported that in natural, unstressed populations, only 2% of the animals are tuskless."

Crippled creatures

Tuskless elephants are paying a heavy price for survival.

Tusks are used to dig for food and water, to dig up trees and branches and move them around, for self defence and for sexual display.

Conservationists say an elephant without tusks is a crippled elephant.

They say that while being tuskless is better than being dead, they hope that less drastic ways can be found to protect elephants against poachers.





http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/180301.stm


so thoughts on this?
Author:  Adbot [ September 4th, 2013, 8:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Register and login to get these in-post ads to disappear
Author:  Jasonmrc [ September 7th, 2013, 3:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: natural selection for tuskless elephants
trekkie wrote:
"Other researchers have reported that in natural, unstressed populations, only 2% of the animals are tuskless."

So the research done in two National Parks indicates those Elephants are losing their Tusks to escape Poachers, whereas the research done in the wild says those Elephants are NOT losing their Tusks to escape Poachers.
So, this would lead us to the conclusion that there are more Poachers in the National parks than in the Wild.
Strange...

OR

The ones in the National Parks are being born without them due to a nutritional deficiency causing them to not be able to grow them.

OR

The fact that they are more protected in the National Parks allows Tuskless Elephants, which would normally die in the Wild due to lack of self-protection, to survive and mate and pass the mutated genetics to their young.

Somehow the Poachers-in-the-Park theory doesn't sound very believable to me.
Author:  Evelyn [ September 7th, 2013, 6:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: natural selection for tuskless elephants
The elephants with large tusks were hunted before they could reproduce and were unable to pass on the large tusk trait, and the poachers passed on any elephant with small or no tusks. These elephants went on to reproduce. The offspring would have small tusks like their parents, unless tusk size is a simple recessive/dominant gene.

That's how natural selection works, the poachers are just an artificial environment factor.
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