inbreeding?

I too got both of my emperors already gravid. i was recently learning in my biology class how inbreeding increases the chances of harmful recessive alleles of expressing themselves. i kept 4 of the babies from the 2 batches and definitely would like to raise babies again. anyone ever heard of bad things happening with emperors inbreeding? ie sons mating with their moms or sisters?.. ew

I recall hearing somewhere that the way arthropods reproduce (pumping out a ton of young all at once), the genes get shuffled around in such a way that the siblings aren't as closely related as siblings in say, humans, would be.

I don't know if that's the case or not, but what I do know is:

-- People have bred the same line of roaches for generations with no ill effect
-- When weird mutations do show up in such lines, it can usually be traced to a dietary deficiency
-- Some insect lines in culture have just "dried up" and quit reproducing without an obvious reason (personal experience)
-- No one that I'm aware of has bred the same line of emperors long enough to find out what will happen

That last one is mainly because emperors are so slow-growing. Hopefully someone on here has experience with bark scorpions (also communal, but with a faster generation time) and can shed some light on what happens to a closed gene pool in that case.

(Kejser, I'm looking at you and that B. jacksoni farm of yours.)

Well i havent had any of my scorplings grow to adult yet. So they havent been able to been inbreedt yet

but stille if we look at mantis if you keep inbreeding them, the cocoon just stop working..
i dont think something with happen at the first couple of generations, but if you keep it up for like 3-4 generations you might end up with no broods

I think I read on AB that imbreeding has no ill-effects... but I havent a clue on anything to do with genetics n' all that.


I will probably breed my emps again with eatch other. Ill keep doing it for a few years to see what happens for ya'.

yea im gonna do it again to but im going to have to wait for my babies to grow up. and hopefully one of em is male.

It'll take quite a while to find out "the hard way" with this species . . . If you're worried, you could probably do an exchange with other hobbyists a generation or two along and get some fresh hemolymph in your communities.