Hi.
Orchids do well in captivity. Crossing frequently new blood is not a bad idea, but:
some of later generation of mantis species looks stronger and live longer than the previous generations for me.
That's the point! Has someone noticed new species to do very bad for 1-2 generations and to explode after that? This is because you select! In your stocks some kind of semi-natural selection applies which eliminates all genotypes which do not properly with your conditions. So, in fact, you do inbreed! To a certain extent, at least. In all cases you should breed with 6-10 adult pairs at least!
After some generations, you have a good-running stock and you sell your surplus stuff and give all information regarding breeding. But, the specimens are adapted to your conditions, not to those of the new breeder. So, all the thing starts again, except that he/she starts with an empoverished gene pool. If his conditions are very different from yours (even if you tell what to do the conditions will be different! In fact they are different between two enclosures in the same room!) his stock may not survive as the "adequate" allele combination may not exist. That's why many people are surprisingly unsuccessful with species you breed very easy!
"What? All died?/No males left?/ etc. What have you done?" "I did what you said!" "Very strange, in my stock they breed for themselves, I just drop food inside!" and so on...
Does someone recognize this conversation? :wink:
Now the point is: you select every time you establish a stock. To what extent depends on the breeding stock. If it's too small, you cannot compensate conditional changes very well. A hot summer, a period during which you are less cautionous and your stock may be gone. The trick is to find the balance between selection and this genetic impoverishment in your stock on the one hand and a nevertheless stable genetic diversity on the other.
Now, the extent to which this works depends on the taxon: some may be bred for generations with few specimens, others make it for just one or two generations. This last case is very interesting, and known over here as the "forest species problem". It's mostly primary rain or cloud forest species which are not successfully bred yet. Some cases:
Choeradodis, Acanthops, Vates amazonica and
weyrauchi, Phyllovates tripunctata, Antemna, Thesprotiella, Sibylla dolosa, Parhymenopus, probably also
Toxodera and
Paratoxodera. To a lesser extent also
Theopropus, Hymenopus, Deroplatys. I suppose (the following is still speculation, but based on my knowledge in Tropical and mantid Ecology) species of this group may have adapted against inbreeding in natural conditions as a consequence of their rarity: maybe the likelihood of encountering a specimen from the same ootheca is higher than encountering an unrelated one. So, they have adapted to avoid pairings between brothers/sisters: different developmental times between males and females force males to fly away searching for mates in other places as none of the sisters is adult yet; recognising and, consequently, avoiding sisters by their pheromones; sperm competition; and so on. So, if you start with one ooth or one female, you may have a lot of wealthy specimens, but noone copulates or the ooths do not hatch or the larvae die soon. This is the "forest species problem".
Many forest species breed very well, but those are found also in secondary habitats. Strictly understorey species of closed forests often cause this difficulties. Savannah species are really easy to breed compared with those ones.
This is one of the
real problems we think about over here and which is to be solved regarding the breeding of mantids.
Regards,
Christian
