RE: Inbreeding and accelarated evolution?

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Brian Lauret
> Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 2:03 PM
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Inbreeding and accelarated evolution?
>
>
> As you might have guessed from the subject, I've been wondering about how
> inbreeding might influence the evolution of organisms.
>
> On one hand I think inbreeding might accelarate the evolution of new
> characters, as a mutated gene influencing,say, the occurence of
> paedomorphosis, becomes more and more dominant in every generation ( I
> guess).
>
> On the other hand, I argumented against this very idea that inbreeding makes
> organisms more and more alike due to the small gene-pool,wich thus means
> that characters are less likely to change.
>
> Could someone say more about this?

You could say a LOT more about this, since this is the basic premise of 
peripatric and allopatric speciation (and, for that matter,
the founder effect): central principles in the study of speciation!

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
        Mailing Address:
                Building 237, Room 1117
                College Park, MD  20742

http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796