i know its frowned upon and not legal but it can also cause mutations so why doesnt this happen with animals?
2007-01-11 08:07:54 · 15 answers · asked by fopodhater 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
It does happen with animals. That is why dogs that are interbred too much tend to be stupid and skinny. Humans only start getting mutations after a few generations. Also, Humans have a larger genome which can affect things.
2007-01-11 10:25:58 · answer #1 · answered by Avon 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Actually humans do, first and second cousins have been known to marry and raise children. It is legal, just so it is kept that far away. Certain states have different laws about it. I am sure it does cause mutations in plants and animals, we just don't see it on the top of things, it is probably hidden inside the DNA, and if it were to go so far, it would start showing up. Ask dog breeders about it. Also, if you go back to the early days, when there were few people on earth, how did we keep breeding in the beginning without being with our own relatives. Think about it...
2007-01-11 16:21:56 · answer #2 · answered by chazzer 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The act of inbreeding does NOT cause mutations. What it CAN do is allow for rare, recessive heterozygous traits to become homozygous and expressed. A good real life example of this is haemophilia afflicting European royalty.
It does the same thing with animals, too. How do you think there are all those different breeds of dogs? The difference is when you're a cat and you've picked up an extra toe, people think it's cute or funny. When you're a baby human with extra digits because Mom and Dad are siblings who both inherited single copies of recessive genes which were passed on to you, it sucks.
2007-01-11 16:16:49 · answer #3 · answered by John V 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Animals aren't usually inclined to breed with close family members. Provided they have a choice of mates that is.
People are just as able to, but don't for the same basic reasons animals prefer not to. Producing offspring with close relatives increases the odds of genetic disorders cropping up.
Incest does not cause genetic disorders or the mutations that underpin them. It just raises the odds the offspring will get two bad copies of a gene that causes a disease/disorder.
The preferences against relatives are the result of closely related animals smelling the same. Yes, that applies to humans as well.
2007-01-12 12:24:30 · answer #4 · answered by corvis_9 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Animals avoid this most of the time by how they live socially. A pride or a herd is headed up by one male, and he alone breeds with the females. Any males that are born are kicked out of the herd by the time they reach maturity, or else they compete with the leader and take his place and kick him out. For the herd leader, this is how he makes sure that all the offspring are his alone and keeps his lineage alive. In addition, it prevents sons mating with mothers or sisters, because the sons get kicked out.
Actually, there is a problem with wild Cheetahs in certain parts. Some packs are in a genetic bottleneck because they have all become related and are at risk of becoming too interbred. Some convservationist shave tried to relieve this problem by introducing animals from other packs to expand the gene pool.
One effect of interbreeding is with the cocker spaniel. they are in such high demand, that some have interbred and the breed has suffered - ill tempered animals or ones are risk for disease.
2007-01-12 14:05:02 · answer #5 · answered by sandand_surf 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
There was an island that had a limited number of people on it so they had to marry a relative because everyone on the island was a relative. They would up with multiple digits - fingers and toes. Not only this but any recessive genes are going to pop-up more often in this situation - so more children born with birth defects.
And in the animal world, the cats at the Hemingway House in Key West - six toes.
Animals are more subject to their instints and humans have a reasoning brain.
If you read Jane Austen you'll find a lot of people in her age married first cousins. It's not illegal everywhere.
2007-01-11 16:31:59 · answer #6 · answered by txkathidy 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Inbreeding increased the risk of getting duplicate copies of deleterious genes - this is true in animals and humans. Humans, by the way, are in fact animals. What's true of animal genetics also applies to humans.
It used to be very common for people to marry their first cousins, and this often happened without any mutations showing up in their offspring. Inbreeding increases the RISK of genetic disease, but doesn't mean it'll happen. Kind of like how smoking increases your risk of cancer, but doesn't guarantee you'll get the disease.
2007-01-11 16:15:33 · answer #7 · answered by panda_glam 2 · 4⤊ 0⤋
We are animals and as many animals we have a incest avoidance evolved history. Incest is more than " frowned upon ", it is avoided by evolved mechanisms of behavior, based on sight, smell and the horizontal movement of young male animals into other social groups, or away from close relations. It is not perfection, but works well enough to keep homozygous recessive damage minimal.
2007-01-11 17:18:37 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
The truth is that it does happen with animals, and that the "negative consequences" with animals are no better & no worse than with humans. "In-breeding" is mostly a socially-unacceptable thing, the 'religious' moral logic behind it actually being a support of the basic tenets of evolutionary science, LOL!
Having a larger genetic pool improves the mechanism of evolution, having a smaller pool tends to exagerrate features whether they are desirable or not!
2007-01-11 16:16:45 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Well animals don't have laws or morality. It causes genetic problems in animals just as much as people. Cheetahs especially are suffering the effects of inbreeding. They were hunted so much that they didn't have a very broad base for repopulation, so they've ended up with lots of problems.
2007-01-11 16:16:42 · answer #10 · answered by tabithap 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋