Tarantulas and the Theory of Evolution

[montraydavis]

I was randomly thinking about a possible evolution process of Tarantulas. Would there some how be a way that Tarantula Breeders could breed a new generation of Tarantula species which isn't so aggressive, better vision, and much faster speeds?

For instance... Breeding a generation of T over and over does promote genetics. So, say the T's are exposed to more light during the day by generation. Feeding and drinking occurs in the day time, thus the spider
would (possibly?) eventually adapt to hunting in the day time... After
some time (which I have no clue), eventually, they will dwell during the
day and be more active during the day. Switching them from nocturnal
would definitely be a plus lOl.

As far as speed and vision go, I have no clue, but I wouldn't doubt that
there would be some type of way to get it done? Vision, my best guess
would be them hunting in the day time, they would need better vision,
thus some how adapt... Not sure if it works that way.

Also, how would this work to say...... effect the size of Tarantulas. I really
love arachnology. Just wondering if this stuff is even possible (assuming
some of the best archnologist started a project).

Hopefully this stuff doesn't sound completely stupid.

 

[DemonAsh]

I would think none of us would be alive to see the results of such an endeavor. Evolution is not a quick process.

 

[montraydavis]

I would think none of us would be alive to see the results of such an endeavor. Evolution is not a quick process.

Well, yeah... That's the reason I emphasized on not knowing how long it would take. I'm just wondering would it even be possible?

 

[BrynWilliams]

what you're saying is in general theoretically possible with a couple added points and realisation that practically it's not really doable to any great degree

Firstly, using Darwin's theory of evolution as a base, a species will genetically 'evolve' only in the presence of a selection pressure. This is implied in the classic 'survival of the fittest' statement, whereby the fittest would survive because the 'not fittest' would be les able to function in the given environmental constraints (hunting, finding mates, etc etc)

So to engineer this process in captivity, one would need to provide a selection pressure. For arguments sake let's introduce a stationary food source located in the enclosure that is 'hard to reach' by a standard terrestrial tarantula. Using a vast number of subjects (discussed below) you'd find that a small number of those subjects would locate the food source and it could be due to a number of factors, but again for arguments sake, say that it was the ability to climb.

By this method you would then select out the better climbers with whom you could grow and breed on etc etc. Incidentally you would need to keep increasing the 'difficulty' of the climb if you wanted to keep selecting and encouraging that trait over several generations (also discussed below)


Secondly the provided selection pressure has to be carefully chosen as one which applies to heavy a pressure will just wipe out your test population, whereas one too easily overcomeable will slow the rate of selection (using the above example, you may find that not a single test subject locates the food and they all just die)

Thirdly evolutionarily advatageous traits are pretty uncommon as they are condiered anomalous variations as part of random mutation of the genetic code. By definition these new traits occur extremely few and far between so you'd need a hysterically large number of subjects to find one which was better at something than the rest

fourthly the basis for this is based on generational turnover and so this would occur over a time scale that is rediculous, a single trait can take thousands to millions of years to exert it's selection bias on a given population, especially in something like tarantulas which take so long to reach maturity. Due to the fact that if the selection pressure is non lethal then the existing population will still be present to a degree and will dilute down your 'better climber' gene with their regular old ones. This by nature is less of an issue of your poorer trait results in lethal consequences such as predation

Well there's a couple of my thoughts on the issue

 

[NikiP]

I think it would be very, very difficult.

Most species that we humans breed towards what we desire in them, we know a lot more about them. How much do we really know about Ts & how much is just guessing?

It's easier to tell which cat is a better mouser, what horse can run longer, what dog can smell better. They interact with us & their surroundings a lot more so the desired qualities stand out more.

Tarantulas have survived this long because of their ability to do almost nothing.

 

[Kirk]

Give hybridization a try.

 

[Death999]

Better chance with biogenetic engineering

Not like it will ever happen but let's imagine
Docile slow moving pokies
T's that play fetch
Make art with webs
Go for walks
Flick hairs on command
Make you breakfast
And even give you a hug lol

 

[Tapahtyn]

not like it will ever happen but let's imagine
docile slow moving pokies
t's that play fetch
make art with webs
go for walks
flick hairs on command
make you breakfast
and even give you a hug lol

i love it!!!

 

[cacoseraph]

sure is possible


you are not evolving them, you are selectively breeding them. huge difference. as long as you pick genetic traits and are clever at how you isolate/reinforce them i would expect to see results in as little as ~3 generations. definitely by 5 generations




but, i mean, bryn kind of touch on the trick it seems like you are missing. you can't exactly force anything. you have to uncover the genes you want and then breed the hell out of them. line breeding and other types of inbreeding are probably going to be necessary.



for docile pokies... you would essentially need to find a mom and dad that are somewhat more chill than average. breed 'em. find all the offsprings that are more chill than average. breed the nicest male back onto the original mom. power grow half and slow grow half. in breed nicest male (mentioned above) to nicest sister if you can time it right. etc. of course, that type of inbreeding not only isolates and expresses nice traits but also crappy ones. so you need to cull out any seriously crappy expressions



for years i have wanted to breed VERY fast growing P. murinus for experiments. to do that i would find a female and male that matured fast. get eggsacs. keep all babies at same conditions (or half fast and half slow...) and then pick the fastest maturing of the fast females and try to mate her with the fast maturing of the slow males. from that point on it is simply a numbers game, breeding the fastest maturing specimens together, with some preference given to line and other forms of inbreeding for anyone who really expresses the desired traits

man, now i kind of want to do this again :/

 

[Jaymz Bedell]

aside from the great information already here there are other things to worry about like inbreeding depression and outbreeding depression. genetic bottlenecking. as caco said you also have to consider that not all traits are good and with the good comes the bad. one or all of these things can happen in as little as 3 generations, and please notice i say CAN happen and not will happen. multi-generation inbreeding can does take place all the time. there's a lot of good discussions about maximizing allele frequency in captive animals on dendroboard. this is a hotly debated topic on that board. it takes many generations to domesticate animals that are considered more evolved than our beloved tarantulas so i can only imagine how many generations it would take to achieve the goals you are looking at. but great food for thought!

 

[brian abrams]

Spiders & evolution

Tarantulas are the most primitive of all spiders; meaning that they have evolved (changed, "improved") the least of all spiders. the book lungs alone aren't nearly as efficient as the lungs of "modern" spiders. It's like with snakes. Pythons & Boas-Boids (my favorite) are the most prinmitive of all snakes. They still have a pelvis, and remnants of legs, along with both lungs. These are leftovers from the days that that evolved from lizards (monitor types). The smaller lung is almost useless. Most snakes have a long, very usefull long, and have adapted to a much broader range than heavy-bodied, terrestrial "ambush" style constrictors. The most highly evolved are the venomous snakes, which don't have to grapple with their prey. Even so; the most primitive tarantulas & Boids are the only spiders/snakes that have captured my interest; for some reason or other...

 

[Scorpendra]

Even though it's obvious what you mean, I need to say that the idea of making diurnal Ts by making them eat and drink during the day is fundamentally wrong. Genes don't work that way. If you chop off a finger, your kid won't have the same injury.

As for the idea of bioengineering Ts in general, from the "Would you make a giant tarantula" thread:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?p=1682234#post1682234

Taking this into consideration, the concern about genetic bottlenecking and inbreeding is hypothetical. Of course I'm not saying you can't try...just that you'd have your work cut out for you.

 

[Anubis77]

Sounds impractical to me from that standpoint. The animals are slow growing and the hobby isn't as developed or appealing, which I would think are needed traits to get enough of a base to carry out efficient artificial selection. Dogs, cats, reptiles, and fish do have that interest and base, and you can see the concoctions that resulted from it in any pet store.

But, I think we'll be seeing an increasing number of genetically engineered designer pets rather than carrying out an artificial evolution like we do now with domestication. The Craig Venter Institute is proof enough of the continued development in the field. It's fair to say it's a leap to go from bacteria running on computer-generated DNA to a multicellular organism as complex as a tarantula, but I'd wager on a quickening progression of the technology needed to encode complex organisms coming into being this century.

There's been speculation, at least with the media and futurists, that engineered organisms could become commonplace and readily made by private individuals in their "garages," so to speak, legally or maybe not so legally. It is speculation and nowhere near as simple an issue as I've described it, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least if commercial ventures will be churning out absurdly designed organisms in the coming decades without the nuisance of thousands of years for the process.

Hypoallergenic cats and transgenic fluorescent zebrafish already one-upped spiders, so all of this is well out of the realm of science fiction (in case you thought I was insane or just read too much Gibson for my own good).

 

[Endagr8]

Tarantulas are the most primitive of all spiders; meaning that they have evolved (changed, "improved") the least of all spiders.

Not exactly. These guys are the most primitive spiders.

 

[The Mack]

BrynWilliams nailed it. It could take hundreds to thousands or more generations for a single expressed mutation to even occur. And, chances are, the mutation won't be "advantageous." Trying to breed a more docile tarantula would be especially difficult considering that it really can't be accurately measured. And there are always exceptions to the rule (the occasional aggressive G. Rosea and docile P. Murinus for example).

Dogs, however, are a good example of how much variation can be achieved within a single species due to selective breeding by humans. Indeed, around 130,000 years has resulted in a wide array of sizes, colors, shapes and other features; sort of an artificial evolution for dogs. It is kind of cool to think that you can mate a Bull Mastiff with a Chihuahua ! Or a Poodle with a Pit Bull!

 

[montraydavis]

So I see that it's "possible", but not "likely". This is really great information.

Well, are there any traits that wouldn't be "as hard" to promote such as aggression
and dwelling during the day?

 

[PhobeToPhile]

Size, for one, should be easy to select for. bigger or smaller, your pick.

 

[Stan Schultz]

I was randomly thinking about a possible evolution process of Tarantulas. Would there some how be a way that Tarantula Breeders could breed a new generation of Tarantula species which isn't so aggressive, better vision, and much faster speeds? ...

This isn't "Evolution" in the traditional sense. It's selective breeding. Evolution and selective breeding are parallel phenomena that use a roughly similar practice (survival of the fittest and survival of the most desirable) to accomplish some end point in a "kind" of living organism's "development." (Here, I limit the definition of "development" to mean an inheritable, generation by generation change in one or more observable characteristics. This contrasts with the definition used in Embryology and Development circles. (Too much information? Sorry.)

... Hopefully this stuff doesn't sound completely stupid.

Not at all. In fact, whether we want to admit it or not, we are already engaged in such a selective breeding project. It is very easy to understand where, in any collection of freshly caught tarantulas, those that breed more readily in captivity are going to be the ones that are bred most often in captivity, all other considerations being equal. Thus, in a global sense, those kinds that will be kept long term in captivity will already be slightly different from their wild cousins simply because they bred in captivity.

And, their personality and physical characteristics are bound to change, whether we like it or not, as time and the number of generations progresses. Enthusiasts are going to try to breed the more colorful individuals rather than the drab ones, the bigger individuals rather than the tiny runts, the very most docile (or perhaps the most "aggressive"), etc. Sooner or later, our captive populations will no longer be able to survive without human intervention, and our domesticated tarantulas will bear only a distant resemblance to their wild cousins.

I mark the publication of Dr. William J. Baerg's little book, The Tarantula in 1958 as the beginning of the tarantula keeping hobby. If we can accept that premise, our hobby is only 52 years old. (I was 15 at the time!) It's so new that we're still trying to learn to breed half or more of the kinds of tarantulas we have in captivity. And, only the second or third captive bred generations of many of the species we have bred are now approaching maturity. Contrast this to most of the other domesticated animals we keep for agriculture or as pets. They've been captive bred for millenia!

We've only just begun. We still have a long way to go in this hobby. But, matters are about to change radically. Just be patient.

 

[The Mack]

Well said Pikaia, some great points there. I wonder what kinds of different captive bred tarantula variations there will be around in a few thousand years!

 

[PhobeToPhile]

Well, we may only have to wait a few hundred years to have radtarantulas . But i imagine we'll first see color morphs like in the fish and reptile hobbies. Later on...we'll probably end up doing to the poor things what we did to the wolf. I can already imagine it now: pugtulas.