Still-n-Quiet said:
25cent said:
Yearling buck dispersal may have developed as a behavior to reduce inbreeding, but it certainly isn't need for that anymore. It appears to be used as a mechanism to spread genetics as far and as quickly as possible.
You seem to say this as if the deer know the process of genetics. This is clearly not the case. What have studies shown that actually cause the mothers to run off their male off-spring?
Poor symmantics on my part in an attempt to simplify a very complex process. Animals don't know or choose their genetic traits. Nature chooses genetic traits through the Natural Selection process. Those traits that provide an advantage are favored, and those traits that are detrimental are weeded out.
And we can never know exactly why a trait becomes predominant. All we can do is make logical conclusions about why it exists. What positive effect does that trait produce? Perhaps there are several possibilities. In addition, a trait may have been favored for one reason, but over time that same trait may by shear coincidence produce a different favorable effect.
That may be the case with Yearling Buck Dispersal (YBD). Logically, what adantage does it produce? Obviously, it moves male offspring away from their birthplaces. What advantage is that? One advantage is obviously less inbreeding between son and females of his same genetic lineage (mother/grandmother/sister/cousin, etc.). But YBD also produces other advantages they may not have been the original reason it was favored. Of great importance is the fact that whitetailed deer are unusual in that the species displays extreme genetic diversity within the total population
and between individuals of a given local population. Because of this, inbreeding really isn't a problem (back-breeding repeatedly through the same family line does not produce the genetic damage commonly called "inbreeding"). So if inbreeding isn't a problem, why is this trait so favored (it is common throughout the entire species, regardless of location)? What other benefits does it produce? It spreads genetics far and wide. Males born in one area leave, set-up home miles away, and then reproduce, moving heritable traits fairly significant distance over short periods of time (a few generations of deer). Is this helpful to deer? It appears so, as deer
appear to be using genetic diversity as a species defense mechanism. They are such a genetically diverse species that there are always a few individuals that can prosper--just by shear chance--in any environment they are placed in. Being able to prosper in any environment is a HUGE biological advantage from a survival of the species standpoint.
In fact, there are a long list of deer traits/behaviors that just happen to have the side effect of increasing genetic diversity within localized populations. When you start seeing mutliple traits that all produce the same effect, it starts to become obvious that those traits and their effect are important to the species. Genetic diversity is such a trait in deer, and many of their behaviors increase genetic diversity.
