So I have a theory about Mosaic genetics... I'm hoping some of the more knowledgeable members will be able to back me up, or correct this. I don't usually meddle with genetics, but I think I may be on to something.


Let me start with the WF gene. It is a dominant gene, so both homozygous AND heterozygous gliders will look like WF gliders.


Lets label WF as "F" and standard grey as "f"


So, a "super" WF (any WF that when bred with a standard grey only produces WF joeys)
is homozygous for the WF gene. Its alleles look like this:

FF

A normal, heterozygous, WF can produce either WF or grey when paired with a grey, so its alleles look like this:

Ff


Correct me if I am wrong, but this is the theory behind why higher gen WF gliders are more desirable. The chance that they are homozygous for WF, or "super" WF gliders increases with each gen.





So, here's my theory:

Wouldn't the mosaic gene work the same way? My interest was piqued when a potential buyer for my little mosaic joey told me that she wanted to breed her to an unrelated mo male. She has also made a post about this titled Would You Do It?.


I know that mosaics are more expensive than WF, so people just breed them to standard greys because at least some of the joeys will be MOs.


Well, what if people started breeding "super" MOs that would ONLY produce mosaic joeys when paired with standard greys? I think this would increase their value.

Having a "super" MO would be very useful in proving other breeding theories... I know someone wants to breed a mosaic creme-ino.... well a super MO would provide that answer with the very first joey.





Ok, that's about it. Any ideas? I know the MO lines were too close together to do any breeding like this a few years ago, but now the lines have been bred out to the point that the test joey that Heather_Wilder created on The Pet Glider database has an inbred percentage of just 2.5%



Please go easy on me all of you genetics experts!

How do you know you have a "Super" and who to pair it with? I would think you don't know you have a super till after they've produced a pattern.

Am I missing something?

Exactly Nancy... that's why people advertise their WF as 3rd gen or 5th gen.... the higher the gen, the higher the chance that the glider is a "super" or homozygous WF.

You wouldn't know until you breed to a standard grey, but it would be just like the WF gene... I also have a feeling that the "super" mosaics may be lighter and flashier than the heterozygous ones... kind of like how the super WF gliders are much lighter than the others.

My Super whiteface is a 2nd generation and is not lighter than my other Whitefaces. Her 1st generation mate is actually lighter than she is.

So this is not always the case, yes you could get a super Mo, but you probably would not be able to tell the difference. Sometimes you probably could, just like sometimes you could tell the difference in a super WF.

The value of Mo's is going down so fast, because there are so many of them now (plus economy) I really don't think having a potential super mo is going to increase the value much at all.

Then you get into problems with inbreeding eventually. If you keep crossing all the mosaic lines to try to get a super mo, you're going run out eventually... How high of a generation number can you tack onto a Mo before you can't anymore, or are inbreeding again? There are already sterility problems with one of the lines, you would probably have to cross the non-sterile with that line eventually, and then you are introducing sterility to the non-sterile line.

Not to make it all a slippery slope or anything, but I really do not see anything but potential problems if people start doing this to try for a mo that produces mo's 100% of the time.

Seeing as you can pair mo and mo and the genetic possibility is only 75% mo's I don't think playing with lines trying to get as many mosaics as possible is necessary, aren't there enough out there that can't get good homes so that breeders are cutting prices to a 4th of what they were costing a year ago?

Glide_Bye_Lily

I see your point... and I think the same is true with higher gen WF... the chance of inbreeding DOES increase... but just as the lines have been bred out in the past, they will be in the future. **look at the new platinums**

The same happens with dogs... when a breed is new, inbreeding and line breeding is used so that the desirable characteristics are achieved... look at the "foundation" gliders for the leu lines, creme-ino line, MO lines, Albinos etc... they were all inbred or line bred in the beginning. There is a post about this, and that's not what I'm trying to figure out here. Yes, there is a sterility issue with some MO lines, but I believe breeders are doing a good job of breeding that out.

So back to the topic at hand... a "super" MO would be more valuable... but by how much? I don't know... nor do I care all that much. I'm just wondering if anyone else believes this could be a possibility.

I'm not saying I think we should all start breeding for super MO's, I'm just asking if you think the gene works in that simple dominance way where a homozygous mosaic would be possible.

I personally don't believe in "super wf" gliders.

I have my 2nd gen wfs that produced nothing but wf joeys. From some of their 3rd gen joeys that I've kept or have been in breeding programs with others, only produced wf joeys.

Atleast until my last little joey. He should have been a 4.5 gen wf but instead is a little black beauty!

I think the term "super wf" was put on gliders "off hand".

I would very much like to see some scientific genetic studies that shows there IS such a thing as "super wf".

What is the topic you want discussed?

It seems like we're trying to answer you, but you're saying we're going off topic?

I think you're a little off here... yes, one possibility would be 75%... but the possibilities do vary.

Mosaic= M
gray= m

If you paired two MO's together, here are the different possibilities:


Parent 1: Mm
Parent 2: Mm
** MM chance: 25% Mm chance: 50% mm chance: 25% **


Parent 1: MM
Parent 2: Mm
** MM chance: 50% Mm chance: 50% mm chance: 0% **


Parent 1: MM
Parent 2: MM
** MM chance: 100% Mm chance: 0% mm chance: 0%**




Does anyone know if the dominant mosaic gene is simple dominance? I think it is, which would make this work... Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I think you made some good points, but I also think that we could have an entire thread about breeding ethics (I'm sure we do have a few on that topic!)

^^I think this is a VERY valid point to what I'm trying to discuss here. You cannot label a glider as a "super" WF until it is proven to be so by breeding. If you look into the simple mendelian genetics of the WF gene... it would be possible to breed multiple generations and still have the recessive trait (gray) show up every now and then. The higher the generation really just gives you a better chance of having that homozygous or "super" (like 66% het vs 33%)

Good point! I suppose having a MM mosaic would be useful, but it still wouldn't guarantee mo colored creme-ino's!

I think Suggiemom has 2 MOs currently together. You are right that the lines have been bred out due to the fact that it is a dominant trait. The thing is I have seen gliders labelled as Super Creminos too who hadn't even been bred yet, genetically speaking, how do you know you have a MM instead of a Mm?

I don't feel it's wrong to put Mo and Mo together but when it comes to COI, I look at a pairs COI and try to make sure any line I match their joeys with will lower the COI. I think that is better for the lines. This is something I have to look at closely since I am breeding within the cremino line. I think if you keep crossing MOs to get a line of Supers....you will eventually be bringing the COI back up. When I decided to breed, I did it because the genetics interested me so. A goal I set for myself is if I want to go with genetics and new color variations, I'd still need to strive for lowering the COI each generation.

I wanted to note I am on the band wagon trying to make a MO cremino, but I'm not sure if a "Super" cremino or MO would have worked considering unless you have run DNA, you can't really tell if they are Super even if they come from a Super line. I even spoke to a large breeder about this and she still had doubts about the Super line continuing to be Super.

I guess here is what has me confused.

Start with the definitions.

Homozygous refers to having identical alleles for a single trait.

Heterozygous refers to having two different alleles for a single trait.

In theory, there "should" be hets for mosaic or hets for wf (as we use the term in relationship to gliders) but for some odd reason, gliders just don't work that way.

We know that for a glider to be mosaic, it has to be homozygous or it wouldn't express the trait. Same for the wf.

In simpler terms. You have to have one mosaic parent to get a mosaic joey. You have to have one wf parent to get a wf joey. Because of that, we (the general public) will say there is no such thing as "het for" mosaic or wf. This has been shown over time with the wf gliders. All those years where breeders sold "het for wf" only to find out that two "hets for wf" wouldn't/couldn't produce wf joeys.

If you put a wf or mosaic with a grey. You are introducing OTHER alleles to the soup. Since a grey can't be homozygous for wf (or it would be a wf), you are still working on the same "gamble" that the wf/grey pair will produce something other than wf. Just because out of the 12 or 20 joeys they have, none are grey, does not mean that the wf parent is a "super wf". It just is the luck of the genetic draw that each of those joeys got the wf allele sequencing right to make it a wf.

If you breed two mosaics, then you should be able to produce nothing but mosaics but that doesn't make either one or their offspring a "super mosaic". Because when you then put that offspring with a non mosiac, you still have the chance of non mosaic joeys. Again, it is luck of the genetic draw.

In theory though, IF we could run dna panels on gliders, we might be able to take two "hets" and put them together and MAYBE the alleles would line up just right (getting one wf allele from one parent and one from the other) to make a wf joey from non wf "het" parents. We just haven't seen this.

Tish,

You are right. There really is no way of knowing what a glider is without DNA testing or by breeding the glider.

I've seen the super cremeinos too... and I think the term "super" is being mis-used frequently.


SUPER is a term that labels the glider as being homozygous for whatever trait he/she may have. Homozygous means two of the same allele... A glider can be Homozygous domnant, or homozygous recessive.

In fact, it would be correct to label all leucistic gliders as homozygous or "super" but the term has evolved to mean more than just homozygous.

I think that people are more loosely using the term to mean "I think this glider will only produce more of the same color if it is paired with a standard gray". This kind of labeling is incorrect. I think it is better to stick with the generation.


A 5th gen WF will be MORE likely to be homozygous than a 1st gen.


I agree with you about SUPER lines as well.... there really cannot be a SUPER line... only SUPER individuals... so perhaps we should keep counting gen and let that speak for itself.

The tricky thing about genetics and the punnet square is every new joey get a restart of the same punnet square the last one did.

I knew when I started breeding MOs and Creminos together my punnet square was gonna get a lot more tricky considering MO has been proven to be Co-dominant, but cremino hasn't YET.

It isn't as simple as a glider being homozygous or heterozygous...it gets more complicated when you factor in which is dominant or recessive too.


On a semi-side note. If we could get all this figured out, I bet we could have more wf/wt joeys! Those seem to be one of the hardest combos to produce. The wt gene is apprarently so confusing that even getting wt joeys is difficult. (even from two wt parents)

^^ I haven't even LOOKED at wt... it seems to be REALLY confusing. I do think we (breeders and genetics fanatics) on a whole are making progress though... maybe we could get this figured out someday? **Oh wouldn't it be loverly

Just another question that could play into things.

A human can have one how many different blood types?

Do gliders have different blood types too? If so, could the blood type be a cause or effect of the different gene sequencing and could that effect the colors we get (mosaic or not from the same parents)?

Even if the mosaic parent is MM, the joey still gets half of it's alleles from the grey parent. So, you get the "gamble" from the grey parent.

Blood deals in Alleles as well so we can be:

AO or AA (referred to as A)
BO or BB (referred to as B)
AB
O
Then there's the rh factor where we can be plus or minus

I see what you mean now... it's the gray that is giving the gamble allele, not the MO.

Yes anytime grey is added back in, it gets it's fair shot whether the parent is a MO (Mm) or a grey (mm), grey gets back into the equation.

I get that aspect now...

Are you saying that even a cross between a "MM" and a "mm" could result in gray joeys??

I do agree that anytime gray is bred to, the gray gene will once again be introduced... do we know that grey is 100% recessive or is it another mystery?

All this is discussing the "genotype" theories. Anyone considered the "phenotype" theories?

A phenotype is any observable characteristic or trait of an organism: such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, or behavior. Phenotypes result from the expression of an organism's genes as well as the influence of environmental factors and possible interactions between the two.

Look at the mosaic joeys Alicia produces. She seems to have some secret lab (or atleast is accused of having a secret lab) where she is creating an abundance of extraordinary joeys. Maybe there is some truth to the theroy of Alicia's joeys?

I never thought about blood type before...

I know that dogs have blood types (although the exact number is debated) so it would seem possible for gliders to have blood types as well.

Just because a glider expresses a trait does NOT mean it is homozygous.

For technicality's sake we do not call mo's and WF's het's because in our community 'het' means that the carry the trait.

But if any animal inherits one allele and another it makes it heterozygous.

If a white face expresses whiteface, or the same for mo's it DOES CARRY the trait- the WF or Mo allele 'overrides' the grey allele and it is expressed.

This is how you get greys out of two WF parents. BOTH parent's have a WF allele AND a grey allele, which makes the heterozygous.

the two WF parents would look like this genotypically.
W-White face
w-grey

Ww x Ww

Ww- heterozygous for White Face
WW-homozygous for White face.

You know what? I HAVE thought about this. In one of my recent posts, I said that I believed mosaics tended to produce joeys that had markings similar to themselves. My MO has a large break in his stripe (much like many other MO's) and even his most minimally marked joeys have a hint of a break.

You know Gucci right? Kris' Glider with that spot on his hip? Well that spot has been passed on to some of his joeys.

And yes... Alicia must have a secret lab, how else can we explain how she hits the joey jackpot so often?!?!?

^^ YES! This is the basis that I think we are all trying to work from... Good definition

The joey's produced will still be mosaics, at least as long as our current understanding of the mosaic trait holds out. The genotype will be Mm though, instead of the MM of the original parent.

You are right. Here is where the dominance, recessive or codominance of the genes plays in and where it gets complicated.

One of the problems we have is the way the "general glider community" has come to use certain terms.

The community uses the term "het" to mean the glider has the potential to produce a certain trait. Such as a Leu "het". Two leu "hets" can produce a leu. Technically there ARE wf "hets" but, because of what type the genes are (recessive, dominant, codominant etc) we know that a wf "het" paired with another wf "het" won't produce wf joeys.

This is one reason I hate the prunett squares. They overly simplify the issue. With gliders, it is anything but simple. There are to many other factors that play into it.

No, you're right MM x mm wil always get you a MO. If you do get a non-mo, you know your MM was actually a Mm.

Okay I don't want to go way off topic, I am finding this conversation very interesting but wondering for a beginner where do you find all of this genetics information for gliders? I have seen a couple sites and I am really interested in learning. Thanks!


Lindsay

There are a few things to consider...

First of all: have you LOOKED at the high-gen WF lineages? If so, then you'll know that the further you go back, the scarier they get! :\ Personally, I would never want to look at mosaic lineages and see something like that just because people want a mo that will produce more mosaic babies. :\

Secondly: the only way to PROVE that a mosaic is a "super mosaic" would be to breed that glider multiple times. So, if you're wanting to sell "super mosaics" then you'd have to keep the joey and breed it multiple times before being able to label it as "super". Then what?...are you going to sell that glider that you've now had for a couple years and have bred many times and bonded to it?

See the problems? So, even if you DO get "super mosaics" the cost would be too high for the gliders.

BTW, there's no guarantee that a mosaic would be "super" either. I have a mosaic that used to be paired with a WF and of the 5 joeys they had, only 1 was a mosaic. However, I ended up having to separate them and now he's with a 66% cremino het female and with his female they've had 6 joeys and ALL of them were mosaics. Sooo...if I'd originally put him with the cremino het and not with the WF then I could easily claim him as being a "super mosaic". However, that would be a lie, because he's NOT a super mosaic, it's just a good pairing, but if paired with a different glider he'll throw non-mosaics.

Hope this helps.

Lindsay,

The easiest genetics to understand is simple mendelian genetics in my opinion.

Here is a pretty good website to learn from.

And here is where you can learn about genetic probability using the punnett square.

Describe "high generation". Is 3rd gen considered "high gen"? Not all of the "high gen" family trees are a disaster. Yes, some are, but not all.

I agree completely Nicole! This was what I was trying to get at in my original post.

Genetically even, there are a lot of problems that could arise from many generations of Mo x Mo pairings. This is not an ethical statement, it's genetically based-and potentially true.

Lindsay- I have a huge interest in genetics, and have spent many many hours picking breeders minds and researching lineages on my own. It takes a lot of time to figure it all out, and even then-you're always still learning!

So it isn't considered okay to breed two MO's?

Let me ask you this...

Would you buy a glider who has two Mo parents?

I'm confused.. A LOT!!

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I would not.

I really advocate breeding lines out, especially the color lines (mosaic, leu etc). So buying a glider with the potential to start intertwining the lines would not be a good thing. IMO.

This is a lot to digest and a lot to think about! :/

Should i risk giving up an adorable glider but at least having one mosaic or should i get both because they've captured my heart?

HELPP!!

I see where you are coming from... but isn't there a point to where the line is SO far bred out that it wouldn't do harm in breeding two like-gliders together?

I mean, even standard grays originated from some original pair... Look at the WF lines... now people don't think twice putting two *unrelated* WF together because the lines can be so far apart, that there is no risk of inbreeding.

Whoa!

We're getting off topic!

Back to the Genotype Phenotype theory that Dancing brought up...


I think Phenotype theory may be an effective way to improve certain desireable charachteristics (like ringtail, wt, etc)

Do we know anyone who has bred for a certain phenotype? (ie. wt, broken stripes, spotted ears etc.)

With the leus, trying to find unrelated pairs can be challenging to say the least. With the mosaics, because you don't have to pair up mo to mo to get mo babies, I don't see any advantage to it, other than being inlove with two unrelated mos and wanting them as a pair. I also don't see any "initial" problems but if this becomes a common practice, given a few generations, all the mos will be related and the random mo/mo pairs would be almost impossible without inbreeding issues. I just think outbreeding is the better option.

Wow... I gotta headache from that. There's 10 minutes I'll never get back.

I Agree! Well stated.

I agree as well

If I remember correctly- Karin's double mo pairing just had a leu. So I guess that debunks the double mo's always produce mo's theory? Or does the always produce mo's differ when there's leu het %'s involved?

I didn't know about Karin's joey. But I have to ask, is she SURE it is a leu? Wouldn't that have to be "proven" out by breeding that joey to a non leu (or non leu het) and also a non mo? If that glider then throws a mosaic, would't it prove that "leu" to actually be a white mo?

Didn't someone recently have what they thought was a Leu throw a mosaic joey? Meaning that the parent glider is actually a white mosaic and not a leu after all?

Is there leu in her mosaics lineage? If not, I'm more likely to say it's a white mo.

But obviously I don't know anything about the gliders in question...

I don't know about Karin's joey, but, I have a leu paired with a mosaic who is a 12.5% leu het. She's had 3 white joeys. The male is neutered. 1st female is paired with a gray and has had 2 gray joeys (none other that I've been told about). The 2nd girl I kept, she's not old enough to have joeys yet though.

This is Lanie: http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r56/G...current=044.jpg

I remember something about this... there CAN be 100% leu het MO's (that's what my Mowgli is) so two MO's could potentially produce a leu... now it WOULD be great if what looks like a leu could produce MO's AND Leu's.... would we all be on

BekiT,

Isn't that interesting! I wonder if they are leu's or if you are REALLY lucky!

beckit are they white mo's or leus? 12.5% such a low percentage in your mosaic.

regards,
nancy in detroit

Nancy, I'm not yet sure of they are mosaic under the white or leu (which would mean I proved out a 12.5% het!)

Only time will tell with Lanie as she's just 6 months OOP and I haven't been told of Enigma had any other joeys. If they do prove to be mosaic under the white I've dubbed them "mosistic"

So interesting BeckiT!! She looks like a leu because the white mos I've seen examples of have the spotted ears. If she does turn out to be a "mosistic" that'd be soo cool.

Erin,

I know what it is that you are talking about... someone did post saying that a Leu proved to be a mosaic as well.. wish I could find that post now!

Just want to clarify this. Two MO's COULD potentially produce a leu but ONLY IF the MO's are also leu hets. If there isn't leu in both family trees, then no, they would not be able to produce the leus.

We do know that leus can mask the mosaic, just as leus can mask wf. (pairing a leu with a grey and getting a wf means the leu is also a masked wf).

I am still trying to understand all the genetics, too, but am curious how you would know a leu is a mosaic "underneath"? The only way would be that it would prove out in joeys with no mosaic in the lineage, correct? If a "leu" has other colors, it would be a mosaic and not a leu if I understand it correctly? And where does the "super" come in? This is all the more reason for a standard being made for all the colors, so there is no confusion and everyone is on the same page with what they have and can produce, in my opinion. Sure wish someone would publish a paper on glider genetics!

If you take a leu/possible masked mosaic and pair it with a grey and get a mosaic joey, then your leu is also a mosaic. But there is the chance that the leu is really a white mosaic though that chance decreases with the family tree. It seems that the leu coloring is stronger than the mosaic coloring so can "mask" the mosaic.

Dancing,

I've got a female like that right now...

She is either a leu masking the MO coloration, a white MO, or just a leu... Her parents were very low leu hets if I remember correctly, so she is probably a white MO or a leu that is masking the MO markings.

She is from Judie Hausmann and I have her with a gray from KDR. She has joeys IP so I'm very excited to see what I get!

Is one of her parents a mosaic? If not, she isn't a mosaic.

If she is a leu, being with a grey, she won't produce leus so if you get white, you know you have a mosaic! (or masked mo)

I think this uncertainty is why I have no desire to pair leu with mo. I guess I want to be sure what my joeys are. (besides cute)

Yep, one of her parents IS a mosaic... neither are leu if memory serves... I just PMed Judie about her lineage.

I think there's starting to be quite a few leumo's out there that people don't know what they are until they start producing but even then, it's still hard to tell. And if they keep paring them with leu hets, then the questions of leu, white mo or leumo will continue.

Kara's lil boy Burl from Alicia, looks like a leu but he had a mo & a wfb in his first set of twins. Then there's their new baby, the little girl I'm getting, she could be leu or could be mo or maybe the leumo- but unless she starts to color up, we will never know.

With Karin's, they are leu het's with the dad being a pretty low percent. Last I read I think she was thinking leu but...

It get's pretty confusing when you start to factor in the possibility of gliders looking like one thing, and being able to produce another!

Not to go off topic but just wondering

Does Alicia have a website? I would love to see some of her gliders. Thanks

No she does not!

I really wish she had a site where we could drool over all of those pretty babies whenever we wanted to!

Thought it was like Sweet N Sour Sugar Gliders or something like that.

I know... I just don't see a link to it anymore on her profile on SGN... I'll ask her..

It was but she has since let it close, since it was mostly to order her sissy's.

She had a bunch of pics up on it though ~ just couldn't remember how recent I'd been on it to know what gliders would be there. I found it and most of the pics are broken links now.

Okay, so I hope you all resume the genetics discussion! I never have anything super smart to say, but I'm always here learning!

The Jolly Gliders also has a lot of white mosaics also. My mosaic boy seems to only produce white mosaics. The gene is very strong in this line I'm told.

Good to know

I'd personally like to see the statistics of joeys produced from a Mo x Mo pair. What would be interesting to see is the number of joeys produced from the pair from each litter, how often they're produced and what phenotype they appear to be. This can become difficult though since glider litters are so small.

The reason why I say this, is because we don't really know if mosaics can even exist in the homozygous state. I'm gonna bring up another species to explain (please don't think I'm trying to compare another species to gliders, I'm just speaking genetics here). With chinchillas - you don't breed two mosaics together or two black velvets together because the white (mosaic) gene and the TOV (black velvet) gene can not exist in a homozygous state. It's pretty much considered the lethal gene, and the homozygous fetus dies in utero and is reabsorbed resulting in a lower number of kits. Now, if you were to take a mosaic pair and realize that you get less joeys (regardless of phenotype) from a certain mating, then it is possible that mosaics can't exist in the homozygous state.

This is something I'd personally like to test in the far future or study from afar, but rather interesting to digest. I don't like comparing species, but it's practically the same idea.

In fact, are there any lethal genes that have been discovered in gliders yet?

I don't think there are any "lethal" genes as you describe. However, I know the albino gene is very fragile. I believe albino's life span is significantly shorter as well.