Aussie Finch Forum

Whats the difference between us naturally selecting better birds (ie full red front Emblema)and breeding to enhance this to mutation finches?

Any time an animal is selected for in captivity it isn't NATURAL selection, natural selection relies on nature "picking" those best suited to the environment they live in so survival of the fittest, we humans by removing predators, disease and competition remove natural selection and therefore impose our own selection processes. It's truly up to each individual breeder what they choose to select for be it colour or size or any other factor, hopefully most breeders pick for health above all else Selection can only act on what we are given though so (and to be quite honest I'm not sure exactly what your question is) we can't make mutations but can only select the best of the mutations that arise....in nature mutation occur as well and it is the different mutations that natural selection works on.

If we are breeding for health etc colour of the normal bird against trying for cinnamons or pieds,crested head or some such off the normal colouration is what I call mutation..

Selecting for red front is increasing modifiers, there is no change to the locus itself, still a normal bird, though selected for increase in colour.

Mutation is a complete change on a Locus which unto itself cannot be selected for, ie trying to turn a normal bird into a pied. If the gene is not there it will not happen. The change on the locus must occur first.

They are completely different!

If you ultimately selectively breed toward something which is unnatural in appearance then at the end of the day there is little difference to the naturalness of the end result compared to many captive established mutations. However with selective breeding the selector is in the driver's seat and can take the appearance of the bird where ever he/she likes. Selective breeding need not necessarily aim to distort natural traits and proportions. It can just as effectively restore desirable natural features. Whether we are conscious of it or not we are selective breeding every time we put a pair of birds into a breeding aviary/cage. The potluck choice of any hen to any cock of a species in captivity can and does over many generations distort captive stocks away from natural attributes as well. Selective breeding simply aims to breed with a definite goal of producing young birds with features which the breeder finds desirable. Most initial colour mutation breeding is entirely out of the control of the breeder as to how a mutation initially appears. Establishing the mutation once it occurs can be deliberate but the breeder has no control over the appearance of the mutation itself. These are the key differences as I see them. Not all natural variations in all traits are mutations which can be predictably passed onto offspring with known modes of inheritence as in most captive mutation breeding. Many of these differences are simply variations in extent of a trait which when combined with their opposite give a half-way outcome.

Natural selection = survival of the fittest. More or less. An animal has some sort of survival advantage over others of its species (e.g. better camouflage, size, vigor, defensive mechanisms etc.) so it has a higher chance of survival than competitors, competitive edge over others of the same species or some other advantage. This is passed on to its offspring, leading to a change in the make-up of the species over time.

Mutations can lead to these advantages, though they can also cause, for example, birds (like albino) to be less likely to survive as they have lost natural camouflage abilities.

Selective breeding, however, is where we step in and select what we, as keepers and breeders, find desirable traits and breed our birds to enhance these. These can be either mutations, or colourations, like the full red fronted painteds.

NOTE: posted at the same time as Tiaris, spent too long typing to just delete it again