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And great question, Charlie! I kind of wondered that myself - how proven are the het statistics?

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Yeah, I don't think the het statistics especially as it relates to the glider leucistics are definitively proven. The genetic laws and theories themselves have proven their vaildity in other species through the many years of studies begining with contributions of Gregor Johann Mendel in 1850 and later those of the rest of the scientific genetics community. With the sugar glider species, however, I think at this point everything is theoretical and intuitive. It seems the leucistic phenotype and even the more simple colour phenotypes like cinnamon and champagne are still not completely understood. As was mentioned, we simply don't have nearly enough generations to be truly proving anything; sugar gliders were shipped/smuggled into North America in the late 80's which amounts to only 20 or so generations in captivity to date. We know the theory behind the genetics but it would really take time and years of breeding to really prove and determine with certainty the true nature of the colour phases in gliders. Even then, it will only be empirical knowledge unless we begin studying the genes at a microscopoic level, which I'm sure we still have yet to do. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

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Mike Sandridge (sp) of Sandman Sugar Gliders has produced WFB's from 2 hets. Also, leucistics have been produced by 2 hets for leucistic (Sheila's Saleen, Larissa, and I think BabyDevilsAngel's Glacie were all from het/het pairs)

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From the statistics of their breedings, we'll be able to make better inferences on the nature of the genetics. I really applaud each of them for undertaking such a venture! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yelclap.gif" alt="" />

Mikey <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dance.gif" alt="" />

Charlie, as far as the hets for Blonde, I have never put two hets together. Leyna is right though I have produced three Leucistics from Het to het breeding. Mickey and Minnie (normal colored hets) produced Saleen; Lil Dipper(normal color het) and Sunny(WFB Het) produced Larissa, Sammie and Sesamie's parents were both hets. Abbey (normal colored het) and Mickey (normal colored Het) have produced Glacie and we have two more coming out within the next couple of weeks that are white due to het to het breeding.
Also, don't want to correct Dancing, but you can actually get a het from a normal glider and a het glider which is normal color. There would only be a 50% chance that it is het, but neither parent or grandparent has to be white. The grandparents need to be 100 % het for Leucistic though.

But, there really isn't a way to tell the difference between a het and normal grey, right? So, let's say you bred two luecistic hets and the baby is grey. Does that make it a het because both parents are hets? This stuff is soooo confusing. *LoL*

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" /> What if you breed a het luecistic with a wfb? I've heard you can get platinums. Is that right?

Ugh...my head hurts from reading this thread! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif" alt="" />

Haha....I agree Stitches...I have 2 hets, but wouldnt know if I had a colored joey if it came out with a label on it!!! Thats sad, but true...

We have never had two hets for blonde produce blonde joeys either. I think one of the problems that breeders are encountering trying to use the color breeding stastic tables is that we are not starting out with true bloodlines. For instance so many of the gliders that appear to be WFB are actually the results of breeding a WFB to a gray glider. And there are not enough background on the WFB parent to actually know how it was produced. Although we are not involved in line breeding I can see where it needs to be done by responsible breeders like Shelia in order to develope more pure bloodlines. If everyone continues to out breed the WFBs with grays eventually the genes will be diminished. We have to start somewhere to develope the colors and it would seem that some inbreeding and line breeding is necessary to obtain favorable results. Since there is no national registry for gliders such as the AKC for dogs, it is up to each individual owner to keep records on their gliders pedigrees and cross reference with other breeders of color in gliders.

We do have WFB gliders and have records on all of our gliders but never focused on the WFBs in particular. Guess since there are so many people interested in breeding colored gliders I should dig through the paper work and establish a more concise pedigree for our WFBs. In the past our focus with the WFBs has been more on keeping them out of the hands of people who whould abuse them by over breeding and not giving them proper care.
Charlie H

"What if you breed a het luecistic with a wfb? I've heard you can get platinums. Is that right?"

Only 1 platinum has been produced by a lue het/WFB pairing and that's Sheila's Haley. It's thought that Bailey, Haley's WFB father, might have some special genetics though...

Wow! So complex, yet so intriguing! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yelclap.gif" alt="" />

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We have never had two hets for blonde produce blonde joeys either. I think one of the problems that breeders are encountering trying to use the color breeding stastic tables is that we are not starting out with true bloodlines. For instance so many of the gliders that appear to be WFB are actually the results of breeding a WFB to a gray glider. And there are not enough background on the WFB parent to actually know how it was produced. Although we are not involved in line breeding I can see where it needs to be done by responsible breeders like Shelia in order to develope more pure bloodlines. If everyone continues to out breed the WFBs with grays eventually the genes will be diminished.

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I fully agree with Charlie on this one. What he's describing here is genetic drift. If that is the case (no blondes coming from two het blondes) then the nature of the genetics indicate that homozygous parents should be used as much as possible for the propogation of the phase.

So my next question is, then, how extensive are the pedegree records that people like Sheila have been documenting seeing as the WFB phase is quite a widespread bloodline? I hope she posts soon.

I really feel a group of people should perhaps come together and really attempt to co-ordinate a registry of some sort, analagous to the AKC for dogs. I know some people have attempted and that there are many factors involved including money, time, committment of members, etc but for the good of the glider gene pool it would for obvious reasons prove invaluable, especially for the colour phases like leucistic, platinum, etc. The documents of Sheila, Chris, and other breeders of colours recording and tracing bloodlines, would certainly set it off to a great start. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Mikey <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dance.gif" alt="" />

So, in other words, you have to stay as close to that true line as possible. You need both parents to be as close to Luecistic as possible and even then it works out best if one parent actually is a luecistic, right? That makes sense to me. :-)

I could have swore I read somewhere that the best pairing for a luecistic het is a wfb because it produces color variations more often than other pairings with a het luecistic. Where oh where did I read that?

Wow where to begin?

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A het for leucistic is a glider that had a white parent but looks like it's grey parent. Two greys that do not have atleast one leucistic parent (one leucistic parent=het for leucistic)won't produce leucistic joeys. Now if your grey has a leucistic parent then it IS het for leucistic and if paired with another het there is a chance for leucistic offspring.


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To clear things up: The immediate parent does not have to be a leucistic to pass the allel for leucistic to its offspring. It the granfather was a leucistic, for instance, and the mother was a het for leucistic, and the father did not carry the leucistic allel then the offspring of the parents would be possible hets. That is to say that they will have a 1 in 4 chance of carring the gene. If it does carry the gene, even though it is only a possible het it can be proved if it produces a leucistic, either by mating it to a leucistic or a het, or by chance to a normal looking glider that previosusly was not known for carring the gene.

Also genetics can be a lot more complex than simple Mendillian genetic theory. A het can look like a leucistic penotypically if the second wild variation allele is damaged or not transcribed correctly.

As for leucistic being sex linked, no that is wrong, there are both male and female leucistics and both male and female leucistic have produced leucistics.

We do not have the number of breedings necessary to say satistically, that the leucistic gene does not follow standard Mendillian genetics. As breeders we must assume this is true until disproved, or else our breeding programs become emensly complex.

What would be great would to discover the exact allel on the specific chromosome for each of these color variations this would give us a way to prove a het without waiting for a leucistic to be born and allow a faster way to diversify the bloodlines while still maintaing the variation.

I do think the idea of a central database should be created to maintain and monitor these new color variations by keeping a single geneological tree for each variation, at least. A Registry is despriatly needed. People are not willing to submit their updates and no one is able to devote the time to maintain it. Right now my computer is in the shop and I will not be able to post much due to classes. I would love to get together with you Mike and go over what I have in the "Master Copy" of the Leucistic geneology and get your insight into what you think is happening genetically. I have to update it, it will take about a week. I will need to get permission from the breeders and owners first.

Ushuaia

Hmmmm... you know I just realized something. Ushuaia, if the following statement is true:

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A het can look like a leucistic penotypically if the second wild variation allele is damaged or is not transcribed properly...

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...then it's still a possibility that the leucistic phenotype can be a sex-linked gene. For instance, one possibility could be that the "leucistic" colour locus could be located on the "X" chromosome, and in short, the males may be leucistic hemizygotes and true leucistics and the daughters leucistic heterozygotes also appearing to be leucistics. I can attempt to draw a chart of the distribution of the mutant alleles.

This is only one possibility that would imply that perhaps leucistic could indeed still be sex-linked. I have a feeling still it's even more complicated than this. I feel perhaps the colour phases are determined by multiple alleles and the colour phases express themselves as an interaction/combination of the genes. Any thoughts?

Mikey

Mikey - Isn't Medallian's Law of independant assortment pertaining to two alleles that do not effect each other? For example, say a pea has an allele for yellow (recessive) and green (dom.) peas, and another allele for wrinkled (rec.) or round (dom.) peas. One allele does not effect the outcome of the other. As for the precursor, one allele can cause the other allele to be masked (in the example I gave) so there they effect each other. I think this is something other geneticists figured out.

I'm not sure if I think the leu. gene is that complicated. I personally think there's a good possibility it is recessive. Have you looked at any numbers comparing the male leu. to female leu. ? I checked out one breeder and she had two female leu. and two male leu. This is a pretty even ratio (although this few of numbers doesn't even mean anything). Mendel used large breedings for each of the crosses he did. This is why his numbers are statistically significant. Sweet peas reproduce a whole lot faster and are easier to take care of than sugar gliders.

Even if there was more females leu. than males (vice versa), its hard to tell if its due to sex-linked genes because we don't have the number of breedings. Another example, take a coin and flip it several times, sometimes there are more heads than tails, but if you do it enough times you should eventually have a 1:1 ratio. Not to say that it the leu. gene couldn't come from sex-linked genes, just saying its very hard to tell right now with the number of breedings available.

I do think you're right when you say that certain colors come from multiple alleles. Its a very good possibility. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Faierie - I bow down to your computer skills! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif" alt="" /> I took a java class my fresh. year and it was one of the hardest classes I've ever taken!

Ushuaia - I would also love to see a central database of geneology for the different color variations. Do you already have one put together and just need to update it? It would be extremely interesting to see. About how many leu. do you have on record? A database might give us some numbers that would be more accurate to base ratios off of and then with the ratios we can determine the genetics behind the colors (hopefully!). <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Mikey - Thank you so much for talking genetics with me! I have definately enjoyed it. We should open up a new thread about the genetics behind different color variations if you want to keep talking about this (this post is getting long and off topic). I'd really like to know your thoughts on more variations. For example, what about mozaics? I haven't checked out any crossings so I have no idea. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nixweiss.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> Why am I such a BIG loser?! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nixweiss.gif" alt="" /> LOL... Sorry, what I really meant here:

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Oh, i took a look at it Squirrel, and that "precursor" concept that you posted is a description of Medellian's law of independent assortment (and in our case) as it relates to the multiple allele factor that I mentioned or any other genetic factors that may be...

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...was that it was a description of something like independent assortment as it relates to, etc... Ah, I'd stayed up all night and it was 6:30 AM or so when I wrote that LOL... my bad for the confusion... it certainly is NOT independent assortment and actually relates more to the factor of multiple alleles... *kicking myself for that one*

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Anyway, Squirrel, the reason I highly believe that the leucistic phenotype is much more complex than simply being a single recessive allele is because in many of the animals that I've studied, colour phases like leucistic and albino usually are quite genetically complex. There is much evidence that such phases are governed by multiple genes, in most cases.

For instance, albanism is really a generic term for the lack of pigmentation in the skin, hair, eyes, etc. There are however different types of albanism, e.g. occular albanism (where the eyes appear pink/red), partial albanism (non-pigmented and pigmented areas), Nystagmus Albanism (lacking some albanistic traits), etc.

Generally, albanism isn't simply governed by one gene or allele in most species (i.e. not governed by a single recessive/dominant allele) and is often the result of several genes or alleles interacting togther to bring about the albanism. In fact, in domestic rats, the species Rattus norvegicus, for example, there exist two phenotypes, a pink-eyed white and a red-eyed white, both of which appear albino. However, statistically and genetically, they bring about different ratios of offspring expressing the same phenotype, and thus suggesting that the two albanistic phenotypes are different in nature, and that albanism in the rats can actually be brought about by the effects from more than a single specific gene, i.e. through two or more possible genes or through the interaction of several genes. This is the case with many other species including various birds, certain fish, rabbits, and (I believe) ferrets. Of course we have had innumerable generations to observe such patterns in the animals, and obviously we haven't had the luxury to do so with the gliders. Alot still needs to be understood in regards to albanism in animals, and it can get complex especially when and if it's governed by multpiple genes and/or alleles. So, this is why I feel the rather exotic phenotypes like leucistic are more than likely very complex involving one or more genes/alleles and not just simply a single recessive one, like the single allele that controls whether or not a human can roll their tongue in the shape of a "U". Infact, haven't you seen a Himalayan rabbit - all white, red-eyes, seemingly albino but with black ears? It's evidence that albanism is controlled by multiple genes or multiple alleles, and I am confident in saying that the leucistic trait may be, as well.

With regards to the leucistic phenotype being sex-linked, I suggested it as a possibility that shouldn't be ruled out. I brought it up because Ushuaia mentioned that even heterozygotes can express the leucistic trait if the gene was damaged or not transribed properly. Thus, assuming the leucistic phenotype is sex-linked with the colour locus located on the "X" chromosome, you will have offspring that include the hemizygous males which express the leucistic phenotype, plus the possibility of heterozygous females which appear to be full leucistics but perhaps aren't true leucistic hemizygotes. Both will also be capable of producing offspring that may express the leucisticism whether they be true leucistic hemizygotes or simply leucistic heterozygotes. I doubt we really have enough generations to prove that this is not the case. This is yet another reason why, again, any recorded geneology of the leucistic phase would prove invaluable to the glider/breeding community. We'll be able to determine such trends like a greater frequency in males than females, etc. Also, it's worth mentioning that colour phases like albanism is considered sex-linked in parakeets and various other avian species. I don't think we should out rule the possibility that the leucistic trait as well as others like albanism is not sex-linked in gliders, especially if we're working with multiple genes here.

Squirrel, it's no problem talking genetics with you! I enjoy it. With genetics, things can get extremely complex and often requires a lot of inferring, guess work, evaluation of data, and problem-solving.

Mikey <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dance.gif" alt="" />

wow - I got really behind on this thread! (stupid classes!)

I have to agree w/ Mikey about a possibility of sex linkage... after all, look at the calico coat in cats, it's almost always a female color, but it is possible to get it in males; or color blindness in people: while most colorblind people are male (due to it being recessive and linked to the x chromosome) it still occurs in females

and I think Mikey is also right in saying that the genetics behind color are most likely extremely complex... we are still not positive in horses how it works and we've been breeding them forever. While for horses we have a pretty good idea, there's always cases where a mare throws an unexpected color.

therefore, I believe our best bet is to have genetics people look at lines and trees and hope that it follows Mendalian ideals and that it's not so complicated that we can't figure it out.

Mikey - You're not a big loser. I was just making sure that you didn't think that they were exactly the same thing. Its just an addition to the law of independant assortment.

I definately think there are multiple alleles when dealing with the color variations. I also think that there is a chance some of the variations could be sex-linked, due to a precursor, or codominant, and I'm not yet ruling out that the leu. gene is recessive. Our best bet is to wait for Ushuaia to get the database up and running and discuss what we think about each of the variations after we are able to see progeny from differnt crossings all in one place.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone even know how many chromosomes a sugar glider has? Has there ever been a gel electrophoresis done with glider DNA?

great question Squirrle!

I have no idea but would be very interested to find out

I occasionally have access to a gel electrophoresis so I would really like to run a few sometime. I'll probably have to do some research for someone in the biology department in order to do this. I talked to a plant geneticist the other day and she's going to give me the name of an animal geneticist to talk to. So hopefully within the next year. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

that would be awesome... sadly, oocyte transplantation has nothing to do w/ using gels so I can't run one myself...