Coral Clones and Genetic degradation?

[Snaz]

I know there are some clever people here so I thought I would ask. I'm thinking that when we frag a coral we are of course cloning the organism and thus copying genetic defects to the new organism. Correct? If true then if we just keep making clones of clones of clones then eventually the corals become weak because they have little or no chance to repair DNA/RNA?

With sexual reproduction you get all sorts of nifty DNA recombinations, repairs and evolutionary benefits which I don't think you get with cloning.

So is my hypothesis correct? Are we producing weak corals as a result of cloning?

Am I out to lunch? Is infinite cloning possible?

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Is it really cloning though?

What kind of corals are we talking about?

In my experience, with sps anyways, the longer they have been in captivity, the better they have done in my tank. Some of the frags I have got from a member here who has had some of the colonies for 10+ years, are pretty much bullet proof.

But I don't really think its cloning, with sps anyways, because the new frags are just clipped from the tips of the original colonies and then attached to a plug (whether its a frag from another reefer or a frag taken from the ocean recently). So the "new" coral has not been "man made" or genetically made. That's just my logic but maybe I am missing something?

[BlueAbyss]

A 'clone' is any genetic copy, by whatever means, of the original... indeed, your frags are clones. So are most of my houseplants... grown from cuttings (or tissue culture). Same deal, exact genetic copy. There is no genetic tampering when you're talking about cloning something... that would be changing the genetics and thereby making any offspring not a clone but a genetically engineered organism.

I suppose it's entirely possible that the genetics could degrade eventually, but I doubt it... there is at least one small forest in the world where the trees are all one organism, exactly the same genetically but grown from offshoots.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

A 'clone' is any genetic copy, by whatever means, of the original... indeed, your frags are clones. So are most of my houseplants... grown from cuttings (or tissue culture). Same deal, exact genetic copy. There is no genetic tampering when you're talking about cloning something... that would be changing the genetics and thereby making any offspring not a clone but a genetically engineered organism.

I suppose it's entirely possible that the genetics could degrade eventually, but I doubt it... there is at least one small forest in the world where the trees are all one organism, exactly the same genetically but grown from offshoots.

OK that makes sense. I wasn't sure what it exactly meant.

[Ian]

While it is true that they are clones. genetic degradation should not be an issue. Genetic degradation refers to each successive generation being genetically weeker(less fit) than the previous one due do acumulation of defects through inbreeding or accumulation of multiple deletory mutations.
Clones by definition are genetically identical and therefore have the same strengths and weeknesses as the source from which they were taken. This does not rule out mutation and selection even among polyps themselves but it does mean that degradation should not be an issue.

IMO the reason for corals that have a long history of growth in captivity being bullet proof is just that they HAve been successfull in aquariums.They have the right genes to handle our poor replication of a natural environment and have outlasted corals that where less fit.

[intarsiabox]

I guess anything that reproduces asexually is a clone then. Lots of organisms do it without any problems. I guess the genes stay pure if there is no outside influence so coral frags should be fine indefinetly unless they reproduce sexually? Although I guess reproducing sexually is what gets you all the variations.

[Myka]

I have often wondered the same thing, but have yet to find any sort of definitive answer. Lots of speculation from biologist wannabes (like me haha).

[BlueAbyss]

...therefore have the same strengths and weeknesses as the source from which they were taken. This does not rule out mutation and selection even among polyps themselves but it does mean that degradation should not be an issue...

...have the right genes to handle our poor replication of a natural environment and have outlasted corals that where less fit.

When I first got into reefing I found it unusual that zoas can asexually reproduce into a different morph. I eventually remembered it's not unknown in the natural world. Some ornamental plant cultivars came about this way, as a 'sport' of another plant. Sometimes even just as a single unusual branch on an otherwise normal plant.

Some corals, just like some fishes, will adapt better to the artificial conditions we have created. Some specimens are bound to be more adaptable than even others of the same species, hence why we see a lot of the same corals in different peoples' tanks over and over.

Playing biologist is fun :wink:

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

"Cloning" corals (ie. fragging) is a totally different procedure than the sheep cloning the scientists did with Dolly.

Fragging successful corals will mean the spread of good genetic material that is unaltered from the original except due to naturally occuring mutations and such (as someone already stated).

Not something we should have to worry about IMHO.

Coral "cloning" or fragging is more like vegetative cloning, even though corals are animals with symbiotic algae cells inside.

Dolly, on the other hand, was cloned from an adult ewe so her genes were "old" already. That's why Dolly died "young" and had all the symptoms and ailments of an older sheep, since that was the original source of her DNA.

Anthony

[phyto4life]

like the pear type apple or different types of apple's or grapes can coral's be altered from the original colony after being fragged numerous times through adaptation and would the algae inside be different? or be better suited for a closed system? or can something like slicing a purple death paly and nuclear green paly and joining them together to form a new type polyp is this possible?

[BlueAbyss]

Yes, fragging is very similar to vegetative cloning (taking a cutting from a plant). Dolly was a genetic clone, created by taking the nucleus out of a fertilized egg and replacing it with the nucleus from another animal.

What you call an apple pear is actually an Asian pear. Still a pear but a different variety.

You can slice 2 hyacinth bulbs in half, carefully placing the two halves together and wrapping them in an elastic band. Plant the bulb and one half of the flowers will be one color, the other half another color. This is similar to grafting (we've all seen the chlorophyl-free orange, yellow, or red cacti grafted onto a green stock, the green part provides food for the non-photosynthetic part if the graft takes). This can be done with frags of monti caps, you can attach different colored frags together and they will grow together and fuse as they grow.

It's entirely possible that a coral could adapt ('be altered from the original colony') by changing the types of algaes that it contains, but this has nothing to do with the genetics of the coral since the coral and the algae are symbiotic and the coral can just expel the symbiotic algae if it wants. It's likely that corals do this anyhow and that's one of the reasons color changes happen in different tanks (and under different lighting).

As far as slicing polyps in half and attempting to join them, I doubt it would work. Sort of like organ transplants, I would assume... may work for a while, with immunity depressing drugs, but eventually one will destroy the other.