/sci/ - Science & Math » Thread #11604360

540KiB, 1600x1208, a3430c_ab78a0f2e2124919ba058ad58e0199b2.jpg

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO

What is the minimum population of humans needed to maintain healthy genetic diversity?

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 03:12:19 2020 No.11604360 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>11604425 >>11605203 >>11605239

For example, sending a group of humans to live on another planet with them being able to reproduce self sustainably without inbreeding and also without ever having to send more humans to the planet later on.
How big would this group have to be and how different genetically would they have to be from each other?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 2020 03:36:36 No.11604425 Report

Quoted By: >>11604713 >>11606376

>>11604360
60 is apparently the minimum amount of humans required for a self sustaining population without genetic bottlenecking, but you would still need a pretty strict breeding regimen for the first few generations to prevent inbreeding.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 2020 05:25:09 No.11604713 Report

Quoted By:

>>11604425
also would need a enforced 2.1+ birthrate to survive

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 2020 06:49:45 No.11604858 Report

Quoted By:

This is actually very complicated, it depends on many factors included luck.
Without any intervention a crucial part is how fast they increase population, the faster the better.
Interventions can be a marriage policy, they don't choose freely but only in a way intended to diminish the risk.
Even better if we can identify all major recessive defects in their dna (we all have them, they have no effect on you precisely because they are recessive and little chance your unrelated partner has the same).
Going a little further in the future we could engineer dna to remove those defects.
A population like that could even do incest freely, at least for some generations.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 2020 07:09:44 No.11604880 Report

Quoted By:

There’s this concept I’m vaguely aware of in population genetics called effective population size. May be worth a Google

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 2020 09:50:57 No.11605203 Report

Quoted By:

>>11604360
if that planet is vaguely "earth-like" then youd need like 100-200 humans for them to just breed like rabbits and overrun the place, civilization not included that might a couple hundred thousand years to arise.

On the other hand if you mean another planet as in most "another planets" we know, which mean desolate barren worlds in which even ac ouple of seconds without very complex life support equipment means certain death, then you need a very advanced expedition with a lot of raw resources to get started and at least a couple million to start an industrial base

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 2020 10:21:33 No.11605239 Report

Quoted By:

>>11604360
why not just use frozen eggs and sperm to increase genetic diversity? you could easily store thousands of different genomes in a very tiny space that way, basically solving any genetic bottleneck issues

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 2020 12:29:16 No.11605500 Report

Quoted By:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 26 Apr 2020 18:25:15 No.11606376 Report

Quoted By:

I dont think there is a strict number. The smaller the population, the worse, but theres no point at which it becomes super bad or super good.
>>11604425

> 60 is enough to avoid genetic bottlenecking

There was a time only like 1000 years ago when there were literally only 300 Ashkenazi jews in Europe. That was a tight bottleneck and jews also have a lot of rare genetic diseases. Coincidence? Maybe.

The Amish are much more numerous than 60, but they get weird genetic problems. Maybe they just like inbreeding.

I think first cousins mating is tremendously healthier than sibling mating. But still unhealthy, and you would definitely get some cousin mating after a generation or two after 60 people.

Capcode	All Only User Posts Only Moderator Posts Only Admin Posts Only Developer Posts
Show Posts	All Only With Images Only Without Images
Deleted Posts	All Only Deleted Posts Only Non-Deleted Posts
Ghost Posts	All Only Ghost Posts Only Non-Ghost Posts
Post Type	All Only Sticky Threads Only Opening Posts Only Reply Posts
Results	All Grouped By Threads
Order	Latest Posts First Oldest Posts First

Your latest searches