Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Hybrid bluegills

Norm:
Your "1/4 Bluegill, 1/2 Hybrid, 1/4 Green Sunfish" view of the first generation offspring is a simplification that I believe would be correct if sunfish had only one pair of chromosomes. All the higher animals have multiple pairs, so the offspring would indeed run the gamut from "pure bluegills to pure green sunfish."

At first it seems to me pretty unlikely that the offspring would veer very far from a 50-50 mix of BG-GS, but given the huge numbers of young involved from even a few breeding pairs, they probably would include nearly pure BG, neary pure GS, and a number of intermixes in between these extremes. The fry that were viable and well adapted to live in the pond in question would grow and could end up dominating.

I can see how this could lead to offspring that would eventually seem a great deal like either green sunfish or bluegills, given variation in different ponds' environments and management strategies. I've read from some posts here that green sunfish can be managed into comparative oblivion, and from others on how you can't get rid of them without renovation. So conditions could be correct for the later offspring to thrive as near-GS or as near-BG.

As for "hybrid vigor," all organisms carry "bad genes" which, alone or reinforced, cause traits which may be fatal, a challenge to overcome, or no problem. I carry genes for lopsided ears, nearsightedness, and an enzyme deficiency called Gaucher's Disease. If reinforced, the results are respectively no problem, poor distance vision, and usually fatal. Since my wife is not closely related to me, our kids are attractive (IMHO), alive, and see well. It's hard to get more unrelated than a different species. I think "hybrid vigor" results from near crosses which are viable, where the parents have completely different sets of "bad genes" so very few or none are reinforced. This gives first generation hybrids which truly have the best of both worlds.