Re: Fw: Line breeding vs hybridization corn/maize.

From: "Wilbert Hetterscheid" hetter at worldonline.nl> on 2001.07.01 at 04:17:23(6922) There is a difference between fig wasps invading figs and human interaction to get improved crops: humans are intentionally and result-driven, with a mind pre-set to do it. Fig wasps, for all I know, do not seem to have a mind of their own in doing their thing with figs. So symbiosis and plant breeding are not the same thing. It is not so much the processes themselves but the way in which they are "used" to experiment on organisms. So, what the fig wasps do, fits evolutionary theory of adaptation and speciation as we define that today but breeding plants intentionally leads to different things, that do not behave as new and adapted species. It leads to entities that lose their "integrity" (as forced upon them by breeding) as soon as they escape again. Discussion flares up again when such escapees do find a way to establish themselves, albeit deviated from their "cultivated" looks (Dingo vs. dog). What to call these escapees? It's a gray area. Wilbert +More ----- Original Message ----- To: Multiple recipients of list AROID-L Sent: vrijdag 29 juni 2001 1:35 Subject: Re: Fw: Line breeding vs hybridization corn/maize. > In a message dated Tue, 26 Jun 2001 1:54:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "Julius Boos" writes: > > << Wish I had all my 'ducks in a row' AND all my literature in order when > something like this comes up! There was an article, in I believe a > "Natural History' Mag just a few (3-5?) years ago, the author says they had > FINALLY discovered in Mexico the or one of the wild 'grasses' that was > definitely the or one of the parents of maize as we now know it.>> > > Question: If fig wasps were taxonomists, would they say figs are all unnatural species, because these evolved in exclusive mutualisms with them? That is, in essence, what we are doing when we call our cultivated crops unnatural. As I see it, all our domesticated plants and animals are simply cases of mutualistic symbiosis; and just as a yucca compromises by losing some seeds to feed a moth larva in exchange for propagation by said moth, so our domesticates do the same. I have no problem giving them the same taxonomic status as any other symbiotic species. > > To bring this bacvk to aroids, does any genuinely wild population exist of Colocasia esculenta? > > Jason Hernandez > Naturalist-at-Large >

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