Guppy Gardening

Dr. Richard Squire is unique. He is a geneticist and a guppy hobbyist. He is retired from teaching genetics as a full professor in the Biology Department at the University of Puerto Rico. What makes him unique is that he is a geneticist and a hobbyist who has written an article (the first of many I hope) for the hobby. There have been hobbyists with degrees that have written about guppies, like Dr. Leon Whitney, but he was a veterinarian and not a geneticist. He wrote "All About Guppies" that included a chapter on Mendelian genetics. (According to Bill Gill, the first edition of the book only had Whitney's name of the cover. Paul Hahnel's name was added to the cover years later.)

Genetics is one of those courses that is part of a veterinarian's studies, but it is not integral to the DVM (Doctor of Veterinarian Medicine) degree. Nor is the developmental biology of color cells. Sometimes when you are out of your area of specialty you can stick your foot in it. A particularly amusing example of this is the hapless reptile vet who blogged on the Internet recently about pigment mutations.

Here is the link: http://vetherppath.hubpages.com/hub/Understanding-Reptile-Color-and-Correct-Color-Terminology.

He complains about the "misinformation highway" and wikipedia: "Some in the misinformation super highway's drunk lane (abbreviated 'wikipedia') do much more than confuse the issues, they actually write things that are incorrect..."

Apparently he believes his DVM (his veterinarian degree) inoculates him against fallibility. But only the pope is infallible, and our sarcastic DVM soon gives himself a mortal wound.

This is what he declares about melanophores:

Melanophores - contain mostly melanosomes and are capable of two forms of pigment production. Eumelanin is brown to black and pheomelanin is orange to rust or rusty brown. Melanophores, unlike melanocytes in mammals, generally do not inject their melanosomes into keratinocytes.

In the words of the great Johnny Carson, wrong lizard breath.

It is mammalian melanocytes that produce eumelanin and phenomelanin. Fish, amphibian and reptile melanophores produce only one pigment: melanin.

The reptile vet may be wrong about melanophores and leucism, but he is right about one thing. There is a lot of misinformation in hobbies. Unfortunately we must add him to list of gurus that distribute misinformation. That is why you are better to go right to the source, to those competent scientists who specialize in genetics and the developmental biology of color cellsy. Chief among these is Dr. Joseph Bagnara who has taught us a lot about how color patterns in animals form. His speciality was pigment science. And of course there is O. Winge, the father of guppy genetics, whose Eighteen Genes essay is still a source of correct information about guppy genetics more than 85 years after it was written. In fact when you hear guppy breeders talk about F1 or F2 generations of a cross, they owe a debt to Winge, whose 1927 article (Winge, Ö,  1927 The location of eighteen genes in Lebistes reticulatus. Journal of Genetics 18(1), 1-43.) still informs guppy hobbyist breeders right down to modern times. One of the greatest of modern breeders, Yoshiki Tsutsui, inventor of the Panda, Galaxy and other modern strains, was fond of quoting Winge in his correspondence to me.

See my Guppy Abstracts publication, which lists hundreds of reliable sources of information about animal color and inheritance.

Competitive show guppy judging rewards guppy breeders for their ability to breed guppies to a standard. Presumably more than good eyesight and good taste is rewarded. A certain amount of knowledge about the inheritance pattern of traits is required. That is what genetics is in its essence. You would think that the study of genetics would be promoted by show guppy organizations. After all genetics theory teaches us that all animals share basic mechanisms of inheritance. That was what Mendel discovered. He had a very practical reason for studying and applying genetics theory. The abbot of his monastery tasked him to help the local farmers increase the yield of their crops. And that is exactly what happened and continues to happen to this day. Bigger, better crops. Bigger, better farm animals. Healthier dog breeds. Faster horses. Sustainable zoo populations. The benefits of applied genetics theory are there plain to see.

A better understanding of the mechanisms of inheritance offers a few other advantages. It makes you a more efficient and precise breeder, since you discover exactly what gene is responsible for a trait and how it is inherited and how it interacts with other genes. In the past few years I have discovered the keys that unlock many modern strains, like the Mg gene's role in the Micariff, Full Gold, Half-Black Yellow and Silverado strains. Discovering the genes and their interactions that give a guppy a specific color or shape is very powerful. It frees you from  slavishly following the dubious practices of others. Why dubious? Because there is no guarantee that what works for another breeder will work for you and your particular setup and strains...or your goals and standards. Understanding why a certain cross does not work is much more useful than memorizing the interdiction against it.

Why is theory so important? Well, despite what many people think, the term "theory" does not mean the scientist is guessing. It means he or she has come up with an explanation for a set of observations. The explanation is couched in scientific terminology, a precise language for referencing observations. That is the true value of scientific terminology despite what the reptilian vet might argue otherwise. If you have ever tried to follow a hobbyist trying to account for a set of observations he has made about crosses in the fish room with his own private terms you will know the value of scientific terminology. It is not a perfect system, but like Winston Churchill said about democracy, is the best system we have. The alternative is either tyranny or anarchy. The tyranny of a guru who subjects you to his "breeding systems" or the anarchy of of indecipherable babble. Theories and the terms they generate facilitate discussion. And generate consensus. Some theories are so well established and enjoy such wide consensus they generate no disagreement at all. They allow people to move forward to more pressing questions.

Which brings me back to Rick Squire. He shows you the value of genetics theory when applied to the guppies in your fish room. After reading his article I finally understood why Rick calls himself a "guppy farmer" in his correspondence with me. He was trying to explain his relationship to the hobby. What he sees in his fish room is different from what I see. I see the results of my experiments. He sees a population of guppies.

He is of course self-deprecating. A guppy farmer he is not. Guppy farmers have hundreds or thousands of gallons of tanks under management. They grow and sell fish. Rick does not do that. He "gardens" his guppies. His fish room is a garden of guppies.

I think I would like to become a guppy gardener someday, when I am retired from this quest to unlock the genetics of strains. There are certain colors and patterns, and body shapes that I have fallen in love with, like my Silverados or my Pied beauties. Guppy gardening will be less stressful and more fun.

On the more serious side, Rick's article shows that there is nothing particularly mysterious about guppy breeding. Encoding it as a "breeding scheme" unique to a mythic guppy breeding master is just pure obfuscation. It hides the fact that the so-called breeding scheme is actually a simple application of genetics theory. And if it cannot be deconstructed into simple genetics theory it is inauthentic and wrong. As I said earlier, there is nothing better than reading the actual source material, and Professor Squire's article is the real thing.

I would suggest you brush up on Mendelian genetics before reading Rick's paper. His paper is easy to read if you have a working knowledge of genetics theory.

Rick's articles is an instant classic. Download it, print it out and go out to your fish room. You will be amazed what you see through the eyes of a true master guppy gardener...and bona fide geneticist.

Here is the link:

http://www.fancyguppies.co.uk/AgeneticistRevised.pdf

Philip