Hmm genetics gives me a brain ache in the morning LOL. From what I can gather and remember (there is a ton of genetics research online btw so have fun folks LOL)...

In any natural population heterozygosity is genetically preferred I guess you'd call it. In other words Mother Nature set it up so that we pass on genetic diversity and are not naturally the same even within a given population in a stable environment (in other words species that don't migrate distances to spread out their genetic material). When a population is affected by any number of natural or un-natural events and a population bottleneck occurs and depending on the generations this bottleneck affects and how many founding breeders are left available, then you see a sudden jump in homozygous individuals outside of the natural occurance. Once the effect is over though, from what I understand, nature reasserts and strives for balance...in other words...hetrozygosity.

When we inbreed or line breed creatures we are in effect unnaturally creating a genetic bottleneck to hopefully get a desired effect (my take on it and decided simplified). Even with a population of wild BP's a naturally occuring male morph for instance is going to have available to breed a higher percentage "normal" females who may or may not carry any "special" genes compared to a female of his specific morph right? Mother Nature at work again to keep the population well stocked with various genes so that each individual in that natural population is unique genetically.

Zebra's are an excellent example...big herd creatures....all are striped but not one zebra stripe pattern ever matches another no matter how closely they breed. In fact if you watch a zebra mare give birth she will circle her newly born young constantly. The belief is she is visually imprinting her particular pattern on her young so that at any time it can pick her out of a herd of milling almost, but not, identical zebras as the sense of smell would be lost in the dust storm of flying hooves.

So I think what Adam was saying is that a high population density, low geographic distribution species like BP's, nature has long ago mapped out a plan to make sure they are geneticially diverse. Unless something drastically affects this stablized population in a sudden occurrence....nature will just tick along following the plan, favoring diversity, occasionally popping up an interesting morph or two....just like it's always done. Depending on how much concentration of the genetics occurs I would think affects the morphs produced but I believe in the end nature will strive to balance it back out if left it's own devices.

Mother Nature is no dumb broad LOL.

~~Jo~~