jsasker

If a trophy buck with a monster rack breeds 10 different does and some of them have doe fawns won't these fawns carry the same genes as their trophy father?They must have the same trophy genes--so what happens when an average buck breeds with one of these does with the trophy genes?

tabby

Ummm... good question. Does anyone here have any background with biology? I took the class this semester, but...

Depends on what genes the parents have. Also depends if the gene for big racks is dominet, which I would think it is. If the doe carries the gene for big racks, and it is dominet, I don't think that it would matter. Maybe a 1\4 of the offspring would have the little antlers. 3\4 would have big antlers.

Remember, does would only be carriers of the large antlers, they obviously couldn't have any antlers. It all depends on the genotype of the animals.

greg-dude

You guys got me interested. Does anyone know the heritabilty rate of antler expression?

THe offspring will carry half of the doe's genetic material and half of the buck's gene(s) that mated with the doe.

I may be wrong, but I doubt if there is only one gene that influences antler expression. This means that simple dominant and recessive factor would not apply.

If my assumption is true, that means you may only increase or decrease antler expression by so much of a percent in any one generation. And of course there would a lot of variabilty among offsprings even if they had the same parents.

Then, there is the environmental effect on the expression of the trait. So, even if the buck had world class genetics for antler growth, and is unfortunate enough to live in a time or place of some limiting environmental factors (drought, soils low in minerals, etc.), he may never obtain the antlers that he could potentially have.

I could rattle on.

The answer to your question is that the average of the offsprings of the doe fawns sire by the huge buck should have antlers between the mediocre buck and the huge buck. There will be a lot of variability in the offspring due to the toss of the dice in gene combination and the environment in which the offsprings are born in.

Rack-attack

Who carries the genetic trait for big racks???

Maybe the doe has more to do with it than the buck??

greg-dude

From all that I read, the doe's genetic makeup has as much input as the bukc's on their offspring.

Only way this could be different is if antler expression is on buck's y chromosome. I am pretty sure this is not the case.

Surely, there is someone whom visits this site that is a deer biologist.

Old Faithful

I am in college as of now and am currently majoring in wildlife biology. We have not discussed whitetails, but I think I can help a little. It has everything to do with dominant and recessive genes and x and y chromosomes and all that hard scientific stuff. I believe the doe is, in most cases, the recessive gene. The chromosomes mix almost equally for everthing from body size, color, everything except racks generally speaking. This is because the does obviously dont usually have racks. This accounts for does with racks. That is when a doe fawn recieves an xx or a yy gene makeup, as opposed to a xy or yx. This along with the proper nutrients helps a doe grow antlers. Overall the buck himself has more to do with the rack because he usually has the dominant gene for growing antlers. It's really tough to change the genetic makeup of racks in an area. We have a lot of basket racks we're trying to kill and leaving the younger wider ones. It will take time, but the gene pool will eventually be altered.

jsasker

There has to be certain areas (somewhere on this planet) where the does have the dominant genes?What happens then?
I believe that does play a very big role in the genetics of their offspring--why wouldn't they?It's been proven that the superior does run off the younger bucks when it gets close to the rut--what is that saying about dominance within the "ranks" of the heard?

bowbow

Does that mean that it's possible for a buck to not have antlers as it is possible for a doe to have anters? If this is possible, what if, that buck breads a lot of does, will all the male off spring not have anters?

Pretty good question, makes you go huh? huh?

3 Step

Sooooo if big buck and his male offspring are killed off.......his genes are not carried on through the doe he has sired?? I hope that is wrong.

davidmil

They're all good fried in butter with onions.