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2020-06-23, 03:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2010
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Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Ive heard varying figures so I thought I would go with best case scenario. You are an all powerful alien who wants to seed human life on an identical to earth planet that has no sentient life. You can take the widest assortment of people possible that would be conducive to minimizing risks such as genetic issues, important skills for survival, premium breeding range and ideal age ranges for colonial life. What is the smallest amount possible that would be permanently safe for the next 50 generations to come? Feel free to toss in any other factors that could be used to further shrink the total head count.
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
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2020-06-23, 03:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Are they allowed to take any kind of tech with them, or are they going to be naked?
See also this previous thread on a somewhat related topic.
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2020-06-23, 03:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2010
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- right behind you
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Honestly, it could go either way. It would be easier for them if they were dropped in a deserted city/town with everything already built and established that they just have to figure out how to settle into, but I imagine that, with the right mix of skills that I mentioned, dropping them in a clearing with basic tool sets to cover things like cutting down trees, building houses, and hunting along with the clothes on their back wouldnt be too much worse barring bad luck. Include a message letting them know whats happening so they get started on survival rather than thinking if they walk far enough they can get back home. After all, this isnt about returning to modern civilization levels, its about forming a colony that will last by itself without falling apart due to things like inbreeding issues 4 generations in. Where they eventually go from there isnt really a part of the topic.
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
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2020-06-23, 03:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Inbreeding isn't a problem if they all die of dysentery, malaria and/or starvation by the end of the following few winters. A self-sustaining population of humans is significantly larger than even the long-term genetic viability number is (200 unrelated individuals, IIRC).
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2020-06-23, 03:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2010
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2020-06-23, 06:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
You need at least 50 individuals short-term to avoid inbreeding issues, and over 500 long-term. Beyond that, we need to know a lot more about the technology level and knowledge base.
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2020-06-23, 08:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2009
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
If the random internet rants I've read are correct, you could theoretically get away with just two people if their genetics were absolutely perfect. Though at that point you'd run into problems if you come across any diseases that target those genomes.
If you add some kind of parthenogenesis, you'd just need one.See when a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one there to hear it, you can bet we've bought the vinyl.
-Snow White
Avatar by Chd
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2020-06-23, 08:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
The number I've heard bandied about for a lot of sci-fi novels and whatnot (either in the work itself or via comments from the audience) that 400 is about the bare minimum, at least if you want to account for unexpected factors like premature death.
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2020-06-24, 12:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
There's evidence that the entire human species was reduced to a few thousand individuals (some studies say as low as 40 breeding pairs) due to a supervolcano eruption 70,000 years ago--we came within a hair's breadth of extinction. So, you can definitely recover from levels that low, I don't know how much lower you can go and still be viable! (Note that these few thousand humans wouldn't have all been in a single group but would have been scattered all over the African plains at this point).
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2020-06-24, 01:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Watching the world go by
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
70,000 years ago there were humans across eurasia, just not Homo Sapiens. Species of our genus seem to be at least somewhat cross fertile since most people outside of Africa have some neanderthal DNA. And the more we learn about neanderthals, the more we realize that they were human enough that we would recognize them as such if we met them today. Our distant ancestors who wiped them out might have been more discerning about it, but I suspect that if you dropped into europe of 40,000 years ago you would have a hard time telling which groups of smelly hunter-gatherers were homo sapiens and which were homo neanderthal.
As for how many people you need, are you looking for a population of mostly young adults (i.e. 20-ish) to populate your paradise with, or do you want to kidnap a town or two and you are trying to decide which towns?
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2020-06-24, 01:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
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- Tulips Cheese & Rock&Roll
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Can I as the advanced alien use genetically engineered humans with all recessive genetic defects removed? Because that would definitely change the inbreeding problem for the first few centuries.
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2020-06-24, 09:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2018
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
It would also depend on how much gene tech they have. If they can correct genetic issues, the number can probably be lower. Also this can give another issue, namely are they going to select mates based upon genetic compatibility. That can also influence numbers.
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"Magic can turn a frog into a prince. Science can turn a frog into a Ph.D. and you still have the frog you started with." Terry Pratchett
"I will not yield to evil, unless she's cute."
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2020-06-24, 04:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2011
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Originally Posted by factotum
There's evidence that the entire human species was reduced to a few thousand individuals (some studies say as low as 40 breeding pairs) due to a supervolcano eruption 70,000 years ago--we came within a hair's breadth of extinction.
Also, do you have citations for the studies claiming 40 breeding pairs?
Originally Posted by Rockphed
70,000 years ago there were humans across eurasia, just not Homo [s]apiens.
Originally Posted by Rockphed
Species of our genus seem to be at least somewhat cross fertile since most people outside of Africa have some neanderthal DNA.
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2020-06-25, 01:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
I found the thing about 40 breeding pairs on this website:
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwic...-in-70-000-b-c
However, the link saying that takes to a book called The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean, and I can't find any independent verification, so I think it has to be taken with a very large pinch of salt. Mind you, while doing this search I've also found articles suggesting the Toba catastrophe theory isn't all that certain--there are human settlements in India that existed both before and after Toba went up, and being closer to the source you'd think they would be much worse affected.
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2020-06-25, 03:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
We don’t know that our ancestors wiped them out, it could have just been that we appropriated all the most fertile places and they died of gradual starvation over the millennia.
The book Homo sapiens, a brief history of humanity claims that there are evidence of a (series of) mutation within the second half of our species existence that allowed for a more efficient use of language which in turn allowed for sapiens groups to grow much larger than other human groups and co-operate on a larger scale hence why we thrived and they didn’t.Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2020-06-25, 07:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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- The Land of Cleves
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Another possibility: Can we bring frozen embryos/gametes? If so, we could solve all of the gene pool issues with a single woman and a supply of ten thousand embryos. Though of course you'd still need a lot more to get a viable workforce.
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
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Current Homebrew: 5th edition psionics
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2020-06-25, 09:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2020-06-25, 10:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2016
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
If the species are interfertile, you don't even need the one that went extinct to be pushed far enough into marginal areas to die out, it just needs to have had a small enough population relative to the other species to be assimilated into the other population without making the resultant hybridized population deviate significantly from the baseline for the extant species.
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2020-06-25, 12:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2020-06-25, 01:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2009
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- Maryland
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Basically, this comes down to genetic diversity. A batch of siblings would have relatively low genetic diversity, and thus, if you were taking your candidates from a closely related pool, you would want a much larger pool to decrease the odds of severely negative inbreeding.
There is always at least a certain random chance element, so there really isn't a fixed number. It's more accurate to say that smaller populations, genetic diversity being equal, have a greater chance to experience problems from inbreeding. If there's enough inbreeding, that basically becomes a sure thing, like losing the lottery after buying one ticket generally is. But there isn't a static number of 49 people die off, 50 people live.
40-50 breeding pairs of reasonably diverse genetic history would *probably* work, but does not have a great deal of redundancy in case of mishap. One bad event, say, a fire, that killed a couple dozen people would be an existential threat for a population in this size, but not at all for a larger population.
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2020-06-27, 04:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
I was thinking if they've got in vitro fertilisation and a large and varied enough store of ova and spermatazoa. Or just the last item on that list and a way of getting it where it can be effective.
But as Fyraltari pointed out, you'd absolutely have to have consent from the women in the population, and when you get into surrogacy, you're starting to run up against serious and potentially fatal issues (to the infant and the mother) like tissue rejection, blood group/rhesus incompatibility etc.
For even higher tech, ex utero fertilisation and gestation's a possiblity.
Whatever way you go, the smaller the population, the more you're going to need to track the parentage to prevent inbreeding.
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2020-06-28, 07:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2014
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- Denmark
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
I mean ...... the correct answer is 'One.'
You cannot have a viable colony with zero colonists. But you could have one with one colonist, and good enough cloning tech.
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2020-06-28, 02:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Your main problem then becomes the current colonist educating their successor while maintaining all of the colony's resources, especially the cloning equipment. And if you start to get problems with that process, or if the current colonist suffers an accident, then that colony is on the way out.
Plus it's not necessarily guaranteed that the new clone will have the same mind set as their forebear.
One female colonist with IV tech and a supply of X chromosome spermatazoa might work (and a group version of that might be a way of supporting a maintenance crew for a generation ship), but again, you're hoping they don't suffer some injury that shortens their life or leaves them infertile, and twins or other multiple births might seriously stress the available resources.
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2020-06-28, 02:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Well, there's also the issue that no clone is a 100% perfect replica of the original--there's going to be flaws creeping in to the genes of the copies, and since you're going to be taking "copies of copies", a colony based entirely on cloning isn't going to be sustainable forever; eventually the corruptions of the genome will become great enough to cause problems. Plus, having everyone with pretty much the same genes leaves you open to some disease that develops which particularly badly affects people with that genetic make-up.
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2020-06-28, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2014
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- Denmark
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Depending on the tech - I need only 1. Actually, being an 'all powerful' alien, I might need none. I'll just construct the entire genome from memory, churn out a bajillion clones with small alterations for variety, and have a fully settled world within a few years. Get started on global warming in just weeks.
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2020-06-28, 05:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
- Location
- right behind you
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Ok, so since this has gotten to the point of ridiculousness, lets reel the parameters back in. This alien is transporting humans to another world. They start out with the clothes on their back, and a set of basic tools to start. By which I mean they have axes, shovels, knives, hammers, etc. The tools they need to create more tools and so forth as they rise up the tech tree. They are dropped in an area that is bordered by mineral rich mountains on one side, a river leading to an ocean on the other, a vast plain in the third, ideal for farmland, and the 4th is a vast forest full of edible plants and creatures. The goal is to create a permanent self sustaining colony and he is able to bring whatever number of men women and children he needs to create it. With all that in mind, and no interference beyond what I listed from the alien, how few could he get away with while making the odds of long term survival, barring inexplicable natural disaster or some such thing, nearly certain? Assume he is able to gather a mix of people with the skills and knowledge needed to survive and thrive in this setting as well. So hunters, farmers, doctors, survivalists, construction workers, etc etc etc.
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
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2020-06-28, 05:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
Several thousand, as they'll be doing everything by muscle power alone. And they'll likely never get past the medieval stage, as the specialist knowledge is useless until they've made it to the late 20th century equivalent.
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2020-06-28, 06:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
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- right behind you
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
I dunno, while I agree its hardly going to be a fast track to the space age, when they realize its going to take a few generations before they can reach or surpass steam power, the experts in modern tech will likely write down their knowledge for future generations. A sort of series of books titled "Here's the next step" Where they progress book by book from stone age to iron age etc etc etc in tech. "Ok, so you figured out a way to smelt steel! Here is a list of things to do with it to get started on the next tier of the tech tree! Once you finish the last chapter, we can move on from there."
I figure the first generation is basically just establishing themselves as a settlement with scavenged plants from the forest planted as crops, herds of captured animals in pens to start the process of domestication and raising for food, and of course houses for everyone. MAYBE reach the bronze/iron age tech wise as the materials will be there to work with. Thats the work of a lifetime for the start of the colony. So writing it all down would probably be considered a solid priority so the next generations wouldnt forget how its done. Even if they dont have the technical knowledge of everything in between stages of development, just the few bits they can record would be enough to help advance far faster than the original humans did. As an example, no need to reinvent the water wheel if there is a diagram and description of the ways they can be useful are written down. Even a steam boiler is a fairly straightforward concept that may take practice to create but with the knowledge that they do work behind it, they would experiment till it does. Considering the alien can easily pick and choose people on things including knowledge bases, the idea that someone would know how to make paper/parchment and ink isnt far fetched, and even someone with the basic idea of how to generate electricity would be there to include his knowledge for future generations to work towards."Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
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2020-06-28, 07:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.
You are glossing over thousands of intermediate steps. It will be the work of generations of selective breeding to turn wild plants into useful crops. Likewise trying to break wild animals and breed them for docility, larger amounts of flesh and training them to do our work for us. And that just gets your colony to the Mesolithic Era. Better hope those metal tools last for a few centuries until you can figure out which mountains have which ores, you find coal, etc. Modern paper and parchment making is highly dependent on a well-developed chemical industry, which you won't have, which also shuts out inks more potent than soot-in-water (which ages and disappears in years). Plus the sheer lack of practical skills, like knowing how to identify, mine and shape a quern stone for a mill (you need at least two).
There's also the small issue that your written instructions will be useless once the current (literate) generation dies off, because the next generation will be too busy working sun-up to sun-down to spend years in school. Language drift will finish the job in a couple centuries.
Building a society is horrendously complex in and of itself. Trying to magically skip over ~10 millennia of work to end up right where we are now is pure fantasy.
((The other thing we're ignoring is that it is highly likely that the new planet and its native lifeforms will be biologically incompatible with us. Good news, we probably won't die from the local microbes. Bad news, the local produce is essentially indigestible.))
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2020-06-29, 01:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2014
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Re: Absolute smallest viable size for a colony.