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Feral Pigeons (Columba livia) prefer genetically similar mates despite Inbreeding depression

  • Jacob, Gwenaël Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland - Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 91400, Orsay, France
  • Prévot, Anne-Caroline Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 91400, Orsay, France - Centre des Sciences de la Conservation (CESCO), Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France
  • Baudry, Emmanuelle Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 91400, Orsay, France
    02.09.2016
Published in:
  • PLOS ONE. - 2016, vol. 11, no. 9, p. e0162451
English Avoidance of mating between related individuals is usually considered adaptive because it decreases the probability of inbreeding depression in offspring. However, mating between related partners can be adaptive if outbreeding depression is stronger than inbreeding depression or if females gain inclusive fitness benefits by mating with close kin. In the present study, we used microsatellite data to infer the parentage of juveniles born in a French colony of feral pigeons, which allowed us to deduce parent pairs. Despite detectable inbreeding depression, we found that pairwise relatedness between mates was significantly higher than between nonmates, with a mean coefficient of relatedness between mates of 0.065, approximately half the theoretical value for first cousins. This higher relatedness between mates cannot be explained by spatial genetic structure in this colonial bird; it therefore probably results from an active choice. As inbreeding but not outbreeding depression is observed in the study population, this finding accords with the idea that mating with genetically similar mates can confer a benefit in terms of inclusive fitness. Our results and published evidence suggest that preference for related individuals as mates might be relatively frequent in birds.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences et de médecine
Department
Département de Biologie
Language
  • English
Classification
Biological sciences
License
License undefined
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/305270
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