Sex‐specific genetic variances in life‐history and morphological traits of the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus

Ecology and Evolution

Lára R. Hallsson¹ 

[1] Animal Ecology/Department of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology Centre (EBC), Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

关键词: Additive genetic variance;    breeding design;    genetic correlation;    sexual dimorphism;    sex‐specific genetic effect;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.56

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

Knowledge of heritability and genetic correlations are of central importance in the study of adaptive trait evolution and genetic constraints. We use a paternal half-sib-full-sib breeding design to investigate the genetic architecture of three life-history and morphological traits in the seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus. Heritability was significant for all traits under observation and genetic correlations between traits (r _A) were low. Interestingly, we found substantial sex-specific genetic effects and low genetic correlations between sexes (r _MF) in traits that are only moderately (weight at emergence) to slightly (longevity) sexually dimorphic. Furthermore, we found an increased sire () compared to dam () variance component within trait and sex. Our results highlight that the genetic architecture even of the same trait should not be assumed to be the same for males and females. Furthermore, it raises the issue of the presence of unnoticed environmental effects that may inflate estimates of heritability. Overall, our study stresses the fact that estimates of quantitative genetic parameters are not only population, time, environment, but also sex specific. Thus, extrapolation between sexes and studies should be treated with caution.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC   
© 2011 The Authors. MicrobiologyOpen published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.