Deciphering genetic mate choice: Not so simple in group‐housed conservation breeding programs

Farquharson, Katherine A.; Hogg, Carolyn J.; Belov, Katherine; Grueber, Catherine E.

doi:10.1111/eva.12981

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…To confound mate pairings, rock iguanas are often kept in habitats much smaller than what the animals are accustomed to in the wild, often resulting in compatibility issues among rock iguana pairs that can lead to separation outside of the breeding months. Additionally, examining mate preference in founding pairs may be unfeasible and extremely resource-intensive 36 . This makes breeding season pairings difficult, and in some cases, the smaller females may be harmed by the larger males when they are brought into contact with one another.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social opportunities and mate preference improve breeding success in Caribbean iguanas

Lemm,

Martin

2023

Sci Rep

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Conservation breeding of West Indian rock iguanas (Cyclura) has met with limited success historically. Many facilities witness high levels of aggression and mate incompatibility resulting in failed breeding introductions which often require animals to be separated. This may be due, in part, to lack of knowledge of how mate familiarity and preference affect reproductive outcomes in these species. We investigated whether social exposure during the pre-breeding season influenced copulation success, egg production, and breeding behaviors. Additionally, we examined whether mate preference, as determined by pre-mating dichotomous choice tests, increased these reproductive outcomes. Female rock iguanas that were socialized with males prior to breeding opportunities copulated with familiar males for longer periods of time than females that were not socialized. Socialization opportunities did not alter male reproductive success measurements or breeding behavior. Female rock iguanas introduced for mating to their preferred partners had a higher probability of successful copulations, higher average number of copulations, and less resting behavior during introductions than females mated to non-preferred males. Male mate preference had no effect on reproductive success measurements during mating introductions. These results indicate that socializing animals and providing mate choice opportunities increase breeding success of rock iguanas under managed care.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social opportunities and mate preference improve breeding success in Caribbean iguanas

Lemm,

Martin

2023

Sci Rep

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“…To confound mate pairings, iguanas are often kept in habitats much smaller than what the animals are accustomed to in the wild, often resulting in compatibility issues among iguana pairs that can lead to separation outside of the breeding months. Additionally, examining mate preference in founding pairs may be unfeasible and extremely resource-intensive (Farquharson et al, 2020). This makes breeding season pairings di cult, and in some cases, the smaller females may be harmed by the larger males when they are brought into contact with one another.…”

Section: The Importance Of Socialization Versus Preferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Intimate Iguanas: social opportunities and mate preference improve breeding success in Caribbean iguanas

Lemm

Martin-Wintle

2022

Preprint

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Conservation breeding of West Indian rock iguanas (Cyclura) has met with limited success historically. Many facilities witness high levels of aggression and mate incompatibility resulting in failed breeding introductions which often require animals to be separated. This may be due, in part, to lack of knowledge of how mate familiarity and preference affect reproductive outcomes in these species. We investigated whether social exposure during the pre-breeding season influenced copulation success and breeding behaviors. Additionally, we examined whether mate preference, as determined by pre-mating dichotomous choice tests, increased these reproductive outcomes. Female Caribbean iguanas that were socialized with males prior to breeding opportunities allowed more copulations for longer periods of time than females that were not socialized. Socialization opportunities did not alter male reproductive success measurements or breeding behavior. Female iguanas introduced for mating to their preferred partners had a higher probability of successful copulations, higher average number of copulations, and less resting behavior during introductions than females mated to non-preferred males. Male mate preference had no effect on reproductive success measurements during mating introductions. These results indicate that socializing animals and providing mate choice opportunities increase breeding success of West Indian rock iguanas.

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“…That said, allowing individuals to choose a mate is not feasible in all species maintained in captive breeding programs, because of among-individual aggressive interactions, or the limited number of available individuals. In addition to this, even in species where male reproductive success is highly skewed (suggesting that sexual selection can operate), identifying the traits underlying female preference might be a difficult task, preventing the implementation of mate choice in the management of the captive populations (Farquharson et al, 2020). Finally, any benefit of sexual selection in terms of population fitness should be weighed against the risk of depauperating genetic diversity, if only a few individuals contribute to the next generation (Gooley et al, 2018).…”

Section: Notementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to its fundamental interest, understanding how sexual selection affects population fitness also has far‐reaching consequences for the conservation of endangered species, especially in terms of captive population management (Ashley et al, 2003; Chargé et al, 2014; Farquharson et al, 2020; Holman & Kokko, 2013; Martinez‐Ruiz, & Knell, 2017; Schulte‐Hostedde, & Mastromonaco, 2015; Wedekind, 2002). Ex situ conservation programs aim to maintain and reproduce endangered species in captivity to restore declining natural populations (Ebenhard, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enforced monoandry over generations induces a reduction of female investment into reproduction in a promiscuous bird

Sorci

Lesobre

Vuarin

et al. 2021

Evolutionary Applications

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While uncovering the costs and benefits of polyandry has attracted considerable attention, assessing the net effect of sexual selection on population fitness requires the experimental manipulation of female mating over generations, which is usually only achievable in laboratory populations of arthropods. However, knowing if sexual selection improves or impairs the expression of life-history traits is key for the management of captive populations of endangered species, which are mostly long-lived birds and mammals. It might therefore be questionable to extrapolate the results gathered on laboratory populations of insects to infer the net effect of sexual selection on populations of endangered species. Here, we used a longitudinal dataset that has been collected on a long-lived bird, the houbara bustard, kept in a conservation breeding program, to investigate the effect of enforced monoandry on female investment into reproduction. In captivity, female houbara bustards are artificially inseminated with sperm collected from a single male (enforced monoandry), or sequentially inseminated with semen of different males (polyandry), allowing postcopulatory sexual selection to operate. We identified female lines that were produced either by monoandrous or polyandrous inseminations over three generations, and we compared reproductive investment of females from the two mating system groups. We found that females in the polyandrous lines had higher investment into reproduction as they laid more eggs per season and produced heavier hatchlings. Higher reproductive investment into reproduction in the polyandrous lines did not result from inherited differences from females initially included in the two mating system groups. These results show that removal of sexual selection can alter reproductive investment after only few generations, potentially hindering population fitness and the success of conservation breeding programs.

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Deciphering genetic mate choice: Not so simple in group‐housed conservation breeding programs

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 5 publications

References 74 publications

Social opportunities and mate preference improve breeding success in Caribbean iguanas

Social opportunities and mate preference improve breeding success in Caribbean iguanas

Intimate Iguanas: social opportunities and mate preference improve breeding success in Caribbean iguanas

Enforced monoandry over generations induces a reduction of female investment into reproduction in a promiscuous bird

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