Genetic variation in nuclear and mitochondrial markers supports a large sex difference in lifetime reproductive skew in a lekking species

Abstract

Sex differences in skews of vertebrate lifetime reproductive success are difficult to measure directly. Evolutionary histories of differential skew should be detectable in the genome. For example, male-biased skew should reduce variation in the biparentally inherited genome relative to the maternally inherited genome. We tested this approach in lek-breeding ruff (Class Aves, Philomachus pugnax) by comparing genetic variation of nuclear microsatellites (θn; biparental) versus mitochondrial D-loop sequences (θm; maternal), and conversion to comparable nuclear (Ne) and female (Nef) effective population size using published ranges of mutation rates for each marker (μ). We provide a Bayesian method to calculate Ne (θn = 4Neμn) and Nef (θm = 2Nefμm) using 95% credible intervals (CI) of θn and θm as informative priors, and accounting for uncertainty in μ. In 96 male ruffs from one population, Ne was 97% (79–100%) lower than expected under random mating in an ideal population, where Ne:Nef = 2. This substantially lower autosomal variation represents the first genomic support of strong male reproductive skew in a lekking species.

Genetic rescue, the greater prairie chicken and the problem of conservation reliance in the Anthropocene

“…A similar situation exists for the lesser prairie chicken [69]. A reduction in its habitat is uncorrectable in the near term, yet most certainly exerts a strong influence on the reproductive success of dominant, lekking individuals [70]. …”

Wintering grounds, population size and evolutionary history of a cryptic passerine species from isotopic and genetic data

“…Our estimations showed a relatively high N e for the Iberian chiffchaff, but it is important to note that, in many cases, N e is not a good predictor of current population size, especially for N e estimations based on mitochondrial markers (Bazin et al ). Additionally, other factors such as mating system, family group size, sex ratios, generation time and, particularly, historical fluctuations in population size can strongly affect genetic diversity and N e estimations (Frankham , Verkuil et al ). For example, past population bottlenecks can have long‐lasting consequences in the genetic makeup of populations (Braude and Templeton ).…”

The impact of mating systems and dispersal on fine‐scale genetic structure at maternally, paternally and biparentally inherited markers

“…The majority of studies using markers with different modes of inheritance have focused on long‐term or population‐level estimates of gene flow, using F ‐statistics, estimates of effective population size ( N e ) or assignment tests and comparing these metrics among markers (Hedrick et al., ; MacDonald et al., ; Nietlisbach et al., ; Schubert et al., ; Verkuil, Juillet, Lank, Widemo, & Piersma, ). However, factors like mutation, genetic drift, bottlenecks, founder effects and selection are strongly influenced by the evolutionary history of a species and shape background levels of genetic diversity (Banks et al., ; Charlesworth, ; Hedrick, ; MacDonald et al., ).…”