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Inbreeding depression in red deer calves

Walling, Craig A; Nussey, Daniel H; Morris, Alison; Clutton-Brock, Tim H; Kruuk, Loeske EB; Pemberton, Josephine M

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BACKGROUND Understanding the fitness consequences of inbreeding is of major importance for evolutionary and conservation biology. However, there are few studies using pedigree-based estimates of inbreeding or investigating the influence of environment and age variation on inbreeding depression in natural populations. Here we investigated the consequences of variation in inbreeding coefficient for three juvenile traits, birth date, birth weight and first year survival, in a wild population of...[Show more]

dc.contributor.authorWalling, Craig A
dc.contributor.authorNussey, Daniel H
dc.contributor.authorMorris, Alison
dc.contributor.authorClutton-Brock, Tim H
dc.contributor.authorKruuk, Loeske EB
dc.contributor.authorPemberton, Josephine M
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-22T04:17:59Z
dc.date.available2015-12-22T04:17:59Z
dc.identifier.issn1471-2148
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/95171
dc.description.abstractBACKGROUND Understanding the fitness consequences of inbreeding is of major importance for evolutionary and conservation biology. However, there are few studies using pedigree-based estimates of inbreeding or investigating the influence of environment and age variation on inbreeding depression in natural populations. Here we investigated the consequences of variation in inbreeding coefficient for three juvenile traits, birth date, birth weight and first year survival, in a wild population of red deer, considering both calf and mother's inbreeding coefficient. We also tested whether inbreeding depression varied with environmental conditions and maternal age. RESULTS We detected non-zero inbreeding coefficients for 22% of individuals with both parents and at least one grandparent known (increasing to 42% if the dataset was restricted to those with four known grandparents). Inbreeding depression was evident for birth weight and first year survival but not for birth date: the first year survival of offspring with an inbreeding coefficient of 0.25 was reduced by 77% compared to offspring with an inbreeding coefficient of zero. However, it was independent of measures of environmental variation and maternal age. The effect of inbreeding on birth weight appeared to be driven by highly inbred individuals (F = 0.25). On the other hand first year survival showed strong inbreeding depression that was not solely driven by individuals with the highest inbreeding coefficients, corresponding to an estimate of 4.35 lethal equivalents. CONCLUSIONS These results represent a rare demonstration of inbreeding depression using pedigree-based estimates in a wild mammal population and highlight the potential strength of effects on key components of fitness.
dc.description.sponsorshipThis research was supported by a NERC grant to LEBK, JMP and THCB, NERC and BBSRC fellowships to DHN and a Royal Society fellowship to LEBK.
dc.publisherBioMed Central
dc.rights© 2011 Walling et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
dc.sourceBMC Evolutionary Biology
dc.subjectage factors
dc.subjectanimals
dc.subjectanimals, newborn
dc.subjectbirth weight
dc.subjectdeer
dc.subjectenvironment
dc.subjectfemale
dc.subjectmale
dc.subjectmodels, biological
dc.subjectpedigree
dc.subjectsurvival analysis
dc.subjectinbreeding
dc.titleInbreeding depression in red deer calves
dc.typeJournal article
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.identifier.citationvolume11
dc.date.issued2011-10-31
local.identifier.absfor060411
local.identifier.ariespublicationf5625xPUB9021
local.publisher.urlhttp://www.biomedcentral.com/
local.type.statusPublished Version
local.contributor.affiliationWalling, Craig A., University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
local.contributor.affiliationNussey, Daniel H., University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
local.contributor.affiliationMorris, Alison, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
local.contributor.affiliationClutton-Brock, Tim H, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
local.contributor.affiliationKruuk, Loeske, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, CMBE Research School of Biology, Division of Evolution, Ecology & Genetics, The Australian National University
local.contributor.affiliationPemberton, Josephine M, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
local.identifier.essn1471-2148
local.bibliographicCitation.issue1
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage318
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage13
local.identifier.doi10.1186/1471-2148-11-318
local.identifier.absseo970106
dc.date.updated2016-02-24T09:44:46Z
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-80054991863
local.identifier.thomsonID000297466400001
CollectionsANU Research Publications

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