Abstract
Males and females take part in extra-pair copulations in most socially monogamous bird species. The mechanisms leading to the frequent occurrence of extra-pair offspring in socially monogamous couples are strongly debated and unresolved, and they are often difficult to distinguish from one another. Most hypotheses explaining the evolution of extra-pair reproduction suggest selective and adaptive scenarios for their origination and persistence. Is extra-pair paternity a heritable trait? We evaluated the heritability of extra-pair paternity in the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) nesting in Western Siberia. Estimated heritability was low: depending on the model used, the point estimate of the heritability (mode) varied from 0.005 to 0.11, and the bounds of the 95% confidence interval are [0–0.16] in the widest range. Thus, it seems that extra-pair mating behaviour in the pied flycatchers is a plastic phenotypic mating tactic with a small or no genetic component. Our data can help to understand the evolution of extra-pair mating behaviour in socially monogamous species.
Highlights
DNA profiling (Jeffreys, 1987) has revealed that males and females take part in extra-pair copulations (EPCs) in many socially monogamous bird species (Wink & Dyrcz, 1999; Griffith, Owens & Thuman, 2002; Westneat & Stewart, 2003)
We already have successfully applied this approach to assess the heritability of the basal metabolic rate in the pied flycatcher (Bushuev et al, 2012), because in the Western Siberian population of the pied flycatcher the recruitment rate of locally born individuals is on average 11.1% both in males and females (Grinkov & Sternberg, 2018)
We conducted posterior predictive checks as is described in MCMCglmm course notes, Section 5.3.1 (Hadfield, 2018). We found that this overdispersed Poisson distribution was sufficient to represent the distribution of the EPO number because the observed and mean predicted number of zeroes differed by 2–4%
Summary
DNA profiling (Jeffreys, 1987) has revealed that males and females take part in extra-pair copulations (EPCs) in many socially monogamous bird species (Wink & Dyrcz, 1999; Griffith, Owens & Thuman, 2002; Westneat & Stewart, 2003). In case of successful EPCs, extra-pair offspring (EPO) could be detected in broods of socially monogamous families. For example in the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), the proportion of broods containing EPO varies from 6.5% to 40% between populations
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