Abstract
AbstractWild quantitative genetic studies have focused on a subset of traits (largely morphological and life history), with others, such as behaviors, receiving much less attention. This is because it is challenging to obtain sufficient data, particularly for behaviors involving interactions between individuals. Here, we explore an indirect approach for pilot investigations of the role of genetic differences in generating variation in parental care. Variation in parental genetic effects for offspring performance is expected to arise from among-parent genetic variation in parental care. Therefore, we used the animal model to predict maternal breeding values for lamb growth and used these predictions to select females for field observation, where maternal and lamb behaviors were recorded. Higher predicted maternal breeding value for lamb growth was associated with greater suckling success, but not with any other measures of suckling behavior. Though our work cannot explicitly estimate the genetic basis of the specific traits involved, it does provide a strategy for hypothesis generation and refinement that we hope could be used to justify data collection costs needed for confirmatory studies. Here, results suggest that behavioral genetic variation is involved in generating maternal genetic effects on lamb growth in Soay sheep. Though important caveats and cautions apply, our approach may extend the ability to initiate more genetic investigations of difficult-to-study behaviors and social interactions in natural populations.
Highlights
Understanding the evolutionary trajectory of a trait requires information on the strength of selection on the trait, its genetic basis, and the genetic correlations between it and other traits
We suggest that predicted maternal genetic merits for offspring performance generated from animal models can be used to select individuals for targeted studies of parental care behaviors to begin to understand the genetic component of behavioral variation
MBVgBLUP group did not feature in the best fit model for either of the nonsuckling behaviors (Table 2), but when using AICc, it was included in a competitive model for both grazing time (ΔAICc = 1.71) and resting time (ΔAICc = 1.38), indicating that lambs born to females in the high MBVgBLUP group had a tendency to spend more time per hour resting (MBVgBLUP [low] − Est = −101.38, SE = 116.57) and less time grazing (MBVgBLUP [low] − Est = 0.1564, SE = 0.2412)
Summary
Understanding the evolutionary trajectory of a trait requires information on the strength of selection on the trait, its genetic basis, and the genetic correlations between it and other traits. Robust inferences about the role of genetic differences between mothers in generating behavioral variation during maternal care would require the estimation of maternal genetic covariances between offspring performance traits, such as growth, and the measured behavioral traits using a multivariate version of a quantitative genetic approach known as the “animal model.” Such models are notoriously data hungry and are likely to be out of reach even in the most established long-term individual-based studies. We ask whether estimated maternal breeding values for lamb growth predict behavioral variation over the maternal care period in a subset of female Soay sheep selected for targeted observations This system is well suited as a test case for this approach due to the marked variation in lamb growth (Clutton-Brock et al 2004), significant maternal genetic effects on early-life traits (Wilson et al 2005a; Bérénos et al 2014), availability of highquality relatedness information, and ability to locate and follow uniquely identifiable individuals in the field. We hypothesize that any variation in suckling behaviors will influence nonsuckling lamb behaviors, with lambs that suckle less and/or that have their suckling attempts rejected more frequently being predicted to show increased grazing behavior
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