| 1. |
- Cramer, Emily R. A., et al.
(författare)
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Females discriminate against heterospecific sperm in a natural hybrid zone
- 2016
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Ingår i: Evolution. - : Wiley. - 0014-3820 .- 1558-5646. ; 70:8, s. 1844-1855
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When hybridization is maladaptive, species-specific mate preferences are selectively favored, but low mate availability may constrain species-assortative pairing. Females paired to heterospecifics may then benefit by copulating with multiple males and subsequently favoring sperm of conspecifics. Whether such mechanisms for biasing paternity toward conspecifics act as important reproductive barriers in socially monogamous vertebrate species remains to be determined. We use a combination of long-term breeding records from a natural hybrid zone between collared and pied flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis and F. hypoleuca), and an in vitro experiment comparing conspecific and heterospecific sperm performance in female reproductive tract fluid, to evaluate the potential significance of female cryptic choice. We show that the females most at risk of hybridizing (pied flycatchers) frequently copulate with multiple males and are able to inhibit heterospecific sperm performance. The negative effect on heterospecific sperm performance was strongest in pied flycatcher females that were most likely to have been previously exposed to collared flycatcher sperm. We thus demonstrate that a reproductive barrier acts after copulation but before fertilization in a socially monogamous vertebrate. While the evolutionary history of this barrier is unknown, our results imply that there is opportunity for it to be accentuated via a reinforcement-like process.
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| 2. |
- Kardos, Marty, et al.
(författare)
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Whole-genome resequencing of extreme phenotypes in collared flycatchers highlights the difficulty of detecting quantitative trait loci in natural populations
- 2016
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Ingår i: Molecular Ecology Resources. - : Wiley. - 1755-098X .- 1755-0998. ; 16:3, s. 727-741
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dissecting the genetic basis of phenotypic variation in natural populations is a long-standing goal in evolutionary biology. One open question is whether quantitative traits are determined only by large numbers of genes with small effects, or whether variation also exists in large-effect loci. We conducted genomewide association analyses of forehead patch size (a sexually selected trait) on 81 whole-genome-resequenced male collared flycatchers with extreme phenotypes, and on 415 males sampled independent of patch size and genotyped with a 50K SNP chip. No SNPs were genomewide statistically significantly associated with patch size. Simulation-based power analyses suggest that the power to detect large-effect loci responsible for 10% of phenotypic variance was <0.5 in the genome resequencing analysis, and <0.1 in the SNP chip analysis. Reducing the recombination by two-thirds relative to collared flycatchers modestly increased power. Tripling sample size increased power to >0.8 for resequencing of extreme phenotypes (N=243), but power remained <0.2 for the 50K SNP chip analysis (N=1245). At least 1 million SNPs were necessary to achieve power >0.8 when analysing 415 randomly sampled phenotypes. However, power of the 50K SNP chip to detect large-effect loci was nearly 0.8 in simulations with a small effective population size of 1500. These results suggest that reliably detecting large-effect trait loci in large natural populations will often require thousands of individuals and near complete sampling of the genome. Encouragingly, far fewer individuals and loci will often be sufficient to reliably detect large-effect loci in small populations with widespread strong linkage disequilibrium.
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| 3. |
- McFarlane, S. Eryn, et al.
(författare)
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Hybrid Dysfunction Expressed as Elevated Metabolic Rate in Male Ficedula Flycatchers
- 2016
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 11:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Studies of ecological speciation are often biased towards extrinsic sources of selection against hybrids, resulting from intermediate hybrid morphology, but the knowledge of how genetic incompatibilities accumulate over time under natural conditions is limited. Here we focus on a physiological trait, metabolic rate, which is central to life history strategies and thermoregulation but is also likely to be sensitive to mismatched mitonuclear interactions. We measured the resting metabolic rate of male collared, and pied flycatchers as well as of naturally occurring F1 hybrid males, in a recent hybrid zone. We found that hybrid males had a higher rather than intermediate metabolic rate, which is indicative of hybrid physiological dysfunction. Fitness costs associated with elevated metabolic rate are typically environmentally dependent and exaggerated under harsh conditions. By focusing on male hybrid dysfunction in an eco-physiological trait, our results contribute to the general understanding of how combined extrinsic and intrinsic sources of hybrid dysfunction build up under natural conditions.
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| 4. |
- McFarlane, S. Eryn, et al.
(författare)
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Song discrimination by nestling collared flycatchers during early development
- 2016
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Ingår i: Biology Letters. - : The Royal Society. - 1744-9561 .- 1744-957X. ; 12:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pre-zygotic isolation is often maintained by species-specific signals and preferences. However, in species where signals are learnt, as in songbirds, learning errors can lead to costly hybridization. Song discrimination expressed during early developmental stages may ensure selective learning later in life but can be difficult to demonstrate before behavioural responses are obvious. Here, we use a novel method, measuring changes in metabolic rate, to detect song perception and discrimination in collared flycatcher embryos and nestlings. We found that nestlings as early as 7 days old respond to song with increased metabolic rate, and, by 9 days old, have increased metabolic rate when listening to conspecific when compared with heterospecific song. This early discrimination between songs probably leads to fewer heterospecific matings, and thus higher fitness of collared flycatchers living in sympatty with closely related species.
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| 5. |
- Rybinski, Jakub, et al.
(författare)
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Competition-driven build-up of habitat isolation and selection favoring modified dispersal patterns in a young avian hybrid zone
- 2016
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Ingår i: Evolution. - : Wiley. - 0014-3820 .- 1558-5646. ; 70:10, s. 2226-2238
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Competition-driven evolution of habitat isolation is an important mechanism of ecological speciation but empirical support for this process is often indirect. We examined how an on-going displacement of pied flycatchers from their preferred breeding habitat by collared flycatchers in a young secondary contact zone is associated with (a) access to an important food resource (caterpillar larvae), (b) immigration of pied flycatchers in relation to habitat quality, and (c) the risk of hybridization in relation to habitat quality. Over the past 12 years, the estimated access to caterpillar larvae biomass in the habitat surrounding the nests of pied flycatchers has decreased by a fifth due to shifted establishment possibilities, especially for immigrants. However, breeding in the high quality habitat has become associated with such a high risk of hybridization for pied flycatchers that overall selection currently favors pied flycatchers that were forced to immigrate into the poorer habitats (despite lower access to preferred food items). Our results show that competition-driven habitat segregation can lead to fast habitat isolation, which per se caused an opportunity for selection to act in favor of future "voluntarily" altered immigration patterns and possibly strengthened habitat isolation through reinforcement.
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| 6. |
- Rönnegård, Lars, et al.
(författare)
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Increasing the power of genome wide association studies in natural populations using repeated measures - evaluation and implementation
- 2016
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Ingår i: Methods in Ecology and Evolution. - 2041-210X. ; 7:7, s. 792-799
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1. Genomewide association studies (GWAS) enable detailed dissections of the genetic basis for organisms' ability to adapt to a changing environment. In long-term studies of natural populations, individuals are often marked at one point in their life and then repeatedly recaptured. It is therefore essential that a method for GWAS includes the process of repeated sampling. In a GWAS, the effects of thousands of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) need to be fitted and any model development is constrained by the computational requirements. A method is therefore required that can fit a highly hierarchical model and at the same time is computationally fast enough to be useful. 2. Our method fits fixed SNP effects in a linear mixed model that can include both random polygenic effects and permanent environmental effects. In this way, the model can correct for population structure and model repeated measures. The covariance structure of the linear mixed model is first estimated and subsequently used in a generalized least squares setting to fit the SNP effects. The method was evaluated in a simulation study based on observed genotypes from a long-term study of collared flycatchers in Sweden. 3. The method we present here was successful in estimating permanent environmental effects from simulated repeated measures data. Additionally, we found that especially for variable phenotypes having large variation between years, the repeated measurements model has a substantial increase in power compared to a model using average phenotypes as a response. 4. The method is available in the R package RepeatABEL. It increases the power in GWAS having repeated measures, especially for long-term studies of natural populations, and the R implementation is expected to facilitate modelling of longitudinal data for studies of both animal and human populations.
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