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. 2016 Nov 21;6(24):8857-8869.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.2591. eCollection 2016 Dec.

The strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment increases with environmental harshness in blue tits

Esperanza S Ferrer  1 , Vicente García-Navas  2 , Juan José Sanz  3 , Joaquín Ortego  4
Affiliations

The strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment increases with environmental harshness in blue tits

Esperanza S Ferrer et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

The extent of inbreeding depression and the magnitude of heterozygosity-fitness correlations (HFC) have been suggested to depend on the environmental context in which they are assayed, but little evidence is available for wild populations. We combine extensive molecular and capture-mark-recapture data from a blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) population to (1) analyze the relationship between heterozygosity and probability of interannual adult local recruitment and (2) test whether environmental stress imposed by physiologically suboptimal temperatures and rainfall influence the magnitude of HFC. To address these questions, we used two different arrays of microsatellite markers: 14 loci classified as neutral and 12 loci classified as putatively functional. We found significant relationships between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment that were most likely explained by variation in genomewide heterozygosity. The strength of the association between heterozygosity and probability of interannual local recruitment was positively associated with annual accumulated precipitation. Annual mean heterozygosity increased over time, which may have resulted from an overall positive selection on heterozygosity over the course of the study period. Finally, neutral and putatively functional loci showed similar trends, but the former had stronger effect sizes and seemed to better reflect genomewide heterozygosity. Overall, our results show that HFC can be context dependent, emphasizing the need to consider the role of environmental heterogeneity as a key factor when exploring the consequences of individual genetic diversity on fitness in natural populations.

Keywords: Cyanistes caeruleus; HFC; functional and neutral markers; genotype‐by‐environment interaction; heterozygosity; selection differential.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), the study organism. Photograph by Juan Caballero López
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean (±SE) heterozygosity of individuals that recruited and nonrecruited into the local populations between two consecutive years. Panels show heterozygosity estimated at (a) all markers (HLTotal) and the subsets of (b) neutral (HLNeutral) and (c) putatively functional loci (HLFunctional). Significance of univariate logistic regressions (only including heterozygosity as covariate) for each year and subset of markers is indicated (*p < .05; + p < .1)
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relationship between annual accumulated precipitation in each year and selection differentials (S) for heterozygosity estimated at all markers (HLTotal) and the subsets of neutral (HLNeutral) and putatively functional loci (HLFunctional). Regression lines are shown
Figure 4
Figure 4
Temporal change in mean (±SE) heterozygosity estimated at all markers (HLTotal) and the subsets of neutral (HLNeutral) and putatively functional loci (HLFunctional) over the study period. Trend lines are shown
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