The estimation of additive genetic variance of body size in a wild passerine is sensitive to the method used to estimate relatedness among the individuals

Abstract

Assessing additive genetic variance is a crucial step in predicting the evolutionary response of a target trait. However, the estimated genetic variance may be sensitive to the methodology used, e.g., the way relatedness is assessed among the individuals, especially in wild populations where social pedigrees can be inaccurate. To investigate this possibility, we investigated the additive genetic variance in tarsus length, a major proxy of skeletal body size in birds. The model species was the collared flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis), a socially monogamous but genetically polygamous migratory passerine. We used two relatedness matrices to estimate the genetic variance: (1) based solely on social links and (2) a genetic similarity matrix based on a large array of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Depending on the relatedness matrix considered, we found moderate to high additive genetic variance and heritability estimates for tarsus length. In particular, the heritability estimates were higher when obtained with the genetic similarity matrix instead of the social pedigree. Our results confirm the potential for this crucial trait to respond to selection and highlight methodological concerns when calculating additive genetic variance and heritability in phenotypic traits. We conclude that using a social pedigree instead of a genetic similarity matrix to estimate relatedness among individuals in a genetically polygamous wild population may significantly deflate the estimates of additive genetic variation.

Keywords: animal model; bird; evolution; quantitative genetics.

FIGURE 1

Distribution of the genetic similarity values of (a) dams and (b) sires with their offspring according to the social pedigree.

FIGURE 2

Relationship between the relatedness values of the two relationship matrices used in the study.

FIGURE 3

Heritability and proportion of permanent environmental variance (Vpe) and residual variance relative to the total phenotypic variance for the tarsus length of collared flycatchers with 95% credible intervals from the animal models using social pedigree (P) and genetic similarity (G) to assess relatedness among the individuals.