Leedale, Amy, Simeoni, Michelle, Sharp, Stuart P. et al. (5 more authors) (2020) Cost, risk and avoidance of inbreeding in a cooperatively breeding bird. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 1918726117. pp. 15724-15730. ISSN 1091-6490
Abstract
Inbreeding is often avoided in natural populations by passive processes such as sex-biased dispersal. But, in many social animals, opposite-sexed adult relatives are spatially clustered, generating a risk of incest and hence selection for active inbreeding avoidance. Here we show that, in long-tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus), a cooperative breeder that risks inbreeding by living alongside opposite-sex relatives, inbreeding carries fitness costs and is avoided by active kin discrimination during mate choice. First, we identified a positive association between heterozygosity and fitness, indicating that inbreeding is costly. We then compared relatedness within breeding pairs to that expected under multiple mate-choice models, finding that pair relatedness is consistent with avoidance of first-order kin as partners. Finally, we show that the similarity of vocal cues offers a plausible mechanism for discrimination against first-order kin during mate choice. Long-tailed tits are known to discriminate between the calls of close kin and nonkin, and they favor first-order kin in cooperative contexts, so we conclude that long-tailed tits use the same kin discrimination rule to avoid inbreeding as they do to direct help toward kin.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020, Published under the PNAS license. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details. |
Keywords: | cooperation,mating,altruism,kin selection,breeding,communication,inbreeding,dispersal,birds |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Biology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 22 May 2020 14:20 |
Last Modified: | 08 Feb 2025 00:38 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1918726117 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1073/pnas.1918726117 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:161136 |
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