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Feral Pigeons (Columba livia) Prefer Genetically Similar Mates despite Inbreeding Depression - PubMed

  • ️Fri Jan 01 2016

Feral Pigeons (Columba livia) Prefer Genetically Similar Mates despite Inbreeding Depression

Gwenaël Jacob et al. PLoS One. 2016.

Abstract

Avoidance of mating between related individuals is usually considered adaptive because it decreases the probability of inbreeding depression in offspring. However, mating between related partners can be adaptive if outbreeding depression is stronger than inbreeding depression or if females gain inclusive fitness benefits by mating with close kin. In the present study, we used microsatellite data to infer the parentage of juveniles born in a French colony of feral pigeons, which allowed us to deduce parent pairs. Despite detectable inbreeding depression, we found that pairwise relatedness between mates was significantly higher than between nonmates, with a mean coefficient of relatedness between mates of 0.065, approximately half the theoretical value for first cousins. This higher relatedness between mates cannot be explained by spatial genetic structure in this colonial bird; it therefore probably results from an active choice. As inbreeding but not outbreeding depression is observed in the study population, this finding accords with the idea that mating with genetically similar mates can confer a benefit in terms of inclusive fitness. Our results and published evidence suggest that preference for related individuals as mates might be relatively frequent in birds.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Genetic relatedness of couples and reproductive success, measured as the mean number of juvenile per clutch.

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Grants and funding

This study is a part of a general research program that was supported by grants from the ANRJC - Agence Nationale de la Recherche, programme Jeune Chercheur (ANR-05-JCJC-0098-01) and the Region Ile-de-France (n° 06 – 1064 MN 07).