Maternal effects do not resolve the paradox of stasis in birth weight in a wild red deer populaton

© 2022 The Authors. Evolution published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Society for the Study of Evolution..

In natural populations, quantitative traits seldom show short-term evolution at the rate predicted by evolutionary models. Resolving this "paradox of stasis" is a key goal in evolutionary biology, as it directly challenges our capacity to predict evolutionary change. One particularly promising hypothesis to explain the lack of evolutionary responses in a key offspring trait, body weight, is that positive selection on juveniles is counterbalanced by selection against maternal investment in offspring growth, given that reproduction is costly for the mothers. Here, we used data from one of the longest individual-based studies of a wild mammal population to test this hypothesis. We first showed that despite positive directional selection on birth weight, and heritable variation for this trait, no genetic change has been observed for birth weight over the past 47 years in the study population. Contrarily to our expectation, we found no evidence of selection against maternal investment in birth weight-if anything, selection favors mothers that produce large calves. Accordingly, we show that genetic change in birth weight over the study period is actually lower than that predicted from models including selection on maternal performance; ultimately our analysis here only deepens rather than resolves the paradox of stasis.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:76

Enthalten in:

Evolution; international journal of organic evolution - 76(2022), 11 vom: 01. Nov., Seite 2605-2617

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Gauzere, Julie [VerfasserIn]
Pemberton, Josephine M [VerfasserIn]
Kruuk, Loeske E B [VerfasserIn]
Morris, Alison [VerfasserIn]
Morris, Sean [VerfasserIn]
Walling, Craig A [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Cervus elaphus
Evolutionary stasis
Indirect genetic effects
Journal Article
Natural selection
Quantitative genetics
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Trade-off

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 25.11.2022

Date Revised 20.01.2023

published: Print-Electronic

figshare: 10.6084/m9.figshare.20332407

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1111/evo.14622

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM34628726X