Cost, risk, and avoidance of inbreeding in a cooperatively breeding bird

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-taile...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 117; no. 27; p. 15724
Main Authors: Leedale, Amy E, Simeoni, Michelle, Sharp, Stuart P, Green, Jonathan P, Slate, Jon, Lachlan, Robert F, Robinson, Elva J H, Hatchwell, Ben J
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 07.07.2020
Subjects:
Animals
Breeding - methods
Female
Heterozygote
Inbreeding
Male
Passeriformes - genetics
Passeriformes - growth & development
Reproduction - genetics
Sexual Behavior, Animal - physiology
Songbirds - genetics
Songbirds - growth & development
cooperative breeder
kin discrimination
inbreeding
mate choice
ISSN:1091-6490, 1091-6490
Online Access:Get more information
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Summary: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 ( ), 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.
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ISSN:1091-6490
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1918726117