Very low levels of direct additive genetic variance in fitness and fitness components in a red squirrel population.

ABSTRACT: A trait must genetically correlate with fitness in order to evolve in response to natural selection, but theory suggests that strong directional selection should erode additive genetic variance in fitness and limit future evolutionary potential. Balancing selection has been proposed as a mechanism that could maintain genetic variance if fitness components trade off with one another and has been invoked to account for empirical observations of higher levels of additive genetic variance in fitness components than would be expected from mutation-selection balance. Here, we used a long-term study of an individually marked population of North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) to look for evidence of (1) additive genetic variance in lifetime reproductive success and (2) fitness tr

SUBMITTER: McFarlane SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4063471 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature