Social pairing of Seychelles warblers under reduced constraints: MHC, neutral heterozygosity, and age.

ABSTRACT: The prevalence and significance of precopulatory mate choice remains keenly debated. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) plays a key role in vertebrate adaptive immunity, and variation at the MHC influences individual survival. Although MHC-dependent mate choice has been documented in certain species, many other studies find no such pattern. This may be, at least in part, because in natural systems constraints may reduce the choices available to individuals and prevent full expression of underlying preferences. We used translocations to previously unoccupied islands to experimentally reduce constraints on female social mate choice in the Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis), a species in which patterns of MHC-dependent extrapair paternity (EPP), but not social mate

SUBMITTER: Wright DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4718175 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan-Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature