Indirect genetic effects: a key component of the genetic architecture of behaviour.

ABSTRACT: Behavioural ecology research increasingly focuses on why genetic behavioural variation can persist despite selection. Evolutionary theory predicts that directional selection leads to evolutionary change while depleting standing genetic variation. Nevertheless, evolutionary stasis may occur for traits involved in social interactions. This requires tight negative genetic correlations between direct genetic effects (DGEs) of an individual's genes on its own phenotype and the indirect genetic effects (IGEs) it has on conspecifics, as this could diminish the amount of genetic variation available to selection to act upon. We tested this prediction using a pedigreed laboratory population of Mediterranean field crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus), in which both exploratory tendency and aggression are h

SUBMITTER: Santostefano F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5578976 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature