Heritable variation in colour patterns mediating individual recognition
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: Understanding the developmental and evolutionary processes that generate and maintain variation in natural populations remains a major challenge for modern biology. Populations ofPolistes fuscatuspaper wasps have highly variable colour patterns that mediate individual recognition. Previous experimental and comparative studies have provided evidence that colour pattern diversity is the result of selection for individuals to advertise their identity. Distinctive identity-signalling phenotypes facilitate recognition, which reduces aggression between familiar individuals inP. fuscatuswasps. Selection for identity signals may increase phenotypic diversity via two distinct modes of selection that have different effects on genetic diversity. Directional selection for increased plasticity would greatly increase phenotypic diversity but decrease genetic diversity at associated loci. Alternatively, heritable identity signals under balancing selection would maintain genetic diversity at associated loci. Here, we assess whether there is heritable variation underlying colour pattern diversity used for facial recognition in a wild population ofP. fuscatuswasps. We find that colour patterns are heritable and not Mendelian, suggesting that multiple loci are involved. Additionally, patterns of genetic correlations among traits indicated that many of the loci underlying colour pattern variation are unlinked and independently segregating. Our results support a model where the benefits of being recognizable maintain genetic variation at multiple unlinked loci that code for phenotypic diversity used for recognition.
Source: Royal Society Open Science
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.161008
Language: English
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,471
OpenAlex ID: W2589714988