Josephine M. Pemberton

Parasite-mediated selection against inbred Soay sheep in a free-living, island population

Parasites are thought to provide a selective force capable of promoting genetic variation in natural populations. One rarely considered pathway for this action is via parasite‐mediated selection against inbreeding. If parasites impose a fitness cost on their host and the offspring of close relatives have greater susceptibility to parasites due to the increased homozygosity that results from inbreeding, then parasite‐mediated mortality may select against inbred individuals. This hypothesis has not yet been tested within a natural vertebrate population. Here we show that relatively inbred Soay sheep (Ovis aries), as assessed by microsatellite heterozygosity, are more susceptible to parasitism by gastrointestinal nematodes, with interactions indicating greatest susceptibility among adult sheep at high population density. During periods of high overwinter mortality on the island of Hirta, St. Kilda, Scotland, highly parasitised individuals were less likely to survive. More inbred individuals were also less likely to survive, which is due to their increased susceptibility to parasitism, because survival was random with respect to inbreeding among sheep that were experimentally cleared of their gastrointestinal parasite burden by anthelminthic treatment. As a consequence of this selection, average microsatellite heterozygosity increases with age in St. Kildan Soay sheep. We suggest that parasite‐mediated selection acts to maintain genetic variation in this small island population by removing less heterozygous individuals.

Why large-scale climate indices seem to predict ecological processes better than local weather

Large-scale climatic indices such as the North Atlantic Oscillation are associated with population dynamics, variation in demographic rates and values of phenotypic traits in many species. Paradoxically, these large-scale indices can seem to be better predictors of ecological processes than local climate. Using detailed data from a population of Soay sheep, we show that high rainfall, high winds or low temperatures at any time during a 3-month period can cause mortality either immediately or lagged by a few days. Most measures of local climate used by ecologists fail to capture such complex associations between weather and ecological process, and this may help to explain why large-scale, seasonal indices of climate spanning several months can outperform local climatic factors. Furthermore, we show why an understanding of the mechanism by which climate influences population ecology is important. Through simulation we demonstrate that the timing of bad weather within a period of mortality can have an important modifying influence on intraspecific competition for food, revealing an interaction between climate and density dependence that the use of large-scale climatic indices or inappropriate local weather variables might obscure.

Noise and determinism in synchronized sheep dynamics

A major debate in ecology concerns the relative importance of intrinsic factors and extrinsic environmental variations in determining population size fluctuations. Spatial correlation of fluctuations in different populations caused by synchronous environmental shocks,, is a powerful tool for quantifying the impact of environmental variations on population dynamics,. However, interpretation of synchrony is often complicated by migration between populations,. Here we address this issue by using time series from sheep populations on two islands in the St Kilda archipelago. Fluctuations in the sizes of the two populations are remarkably synchronized over a 40-year period. A nonlinear time-series model shows that a high and frequent degree of environmental correlation is required to achieve this level of synchrony. The model indicates that if there were less environmental correlation, population dynamics would be much less synchronous than is observed. This is because of a threshold effect that is dependent on population size; the threshold magnifies random differences between populations. A refined model showsthat part of the required environmental synchronicity can be accounted for by large-scale weather variations. These results underline the importance of understanding the interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic influences on population dynamics.

Microsatellites reveal heterosis in red deer

The fitness consequences of inbreeding and outbreeding are poorly understood in natural populations. We explore two microsatellite–based variables, individual heterozygosity (likely to correlate with recent inbreeding) and a new individual–specific internal distance measure, meand2 (focusing on events deeper in the pedigree), in relation to two measures of fitness expressed early in life, birth weight and neonatal survival, in 670 red deer calves (Cervus elaphus) born on the Isle of Rum between 1982 and 1996. For comparison, we also analyse inbreeding coefficients derived from pedigrees in which paternity was inferred by molecular methods.Only 14 out of 231 calves (6.1%) had non–zero inbreeding coefficients, and neither inbreeding coefficient nor individual heterozygosity was consistently related to birth weight or neonatal survival. However, meand2 was consistently related to both fitness measures. Low meand2 was associated with low birth weight, especially following cold Aprils, in which foetal growth is reduced. Low meand2 was also associated with low neonatal survival, but this effect was probably mediated by birth weight because fitting birth weight to the neonatal survival model displaced meand2 as an explanatory variable. We conclude that in the deer population fitness measures expressed early in life do not show evidence of inbreeding depression, but they do show evidence of heterosis, possibly as a result of population mixing. We also demonstrate the practical problems of estimating inbreeding via pedigrees compared with a direct marker–based estimate of individual heterozygosity. We suggest that, together, individual heterozygosity and meand2, estimated using microsatellites, are useful tools for exploring inbreeding and outbreeding in natural populations.

ANTLER SIZE IN RED DEER: HERITABILITY AND SELECTION BUT NO EVOLUTION

Abstract We present estimates of the selection on and the heritability of a male secondary sexual weapon in a wild population: antler size in red deer. Male red deer with large antlers had increased lifetime breeding success, both before and after correcting for body size, generating a standardized selection gradient of 0.44 (±0.18 SE). Despite substantial age- and environment-related variation, antler size was also heritable (heritability of antler mass = 0.33 ± 0.12). However the observed selection did not generate an evolutionary response in antler size over the study period of nearly 30 years, and there was no evidence of a positive genetic correlation between antler size and fitness nor of a positive association between breeding values for antler size and fitness. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that a heritable trait under directional selection will not evolve if associations between the measured trait and fitness are determined by environmental covariances: In red deer males, for example, both antler size and success in the fights for mates may be heavily dependent on an individuals nutritional state.

Dominant rams lose out by sperm depletion

A waning success in siring counters a rams high score in competition for ewes.

Population density affects sex ratio variation in red deer.

Many mammal populations show significant deviations from an equal sex ratio at birth, but these effects are notoriously inconsistent. This may be because more than one mechanism affects the sex ratio and the action of these mechanisms depends on environmental conditions. Here we show that the adaptive relationship between maternal dominance and offspring sex ratio previously demonstrated in red deer (Cervus elaphus),, where dominant females produced more males, disappeared at high population density. The proportion of males born each year declined with increasing population density and with winter rainfall, both of which are environmental variables associated with nutritional stress during pregnancy. These changes in the sex ratio corresponded to reductions in fecundity, suggesting that they were caused by differential fetal loss. In contrast, the earlier association with maternal dominance is presumed to have been generated pre-implantation. The effects of one source of variation superseded the other within about two generations. Comparison with other ungulate studies indicates that positive associations between maternal quality and the proportion of male offspring born have only been documented in populations below carrying capacity.

Sexually antagonistic genetic variation for fitness in red deer.

Evolutionary theory predicts the depletion of genetic variation in natural populations as a result of the effects of selection, but genetic variation is nevertheless abundant for many traits that are under directional or stabilizing selection. Evolutionary geneticists commonly try to explain this paradox with mechanisms that lead to a balance between mutation and selection. However, theoretical predictions of equilibrium genetic variance under mutation–selection balance are usually lower than the observed values, and the reason for this is unknown. The potential role of sexually antagonistic selection in maintaining genetic variation has received little attention in this debate, surprisingly given its potential ubiquity in dioecious organisms. At fitness-related loci, a given genotype may be selected in opposite directions in the two sexes. Such sexually antagonistic selection will reduce the otherwise-expected positive genetic correlation between male and female fitness. Both theory and experimental data suggest that males and females of the same species may have divergent genetic optima, but supporting data from wild populations are still scarce. Here we present evidence for sexually antagonistic fitness variation in a natural population, using data from a long-term study of red deer (Cervus elaphus). We show that male red deer with relatively high fitness fathered, on average, daughters with relatively low fitness. This was due to a negative genetic correlation between estimates of fitness in males and females. In particular, we show that selection favours males that carry low breeding values for female fitness. Our results demonstrate that sexually antagonistic selection can lead to a trade-off between the optimal genotypes for males and females; this mechanism will have profound effects on the operation of selection and the maintenance of genetic variation in natural populations.

Senescence rates are determined by ranking on the fast-slow life-history continuum

Comparative analyses of survival senescence by using life tables have identified generalizations including the observation that mammals senesce faster than similar-sized birds. These generalizations have been challenged because of limitations of life-table approaches and the growing appreciation that senescence is more than an increasing probability of death. Without using life tables, we examine senescence rates in annual individual fitness using 20 individual-based data sets of terrestrial vertebrates with contrasting life histories and body size. We find that senescence is widespread in the wild and equally likely to occur in survival and reproduction. Additionally, mammals senesce faster than birds because they have a faster life history for a given body size. By allowing us to disentangle the effects of two major fitness components our methods allow an assessment of the robustness of the prevalent life-table approach. Focusing on one aspect of life history - survival or recruitment - can provide reliable information on overall senescence.

The Dynamics of Phenotypic Change and the Shrinking Sheep of St. Kilda

Little Lambs In changing environments, ecological and evolutionary dynamics are intimately intertwined. However, understanding the dynamics of phenotypic traits under natural conditions is still rudimentary. Ozgul et al. (p. 464; published online 2 July) dissected the dynamics of a phenotypic trait in the context of the contributing ecological and evolutionary processes. In a wild population of Soay sheep where mean body size has fluctuated substantially over the past 25 years and has, on average, gotten smaller, an ecological response to environmental variation is the major driver of the dynamics; evolutionary change has contributed relatively little: The sheep have become smaller because climate change has modified the way that density-dependence influences lamb growth rates. Environmental change has led to decreasing body size in a sheep population over 20 years, despite selection for increased size. Environmental change, including climate change, can cause rapid phenotypic change via both ecological and evolutionary processes. Because ecological and evolutionary dynamics are intimately linked, a major challenge is to identify their relative roles. We exactly decomposed the change in mean body weight in a free-living population of Soay sheep into all the processes that contribute to change. Ecological processes contribute most, with selection—the underpinning of adaptive evolution—explaining little of the observed phenotypic trend. Our results enable us to explain why selection has so little effect even though weight is heritable, and why environmental change has caused a decline in the body size of Soay sheep.