Pearson Sarah K, Godfrey Stephanie S, Schwensow Nina, Bull C Michael, Gardner Michael G
From the School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University of South Australia, Bedford Park 5042, Australia (Pearson, Bull, and Gardner); School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Australia (Godfrey); School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia (Schwensow); Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany (Schwensow); and Evolutionary Biology Unit, South Australian Museum, Adelaide, Australia (Gardner).
J Hered. 2017 Jun 1;108(4):369-378. doi: 10.1093/jhered/esx026.
Due to their role in mate choice, disease resistance and kin recognition, genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) are good candidates for investigating genetic-based mate choice. MHC-based mate choice is context dependent and influenced by many factors including social structure. Social structure diversity makes the Egernia group of lizards suitable for comparative studies of MHC-based mate choice. We investigated mate choice in the gidgee skink (Egernia stokesii), a lizard that exhibits high levels of social group and spatial stability. Group membership was incorporated into tests of the good genes as heterozygosity and compatible genes hypotheses for adaptive (MHC) and neutral (microsatellite) genetic diversity (n = 47 individuals genotyped). Females were more likely to pair with a male with higher MHC diversity and with whom they had a lower degree of microsatellite relatedness. Males were more likely to pair with a female with higher microsatellite heterozygosity and with whom they shared a lower proportion of MHC alleles. Lizards were more likely to mate with an individual from within, rather than outside, their social group, which confirmed earlier findings for this species and indicated mate choice had already largely occurred prior to either social group formation or acceptance of an individual into an existing group. Thus, a combination of genes and group membership, rather than group membership alone, predicted mate choice in this species. This work will contribute to an enhanced understanding of squamate group formation and a deeper understanding of the evolution of sociality within all vertebrates.
由于主要组织相容性复合体（MHC）基因在配偶选择、抗病性和亲属识别中发挥的作用，它们是研究基于基因的配偶选择的理想候选对象。基于MHC的配偶选择取决于环境，并受到包括社会结构在内的多种因素影响。社会结构的多样性使得鬃狮蜥属蜥蜴适合用于基于MHC的配偶选择的比较研究。我们研究了吉氏石龙子（Egernia stokesii）的配偶选择，这种蜥蜴表现出高度的社会群体和空间稳定性。在对适应性（MHC）和中性（微卫星）遗传多样性的优良基因作为杂合性和相容基因假说的测试中纳入了群体成员身份（对47个个体进行了基因分型）。雌性更有可能与MHC多样性更高且与其微卫星相关性较低的雄性配对。雄性更有可能与微卫星杂合性更高且与其共享MHC等位基因比例较低的雌性配对。蜥蜴更有可能与来自其社会群体内部而非外部的个体交配，这证实了该物种先前的研究结果，并表明配偶选择在社会群体形成之前或个体被现有群体接纳之前就已在很大程度上发生。因此，基因和群体成员身份的结合，而非仅群体成员身份，预测了该物种的配偶选择。这项工作将有助于加深对有鳞目动物群体形成的理解，并更深入地了解所有脊椎动物社会行为的进化。
