Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 2018 Apr 11;285(1876). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2763.
Sexual reproduction is inherently interactive, especially in animal species such as humans that exhibit extended pair bonding. Yet we have little knowledge of the role of male characteristics and their evolutionary impact on reproductive behavioural phenotypes, to the extent that biologists typically consider component traits (e.g. reproductive timing) as female-specific. Based on extensive genealogical data detailing the life histories of 6435 human mothers born across four centuries of modern history, we use an animal modelling approach to estimate the indirect genetic effect of men on the reproductive phenotype of their partners. These analyses show that a woman's reproductive timing (age at first birth) is influenced by her partner's genotype. This indirect genetic effect is positively correlated with the direct genetic effect expressed in women, such that total heritable variance in this trait is doubled when heritable partner effects are considered. Our study thus suggests that much of the heritable variation in women's reproductive timing is mediated via partner effects, and that the evolutionary potential of this trait is far greater than previously appreciated.
有性繁殖本质上是相互作用的，特别是在人类等表现出长期配对结合的动物物种中。然而，我们对男性特征的作用及其对生殖行为表型的进化影响知之甚少，以至于生物学家通常将组成特征（例如生殖时机）视为女性特有的。基于详细描述了 6435 名在现代历史四个世纪中出生的人类母亲的生活史的广泛族谱数据，我们使用动物模型方法来估计男性对其伴侣生殖表型的间接遗传效应。这些分析表明，女性的生殖时机（首次生育年龄）受其伴侣基因型的影响。这种间接遗传效应与女性中表达的直接遗传效应呈正相关，因此当考虑可遗传的伴侣效应时，该特征的总可遗传方差增加了一倍。因此，我们的研究表明，女性生殖时机的大部分可遗传变异是通过伴侣效应介导的，并且该特征的进化潜力远远超过以前的认识。
