Kralj-Fišer Simona, Schneider Jutta M, Kuntner Matjaž, Laskowski Kate, Garcia-Gonzalez Francisco
Scientific and Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Institute of Biology Evolutionary Zoology Laboratory Ljubljana Slovenia.
Institut für Zoologie Fachbereich Biologie Universität Hamburg Hamburg Germany.
Ecol Evol. 2021 Mar 25;11(10):5381-5392. doi: 10.1002/ece3.7430. eCollection 2021 May.
The existence of consistent individual differences in behavior has been shown in a number of species, and several studies have found observable sex differences in these behaviors, yet their evolutionary implications remain unclear. Understanding the evolutionary dynamics of behavioral traits requires knowledge of their genetic architectures and whether this architecture differs between the sexes. We conducted a quantitative genetic study in a sexually size-dimorphic spider, which exhibits sex differences in adult lifestyles. We observed pedigreed spiders for aggression, activity, exploration, and boldness and used animal models to disentangle genetic and environmental influences on these behaviors. We detected trends toward (i) higher additive genetic variances in aggression, activity, and exploration in males than females, and (ii) difference in variances due to common environment/maternal effects, permanent environment and residual variance in aggression and activity with the first two variances being higher in males for both behaviors. We found no sex differences in the amount of genetic and environmental variance in boldness. The mean heritability estimates of aggression, activity, exploration, and boldness range from 0.039 to 0.222 with no sizeable differences between females and males. We note that the credible intervals of the estimates are large, implying a high degree of uncertainty, which disallow a robust conclusion of sex differences in the quantitative genetic estimates. However, the observed estimates suggest that sex differences in the quantitative genetic architecture of the behaviors cannot be ruled out. Notably, the present study suggests that genetic underpinnings of behaviors may differ between sexes and it thus underscores the importance of taking sex differences into account in quantitative genetic studies.
在许多物种中都已表明存在行为上持续的个体差异，并且多项研究发现这些行为中存在可观察到的性别差异，但其进化意义仍不明确。了解行为特征的进化动态需要了解其遗传结构以及这种结构在性别之间是否存在差异。我们对一种具有性大小二态性的蜘蛛进行了一项数量遗传学研究，这种蜘蛛在成年生活方式上表现出性别差异。我们观察了有谱系的蜘蛛的攻击性、活动、探索和大胆程度，并使用动物模型来区分遗传和环境对这些行为的影响。我们检测到以下趋势：（i）雄性在攻击性、活动和探索方面的加性遗传方差高于雌性；（ii）在攻击性和活动方面，由于共同环境/母体效应、永久环境和残差方差导致的方差存在差异，前两个方差在两种行为中雄性都更高。我们发现大胆程度的遗传和环境方差量没有性别差异。攻击性、活动、探索和大胆程度的平均遗传力估计值在0.039至0.222之间，雌性和雄性之间没有显著差异。我们注意到估计值的可信区间很大，这意味着高度的不确定性，这使得无法对数量遗传学估计中的性别差异得出有力结论。然而，观察到的估计值表明不能排除行为的数量遗传结构存在性别差异。值得注意的是，本研究表明行为的遗传基础可能在性别之间存在差异，因此强调了在数量遗传学研究中考虑性别差异的重要性。
