Class Barbara, Dingemanse Niels J
Global Change Ecology Research Group, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Australia.
Behavioural Ecology, Department of Biology, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Sippy Downs, Germany.
J Evol Biol. 2022 Apr;35(4):483-490. doi: 10.1111/jeb.13998. Epub 2022 Mar 18.
Assortative mating occurs when paired individuals of the same population are more similar than expected by chance. This form of non-random assortment has long been predicted to play a role in many evolutionary processes because assortatively mated individuals are assumed to be genetically similar. However, this assumption may always hold for labile traits, or traits that are measured with error. For such traits, there is a variety of proximate mechanisms that can drive phenotypic resemblance between mated partners that, notably, have very different evolutionary repercussions. Bettering our understanding of the role of assortative mating in evolution will thus require insight into its proximate causes. To date, empirical research remains sparse, especially when for labile traits. This special issue aims to stimulate such research while promoting the usage and development of statistical approaches allowing the quantification of the relative roles of alternative proximate mechanisms causing assortative mating. To this end, we first describe how the phenotypic covariance between mated partners can be usefully partitioned into components that capture one or several of five distinct mechanisms. We then demonstrate why the importance of mechanisms causing genetic covariance between the traits of partners may often be overestimated. Finally, we detail how the evolutionary causes and consequences of the diverse mechanisms may be identified.
选型交配发生在同一群体中的配对个体比随机预期的更为相似时。长期以来，这种非随机交配形式被认为在许多进化过程中发挥作用，因为选型交配的个体被假定在基因上相似。然而，对于不稳定的性状或测量存在误差的性状，这一假设可能并不总是成立。对于此类性状，存在多种近因机制，这些机制能够推动交配伴侣之间的表型相似性，而值得注意的是，这些机制具有非常不同的进化影响。因此，要更好地理解选型交配在进化中的作用，就需要深入了解其近因。迄今为止，实证研究仍然稀少，尤其是针对不稳定性状的研究。本期特刊旨在推动此类研究，同时促进统计方法的应用和发展，以便能够量化导致选型交配的替代近因机制的相对作用。为此，我们首先描述如何将交配伴侣之间的表型协方差有效地划分为多个成分，这些成分能够捕捉五种不同机制中的一种或几种。然后，我们论证为什么导致伴侣性状之间遗传协方差的机制的重要性可能常常被高估。最后，我们详细说明如何识别各种机制的进化原因和后果。
