Kin recognition: Neurogenomic response to mate choice and sib mating avoidance in a parasitic wasp

Animals, including humans, use olfaction to assess potential social and sexual partners. Although hormones modulate olfactory cues, we know little about whether contraception affects semiochemical signals and, ultimately, mate choice. We examined the effects of a common contraceptive, medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), on the olfactory cues of female ring-tailed lemurs ( Lemur catta ), and the behavioural response these cues generated in male conspecifics. The genital odorants of contracepted females were dramatically altered, falling well outside the range of normal female variation: MPA decreased the richness and modified the relative abundances of volatile chemicals expressed in labial secretions. Comparisons between treatment groups revealed several indicator compounds that could reliably signal female reproductive status to conspecifics. MPA also changed a female's individual chemical ‘signature’, while minimizing her chemical distinctiveness relative to other contracepted females. Most remarkably, MPA degraded the chemical patterns that encode honest information about genetic constitution, including individual diversity (heterozygosity) and pairwise relatedness to conspecifics. Lastly, males preferentially investigated the odorants of intact over contracepted females, clearly distinguishing those with immediate reproductive potential. By altering the olfactory cues that signal fertility, individuality, genetic quality and relatedness, contraceptives may disrupt intraspecific interactions in primates, including those relevant to kin recognition and mate choice.

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Risk of inbreeding: problem of mate choice and fitness effects?

Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution ◽

10.1080/15659801.2015.1073452 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 62 (3-4) ◽

pp. 155-161

Author(s):

Hannu Ylӧnen ◽

Marko Haapakoski

Keyword(s):

Mate Choice ◽

Inbreeding Depression ◽

Kin Recognition ◽

Post Partum ◽

Dominance Rank ◽

Female Mate Choice ◽

Male Dominance ◽

Dominant Male ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

Fitness Effects

Mating with close kin may cause inbreeding depression with negative consequences to offspring and local populations. There exist mechanisms like kin-recognition or sex-specific dispersal to avoid mating with kin. In fluctuating population densities, like in many small mammals, both very low and very high densities provide conditions for inbreeding, if kin males are prone to stay in their natal area. Females are choosy and male dominance is thought to be the key feature when selecting mating partners. The aim of this study was to test the possible discrepancy in mate choice and negative fitness effects of inbreeding in two experiments, one in the laboratory and one in field enclosures. We asked (1) how the quality of the potential mating partners affects female choice regardless of relatedness and (2) how inbreeding affects the field populations created either from inbred or outbred individuals. Our results show that primiparous females in post-partum oestrus mated preferably with a dominant male, measured with their urine-marking behaviour, regardless if the selected male was brother or not. Only if the two males offered were of same dominance rank, the female mated with the non-kin male. However, the field experiment verified a negative effect of inbreeding in the bank vole. Thus, there seems to be a mismatch between female mate choice when selecting for dominance among resident males and population viability through long-term inbreeding depression. The study suggests the high importance of sex-biased dispersal as a mechanism to avoid kin individuals to meet in mate choice situations.

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Kin recognition and mate choice in mice: fitness consequences of mating with kin

Animal Behaviour ◽

10.1016/s0003-3472(89)80063-6 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 35-40 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

C.J. Barnard ◽

J. Fitzsimons

Keyword(s):

Mate Choice ◽

Kin Recognition ◽

Fitness Consequences

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Insects and incest: sib-mating tolerance in natural populations of a parasitoid wasp

10.1101/169268 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Marie Collet ◽

Isabelle Amat ◽

Sandrine Sauzet ◽

Alexandra Auguste ◽

Xavier Fauvergue ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mate Choice ◽

Inbreeding Depression ◽

Evolutionary Biology ◽

Parasitoid Wasp ◽

Small Scale ◽

Kin Discrimination ◽

Laboratory Studies ◽

Mate Finding ◽

Venturia Canescens ◽

Sib Mating

This preprint has been reviewed and recommended by Peer Community In Evolutionary Biology (http://dx.doi.org/10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100047) 1. Sib-mating avoidance is a pervasive behaviour that likely evolves in species subject to inbreeding depression. Laboratory studies have provided elegant demonstrations of sib-mating avoidance, but small-scale bioassays often minimize the costs associated with mate finding and choice, which could lead to spurious findings. 2. We used the hymenopteran parasitoid wasp Venturia canescens as a model organism, because previous laboratory studies revealed that sib-mating led to a 25% decrease in fertile offspring, and that sib-mating was partially avoided. 3. Our study consisted of a mate choice experiment in laboratory cages to determine if kin discrimination occurs in this species. We further performed a field study in which 86 wild-caught males, 155 wild-caught females and their 226 daughters were genotyped at eighteen microsatellite loci. With these data, we reconstructed the genotype of each female ′s mate and estimated the relatedness of each mating pair. 4. Mate choice experiments confirmed that females are capable of discriminating kin. Time to mating depended on the frequency of female encounters with related and unrelated males. Contrary to previously published results, however, no sib-mating avoidance was detected. In the field, the effective rate of sib-mating did not differ from the probability that sibs encounter one other at random, which corroborates the absence of sib-mating avoidance. We also detected a weak but significant male bias in dispersal, which could reduce encounters between sibs. 5. Our results suggest that, despite kin discrimination, V. canescens tolerates sib-mating in the field. The weak male-biased dispersal cannot explain entirely this pattern. This raises the question as to why kin discrimination is maintained in this species. It further calls into question the idea that inbreeding depression occurs in most species with single-locus complementary sex determination.

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Kinship alters the effects of forced cohabitation on body weight, mate choice and fitness in the rat-like hamster Tscheskia triton

Current Zoology ◽

10.1093/czoolo/55.1.41 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 55 (1) ◽

pp. 41-47

Author(s):

Xiaoping Rao ◽

Jian-Xu Zhang ◽

Dingzhen Liu ◽

Lin Cong

Keyword(s):

Body Weight ◽

Mate Choice ◽

Kin Recognition ◽

Female Rat ◽

Male And Female ◽

Sibling Pairs ◽

Behavioral Interaction ◽

Social Familiarity ◽

Rare And Endangered ◽

Opposite Sex

Abstract It has been documented that social isolation imparts deleterious effects on gregarious rodents species, but caging in group imparts such effects on solitary rodents. This study was attempted at examining how kinship to affect body weight, behavioral interaction, mate choice and fitness when we caged male and female rat-like hamsters Tscheskia triton in pair, a solitary species. We found that females paired with nonsibling males became heavier than the females paired with sibling males, but both agonistic and amicable behavior between paired males and females did not differ between sibling and nonsibling groups. This indicated that kinship might reduce females’ obesity in response to forced cohabitation, and dissociation might exist between physiological and behavioral responses. Furthermore, binary choice tests revealed that social familiarity between either siblings or nonsiblings decreased their investigating time spent in opposite sex conspecific of cage mates and/ or their scents as compared with those of non-mates, suggesting effects of social association on mate and kin selection of the hamsters. On the other side, both females and males caged in pair with siblings show a preference between unfamiliar siblings or their scents and the counterparts of nonsiblings after two month separation, indicating that the kin recognition of the hamsters might also rely on phenotype matching. In addition, cohabitation (or permanent presence of fathers) elicited a lower survival of pups in nonsibling pairs than sibling pairs, but did not affect litter size, suggesting that kinship affects fitness when housing male and female ratlike hamsters together. Therefore, inbreeding might be adapted for rare and endangered animals.

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