A quantitative trait locus analysis of personality in wild bighorn sheep

J. Poissant; D. Réale; J. G. A. Martin; M. Festa-Bianchet; D.W. Coltman

doi:10.1002/ece3.468

A quantitative trait locus analysis of personality in wild bighorn sheep

J. Poissant, D. Réale, J. G. A. Martin, M. Festa-Bianchet, D.W. Coltman

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

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Abstract

Personality, the presence of persistent behav105 ioral differences among individuals over time or contexts, potentially has important ecological and evolutionary consequences. However, a lack of knowledge about its genetic architecture limits our ability to understand its origin, evolution, and maintenance. Here, we report on a genome-wide quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis for two personality traits, docility and boldness, in free-living female bighorn sheep from Ram Mountain, Alberta, Canada. Our variance component linkage analysis based on 238 microsatellite loci genotyped in 310 pedigreed individuals identified suggestive docility and boldness QTL on sheep chromosome 2 and 6, respectively. A lack of QTL overlap indicated that genetic covariance between traits was not modulated by pleiotropic effects at a major locus and may instead result from linkage disequilibrium or pleiotropic effects at QTL of small effects. To our knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to dissect the genetic architecture of personality in a free-living wildlife population, an important step toward understanding the link between molecular genetic variation in personality and fitness and the evolutionary processes maintaining this variation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	474-481
Number of pages	8
Journal	Ecology and Evolution
Volume	3
Issue number	3
Early online date	18 Jan 2013
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.468
Publication status	Published - Mar 2013

Keywords

animal model
behavioural syndrome
boldness
docility
heritability
temperament

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A quantitative trait locus analysis of personality in wild bighorn sheep
© 2013 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.468/abstractLicence: Unspecified

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title = "A quantitative trait locus analysis of personality in wild bighorn sheep",

abstract = "Personality, the presence of persistent behav105 ioral differences among individuals over time or contexts, potentially has important ecological and evolutionary consequences. However, a lack of knowledge about its genetic architecture limits our ability to understand its origin, evolution, and maintenance. Here, we report on a genome-wide quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis for two personality traits, docility and boldness, in free-living female bighorn sheep from Ram Mountain, Alberta, Canada. Our variance component linkage analysis based on 238 microsatellite loci genotyped in 310 pedigreed individuals identified suggestive docility and boldness QTL on sheep chromosome 2 and 6, respectively. A lack of QTL overlap indicated that genetic covariance between traits was not modulated by pleiotropic effects at a major locus and may instead result from linkage disequilibrium or pleiotropic effects at QTL of small effects. To our knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to dissect the genetic architecture of personality in a free-living wildlife population, an important step toward understanding the link between molecular genetic variation in personality and fitness and the evolutionary processes maintaining this variation.",

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note = "Acknowledgments This study was supported by an Alberta Conservation Association grant to JP and Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) discovery grants to DWC, MF and Fanie Pelletier. JP was supported by postdoctoral fellowships from NSERC and the European Research Council. We thank Joshua Miller for his help with reconstructing the Ram Mountain pedigree. We thank Jon Jorgenson and the numerous graduate students and field assistants who worked at Ram Mountain over the years.",

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AU - Coltman, D.W.

N1 - Acknowledgments This study was supported by an Alberta Conservation Association grant to JP and Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) discovery grants to DWC, MF and Fanie Pelletier. JP was supported by postdoctoral fellowships from NSERC and the European Research Council. We thank Joshua Miller for his help with reconstructing the Ram Mountain pedigree. We thank Jon Jorgenson and the numerous graduate students and field assistants who worked at Ram Mountain over the years.

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N2 - Personality, the presence of persistent behav105 ioral differences among individuals over time or contexts, potentially has important ecological and evolutionary consequences. However, a lack of knowledge about its genetic architecture limits our ability to understand its origin, evolution, and maintenance. Here, we report on a genome-wide quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis for two personality traits, docility and boldness, in free-living female bighorn sheep from Ram Mountain, Alberta, Canada. Our variance component linkage analysis based on 238 microsatellite loci genotyped in 310 pedigreed individuals identified suggestive docility and boldness QTL on sheep chromosome 2 and 6, respectively. A lack of QTL overlap indicated that genetic covariance between traits was not modulated by pleiotropic effects at a major locus and may instead result from linkage disequilibrium or pleiotropic effects at QTL of small effects. To our knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to dissect the genetic architecture of personality in a free-living wildlife population, an important step toward understanding the link between molecular genetic variation in personality and fitness and the evolutionary processes maintaining this variation.

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JO - Ecology and Evolution

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A quantitative trait locus analysis of personality in wild bighorn sheep

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Keywords

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