Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Genetic architecture and lifetime dynamics of inbreeding depression in a wild mammal

View ORCID ProfileM.A. Stoffel, S.E. Johnston, J.G. Pilkington, J.M Pemberton
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.27.118877
M.A. Stoffel
1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3FL, United Kingdom
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for M.A. Stoffel
  • For correspondence: martin.stoffel@ed.ac.uk
S.E. Johnston
1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3FL, United Kingdom
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
J.G. Pilkington
1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3FL, United Kingdom
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
J.M Pemberton
1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3FL, United Kingdom
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Inbreeding depression is a phenomenon of long-standing importance, but we know surprisingly little about its genetic architecture, precise effects and life-history dynamics in wild populations. Here, we combined 417K imputed SNP genotypes for 5952 wild Soay sheep with detailed long-term life-history data to explore inbreeding depression on a key fitness component, annual survival. Inbreeding manifests in long runs of homozygosity (ROH) and these are abundant in Soay sheep, covering on average 24% of the autosomal genome and up to 50% in the most inbred individuals. The ROH landscape is shaped by recombination rate variation and differs widely across the genome, including islands where up to 87% of the population have an ROH and deserts where the ROH prevalence is as low as 4%. We next quantified individual inbreeding as the proportion of the autosomal genome in ROH (FROH) and estimated its effect on annual survival. The consequences of inbreeding are severe; a 10% increase in FROH was associated with a 68% [95% CI 55-78%] decrease in the odds of survival. However, the strength of inbreeding depression is dynamic across the lifespan. We estimate depression to peak in young adults, to decrease into older ages and to be weaker in lambs, where inbreeding effects are possibly buffered by maternal care. Finally, using a genome-wide association scan on ROH, we show that inbreeding causes depression predominantly through many loci with small effects, but we also find three regions in the genome with putatively strongly deleterious mutations. Our study reveals population and genome-wide patterns of homozygosity caused by inbreeding and sheds light on the strength, dynamics and genetic architecture of inbreeding depression in a wild mammal population.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted May 30, 2020.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Genetic architecture and lifetime dynamics of inbreeding depression in a wild mammal
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Genetic architecture and lifetime dynamics of inbreeding depression in a wild mammal
M.A. Stoffel, S.E. Johnston, J.G. Pilkington, J.M Pemberton
bioRxiv 2020.05.27.118877; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.27.118877
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Genetic architecture and lifetime dynamics of inbreeding depression in a wild mammal
M.A. Stoffel, S.E. Johnston, J.G. Pilkington, J.M Pemberton
bioRxiv 2020.05.27.118877; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.27.118877

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Evolutionary Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4688)
  • Biochemistry (10379)
  • Bioengineering (7695)
  • Bioinformatics (26373)
  • Biophysics (13547)
  • Cancer Biology (10724)
  • Cell Biology (15460)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (8509)
  • Ecology (12843)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (16887)
  • Genetics (11416)
  • Genomics (15493)
  • Immunology (10638)
  • Microbiology (25257)
  • Molecular Biology (10241)
  • Neuroscience (54595)
  • Paleontology (402)
  • Pathology (1671)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2899)
  • Physiology (4355)
  • Plant Biology (9263)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1588)
  • Synthetic Biology (2561)
  • Systems Biology (6789)
  • Zoology (1471)