Genetic covariance structure of growth in the salamander Ambystoma macrodactylum

Ragland, Gregory J.; Carter, P A

doi:10.1038/sj.hdy.6800462

Cited by 23 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The present study showed that sole (Solea solea) housed individually, in the absence of social interactions, still exhibits high individual differences in feed intake, growth and behaviour (on average CV of 23, 25 and 100% respectively), which has also been observed in other species when held in isolation [9], [10], [11], [50]. Growth variation of sole housed individually was lower than when communally held in a group of 100 fish (CV was 25% in period 2 compared to 70% in period 1, P<0.05).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Feeding Behaviour, Swimming Activity and Boldness Explain Variation in Feed Intake and Growth of Sole (Solea solea) Reared in Captivity

Mas-Muñoz

Komen

Schneider³

et al. 2011

PLoS ONE

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The major economic constraint for culturing sole (Solea solea) is its slow and variable growth. The objective was to study the relationship between feed intake/efficiency, growth, and (non-) feeding behaviour of sole. Sixteen juveniles with an average (SD) growth of 2.7 (1.9) g/kg0.8/d were selected on their growth during a 4-week period in which they were housed communally with 84 other fish. Selected fish were housed individually during a second 4-week period to measure individual feed intake, growth, and behaviour. Fish were hand-fed three times a day during the dark phase of the day until apparent satiation. During six different days, behaviour was recorded twice daily during 3 minutes by direct observations. Total swimming activity, frequency of burying and of escapes were recorded. At the beginning and end of the growth period, two sequential behavioural tests were performed: “Novel Environment” and “Light Avoidance”. Fish housed individually still exhibited pronounced variation in feed intake (CV = 23%), growth (CV = 25%) and behavior (CV = 100%). Differences in feed intake account for 79% of the observed individual differences in growth of sole. Fish with higher variation in feed intake between days and between meals within days had significantly a lower total feed intake (r = −0.65 and r = −0.77) and growth. Active fish showed significantly higher feed intake (r = 0.66) and growth (r = 0.58). Boldness during both challenge tests was related to fast growth: (1) fish which reacted with a lower latency time to swim in a novel environment had significantly higher feed intake (r = −0.55) and growth (r = −0.66); (2) fish escaping during the light avoidance test tended to show higher feed intake (P<0.1) and had higher growth (P<0.05). In conclusion, feeding consistency, swimming activity in the tank, and boldness during behavioral tests are related to feed intake and growth of sole in captivity.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Feeding Behaviour, Swimming Activity and Boldness Explain Variation in Feed Intake and Growth of Sole (Solea solea) Reared in Captivity

Mas-Muñoz

Komen

Schneider³

et al. 2011

PLoS ONE

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“…Thus, while our results do not provide evidence of a constraint to the evolution of larger size, they do indicate that evolutionary change will be restricted to an increase (or decrease under negative selection) in the height of the mean growth curve. In contrast, other laboratory and field studies have found that additional eigenvectors can explain substantial genetic variance (e.g., Cheverud et al 1983b;Ragland and Carter 2004;Wilson et al 2005b) that may reflect segregating alleles with antagonistic effects at different ages . Under such conditions then the population growth curve might evolve in different directions (e.g., increased size early in life and decreased size later) under an appropriate selection regime.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Quantitative genetics of growth and cryptic evolution of body size in an island population

et al. 2006

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While evolution occurs when selection acts on a heritable trait, empirical studies of natural systems have frequently reported phenotypic stasis under these conditions. We performed quantitative genetic analyses of weight and hindleg length in a free-living population of Soay sheep (Ovis aries) to test whether genetic constraints can explain previously reported stasis in body size despite evidence for strong positive directional selection. Genetic, maternal and environmental covariance structures were estimated across ontogeny using random regression animal models. Heritability increased with age for weight and hindleg length, though both measures of size were highly heritable across ontogeny. Genetic correlations among ages were generally strong and uniformly positive, and the covariance structures were also highly integrated across ontogeny. Consequently, we found no constraint to the evolution of larger size itself. Rather we expect size at all ages to increase in response to positive selection acting at any age. Consistent with expectation, predicted breeding values for age-specific size traits have increased over a twenty-year period, while maternal performance for offspring size has declined. Re-examination of the phenotypic data confirmed that sheep are not getting larger, but also showed that there are significant negative trends in size at all ages. The genetic evolution is therefore cryptic, with the response to selection presumably being masked at the phenotypic level by a plastic response to changing environmental conditions. Density-dependence, coupled with systematically increasing population size, may contribute to declining body size but is insufficient to completely explain it. Our results demonstrate that an increased understanding of the genetic basis of A. Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006quantitative traits, and of how plasticity and microevolution can occur simultaneously, is necessary for developing predictive models of phenotypic change in nature.

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“…Orthogonal Legendre polynomials were used as basis functions (Kirkpatrick et al ., ; Meyer, ). A model using three polynomials (including an intercept) to fit the additive genetic effects was deemed best using BIC scores in a backward selection process to choose among models following (Ragland & Carter, ):

BIC = - 2 (maximized log likelihood) + k \times ln (n)

…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraints on the evolution of function‐valued traits: a study of growth in Tribolium castaneum

Irwin

Carter

2013

J of Evolutionary Biology

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Growth trajectories often impact individual fitness. They are continuous by nature and so are amenable to analysis using a function-valued (FV) trait framework to reveal their underlying genetic architecture. Previous studies have found high levels of standing additive genetic (co)variance for growth trajectories despite the expectation that growth should be responding to frequent strong directional selection. In this study, the FV framework is used to estimate the additive genetic covariance function for growth trajectories in larval Tribolium castaneum to address questions about standing additive genetic (co)variance and possible evolutionary constraints on growth and to predict responses to four plausible selection regimes. Results show that additive genetic (co)variance is high at the early ages, but decreases towards later ages in the larval period. A selection gradient function of the same size and in the same direction of the first eigenfunction of the G-function should give the maximal response. However, evolutionary constraints may be acting to keep this maximal response from being realized, through either conflicting effects on survivability and fecundity of larger body size, few evolutionary directions having sufficient additive variance for a response, genetic trade-offs with other traits or physiological regulatory mechanisms. More light may be shed on these constraints through the development of more sophisticated statistical approaches and implementation of additional empirical studies to explicitly test for specific types of constraints.

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Genetic covariance structure of growth in the salamander Ambystoma macrodactylum

Cited by 23 publications

References 51 publications

Feeding Behaviour, Swimming Activity and Boldness Explain Variation in Feed Intake and Growth of Sole (Solea solea) Reared in Captivity

Feeding Behaviour, Swimming Activity and Boldness Explain Variation in Feed Intake and Growth of Sole (Solea solea) Reared in Captivity

Quantitative genetics of growth and cryptic evolution of body size in an island population

Constraints on the evolution of function‐valued traits: a study of growth in Tribolium castaneum

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