Inferred Paternity and Male Reproductive Success in a Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Population

Ford, Michael J.; Hanson, M. Bradley; Hempelmann, Jennifer A.; Ayres, Katherine L.; Emmons, Candice K.; Schorr, Gregory S.; Baird, Robin W.; Balcomb, Kenneth C.; Wasser, Samuel K.; Parsons, Kim M.; Balcomb-Bartok, Kelly

doi:10.1093/jhered/esr067

Cited by 65 publications

(80 citation statements)

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“…Certainly, our results suggest that the genetic signature of a bottlenecks should be interpreted with caution when found in species known to have moderate to large variance in offspring number (as for example in the killer whale, [46]), or where large variance in offspring number is suspected (as for example in many marine species, [26]). In the killer whale example, large variance in offspring number was estimated based on parentage analysis and a demographic bottleneck was inferred from genetic data using the statistical approaches we examined in our study; the authors report that it is unclear whether a bottleneck actually occurred.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High variance in reproductive success generates a false signature of a genetic bottleneck in populations of constant size: a simulation study

et al. 2013

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Background: Demographic bottlenecks can severely reduce the genetic variation of a population or a species. Establishing whether low genetic variation is caused by a bottleneck or a constantly low effective number of individuals is important to understand a species' ecology and evolution, and it has implications for conservation management. Recent studies have evaluated the power of several statistical methods developed to identify bottlenecks. However, the false positive rate, i.e. the rate with which a bottleneck signal is misidentified in demographically stable populations, has received little attention. We analyse this type of error (type I) in forward computer simulations of stable populations having greater than Poisson variance in reproductive success (i.e., variance in family sizes). The assumption of Poisson variance underlies bottleneck tests, yet it is commonly violated in species with high fecundity. Results: With large variance in reproductive success (V k ≥ 40, corresponding to a ratio between effective and census size smaller than 0.1), tests based on allele frequencies, allelic sizes, and DNA sequence polymorphisms (heterozygosity excess, M-ratio, and Tajima's D test) tend to show erroneous signals of a bottleneck. Similarly, strong evidence of population decline is erroneously detected when ancestral and current population sizes are estimated with the model based method MSVAR. Conclusions: Our results suggest caution when interpreting the results of bottleneck tests in species showing high variance in reproductive success. Particularly in species with high fecundity, computer simulations are recommended to confirm the occurrence of a population bottleneck.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High variance in reproductive success generates a false signature of a genetic bottleneck in populations of constant size: a simulation study

et al. 2013

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“…DNA extraction and analyses were performed according to previously published methods [52]. Species was confirmed by fragment length of 16 s ribosomal DNA.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinguishing the Impacts of Inadequate Prey and Vessel Traffic on an Endangered Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Population

et al. 2012

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Managing endangered species often involves evaluating the relative impacts of multiple anthropogenic and ecological pressures. This challenge is particularly formidable for cetaceans, which spend the majority of their time underwater. Noninvasive physiological approaches can be especially informative in this regard. We used a combination of fecal thyroid (T3) and glucocorticoid (GC) hormone measures to assess two threats influencing the endangered southern resident killer whales (SRKW; Orcinus orca) that frequent the inland waters of British Columbia, Canada and Washington, U.S.A. Glucocorticoids increase in response to nutritional and psychological stress, whereas thyroid hormone declines in response to nutritional stress but is unaffected by psychological stress. The inadequate prey hypothesis argues that the killer whales have become prey limited due to reductions of their dominant prey, Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). The vessel impact hypothesis argues that high numbers of vessels in close proximity to the whales cause disturbance via psychological stress and/or impaired foraging ability. The GC and T3 measures supported the inadequate prey hypothesis. In particular, GC concentrations were negatively correlated with short-term changes in prey availability. Whereas, T3 concentrations varied by date and year in a manner that corresponded with more long-term prey availability. Physiological correlations with prey overshadowed any impacts of vessels since GCs were lowest during the peak in vessel abundance, which also coincided with the peak in salmon availability. Our results suggest that identification and recovery of strategic salmon populations in the SRKW diet are important to effectively promote SRKW recovery.

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“…Barrett-Lennard (2000) showed that resident killer whale females in Northern resident population tend to choose mates with the most dissimilar dialect (though mating within pods have been observed in the Southern resident population, Ford et al, 2011b). If females choose males on the basis of acoustic divergence of a male's call with their own sounds, sexual selection towards faster call evolution would be expected.…”

Section: Temporal Stability and Change Of Call Repertoiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural evolution of killer whale calls: background, mechanisms and consequences

Filatova

Samarra

Deecke

et al. 2015

Behav

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Cultural evolution is a powerful process shaping behavioural phenotypes of many species including our own. Killer whales are one of the species with relatively well-studied vocal culture. Pods have distinct dialects comprising a mix of unique and shared call types; calves adopt the call repertoire of their matriline through social learning. We review different aspects of killer whale acoustic communication to provide insights into the cultural transmission and gene-culture co-evolution processes that produce the extreme diversity of group and population repertoires. We argue that the cultural evolution of killer whale calls is not a random process driven by steady error accumulation alone: temporal change occurs at different speeds in different components of killer whale repertoires, and constraints in call structure and horizontal transmission often degrade the phylogenetic signal. We discuss the implications from bird song and human linguistic studies, and propose several hypotheses of killer whale dialect evolution.

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Inferred Paternity and Male Reproductive Success in a Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Population

Cited by 65 publications

References 73 publications

High variance in reproductive success generates a false signature of a genetic bottleneck in populations of constant size: a simulation study

High variance in reproductive success generates a false signature of a genetic bottleneck in populations of constant size: a simulation study

Distinguishing the Impacts of Inadequate Prey and Vessel Traffic on an Endangered Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Population

Cultural evolution of killer whale calls: background, mechanisms and consequences

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