Quantifying male-biased dispersal among social groups in the collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) using analyses based on mtDNA variation

Abstract

Recent advances in the statistical analysis of microsatellite data permit calculation of sex-specific dispersal rates through sexand age-specific comparisons of genetic variation. This approach, developed for the analysis of data derived from codominant autosomal markers, should be applicable to a sexspecific marker such as mitochondrial DNA. To test this premise, we amplified a 449 bp control region DNA sequence from the mitochondrial genome of the collared peccary (Pecari tajacu), and estimated intra-class correlations among herds sampled from three Texas populations. Analyses on data partitioned by breeding group showed a clear signal of malebiased dispersal; sex-specific fixation indices associated with genetic variation among social groups within populations yielded values for females (F GP ¼ 0.91), which were significantly larger than values for males (F GP ¼ 0.24; P ¼ 0.0015). The same general pattern emerged when the analyses were conducted on age classes (albeit nonsignificantly), as well as categories of individuals that were predicted a posteriori to be dispersers (adult males) and philopatric (adult females and all immatures). By extending a previously published methodology based on biparentally inherited markers to matrilineally inherited haploid data, we calculated sex-specific rates of contemporary dispersal among social groups within populations (m # ¼ 0.37). These results support the idea that mitochondrial DNA haplotype frequency data can be used to estimate sex-specific instantaneous dispersal rates in a social species.

The Casiquiare river acts as a corridor between the Amazonas and Orinoco river basins: biogeographic analysis of the genus Cichla

“…It has been established that coalescent analyses are more accurate when based on multiple independent loci, and any single locus could provide a biased portrait of gene flow and population structuring, such as in the case of sex‐biased migration (e.g. Cooper et al. 2009).…”

The spatial distribution does not affect host–parasite coevolution in Rossomyrmex ants

“…The typical rule for ants is that both sexes are winged and perform nuptial flights (Bourke and Franks, 1995). Because mitochondrial DNA is matrilineal inherited, it can be used to infer female dispersal rates (Prugnolle and de Meeus, 2002;Cooper et al, 2010).…”

Mitochondrial DNA paradox: sex-specific genetic structure in a marine mussel – despite maternal inheritance and passive dispersal

“…Surprisingly, in many studies on species with breeding behaviours that differ between the sexes, genetic data from males and females have been combined [2-4]. Gender-specific differences in genetic structure based on maternally-inherited mtDNA sequences have so far only been reported for social mammals and have been attributed to the sexes exhibiting different dispersal patterns [20-22]. As males cannot pass their mitochondrial genome to the next generation, their lack of genetic structure implies considerably greater contemporary gene flow than in the females.…”

“…The fact that female-only mtDNA structure can be present in a species in which sex-biased dispersal is highly unlikely indicates that female philopatry and male roving [20-22] do not necessarily need to be invoked to explain such patterns. The lack of genetic structure in male mussels further challenges the notion that significant genetic structure in marine organisms must be the result of dispersal barriers, such as upwelling cells or coastal heterogeneity [15,28].…”