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Maternal Age-Related Depletion of Offspring Genetic Variance in Immune Response to Phytohaemagglutinin in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)

Studies examining age-specific patterns in genetic variance have focussed primarily on changes in the genetic variance within cohorts. It remains unclear whether parental age may affect the genetic variance among offspring. To date, such an effect has been reported only in a single study performed i...

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Autores principales: Drobniak, Szymon M., Dubiec, Anna, Gustafsson, Lars, Cichoń, Mariusz
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4328104/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25705062
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11692-014-9301-8
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author Drobniak, Szymon M.
Dubiec, Anna
Gustafsson, Lars
Cichoń, Mariusz
author_facet Drobniak, Szymon M.
Dubiec, Anna
Gustafsson, Lars
Cichoń, Mariusz
author_sort Drobniak, Szymon M.
collection PubMed
description Studies examining age-specific patterns in genetic variance have focussed primarily on changes in the genetic variance within cohorts. It remains unclear whether parental age may affect the genetic variance among offspring. To date, such an effect has been reported only in a single study performed in a wild bird population. Here, we provide experimental evidence that the additive genetic variance (V(A)) observed among offspring may be related to parental age in a wild passerine—the blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus). To separate genetic and environmental components of phenotypic variance in nestling body size and immune function we cross-fostered nestlings between pairs of broods born to young and old mothers and used an animal model to estimate V(A). We show that the genetic variance in immune response to phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) and body weight among offspring depends on maternal age. V(A) in response to PHA appeared to be lower among nestlings of older mothers. Such a tendency was not observed for tarsus length. We argue that the lower V(A) may result either from depletion of additive genetic variation due to selection acting on parents across age classes or from environmental effects confounded with parental age. Thus, our study suggests that parental age may significantly affect estimates of quantitative genetic parameters in the offspring.
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spelling pubmed-43281042015-02-20 Maternal Age-Related Depletion of Offspring Genetic Variance in Immune Response to Phytohaemagglutinin in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) Drobniak, Szymon M. Dubiec, Anna Gustafsson, Lars Cichoń, Mariusz Evol Biol Research Article Studies examining age-specific patterns in genetic variance have focussed primarily on changes in the genetic variance within cohorts. It remains unclear whether parental age may affect the genetic variance among offspring. To date, such an effect has been reported only in a single study performed in a wild bird population. Here, we provide experimental evidence that the additive genetic variance (V(A)) observed among offspring may be related to parental age in a wild passerine—the blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus). To separate genetic and environmental components of phenotypic variance in nestling body size and immune function we cross-fostered nestlings between pairs of broods born to young and old mothers and used an animal model to estimate V(A). We show that the genetic variance in immune response to phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) and body weight among offspring depends on maternal age. V(A) in response to PHA appeared to be lower among nestlings of older mothers. Such a tendency was not observed for tarsus length. We argue that the lower V(A) may result either from depletion of additive genetic variation due to selection acting on parents across age classes or from environmental effects confounded with parental age. Thus, our study suggests that parental age may significantly affect estimates of quantitative genetic parameters in the offspring. Springer US 2014-12-04 2015 /pmc/articles/PMC4328104/ /pubmed/25705062 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11692-014-9301-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2014 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Drobniak, Szymon M.
Dubiec, Anna
Gustafsson, Lars
Cichoń, Mariusz
Maternal Age-Related Depletion of Offspring Genetic Variance in Immune Response to Phytohaemagglutinin in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
title Maternal Age-Related Depletion of Offspring Genetic Variance in Immune Response to Phytohaemagglutinin in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
title_full Maternal Age-Related Depletion of Offspring Genetic Variance in Immune Response to Phytohaemagglutinin in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
title_fullStr Maternal Age-Related Depletion of Offspring Genetic Variance in Immune Response to Phytohaemagglutinin in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
title_full_unstemmed Maternal Age-Related Depletion of Offspring Genetic Variance in Immune Response to Phytohaemagglutinin in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
title_short Maternal Age-Related Depletion of Offspring Genetic Variance in Immune Response to Phytohaemagglutinin in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
title_sort maternal age-related depletion of offspring genetic variance in immune response to phytohaemagglutinin in the blue tit (cyanistes caeruleus)
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4328104/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25705062
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11692-014-9301-8
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