Head Shape Heritability in the Hungarian Meadow Viper Vipera ursinii rakosiensis

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Investigating how traits that are important for survival are inherited and influenced by other factors, such as parental quality and physical condition, is crucial for understanding their evolutionary potential, deciphering how they may contribute to local adaptation and taking such capacity into account for conserving threatened species. We studied head shape heritability in the Hungarian meadow viper to investigate the relative importance of inheritance and the maternal and paternal effects in driving the observed morphological variations. Our results show that offspring phenotypes are mainly determined by genetic factors and maternal effects, while paternal effects and residual environmental influences are minimal. This suggests a high evolutionary potential for head shape in the Hungarian meadow viper, which suggests a strong contribution of this ecologically relevant trait in shaping the ability of this endangered species to adapt to changing conditions and/or habitats and which would be useful to consider in captive breeding procedures for conservation efforts. ABSTRACT: Understanding heritability patterns in functionally relevant traits is a cornerstone for evaluating their evolutionary potential and their role in local adaptation. In this study, we investigated patterns of heritability in the head shape of the Hungarian meadow viper (Vipera ursinii rakosiensis). To this end, we used geometric morphometric data from 12 families composed of 8 mothers, 6 fathers and 221 offspring, bred in captivity at the Hungarian Meadow Viper Conservation Centre (Hungary). We separately evaluated maternal and paternal contributions to the offspring phenotype, in addition to additive genetic effects, all determined using a mixed animal model. Our results indicate a strong genetic and maternal contribution to head shape variations. In contrast, the paternal effects—which are rarely evaluated in wild-ranging species—as well as residual environmental variance, were minimal. Overall, our results indicate a high evolutionary potential for head shape in the Hungarian meadow viper, which suggests a strong contribution of this ecologically important trait in shaping the ability of this endangered species to adapt to changing conditions and/or habitats. Furthermore, our results suggest that maternal phenotypes should be carefully considered when designing captive breeding parental pairs for reinforcing the adaptive capacity of threatened populations, whereas the paternal phenotypes seem less relevant.