10.5061/DRYAD.G983J23
Class, Barbara
University of Turku
Brommer, Jon E.
University of Turku
Data from: Shared environmental effects bias phenotypic estimates of
assortative mating in a wild bird
Dryad
dataset
2018
assortative mating
multivariate mixed model
Common environment
Cyanistes caeruleus
Mate choice
2018-06-20T14:35:01Z
2018-06-20T14:35:01Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0106
306142 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Assortative mating is pervasive in wild populations and commonly described
as a positive correlation between the phenotypes of males and females
across mated pairs. This correlation is often assumed to reflect
non-random mate choice based on phenotypic similarity. However, phenotypic
resemblance between mates can also arise when their traits respond
plastically to a shared environmental effect creating a (within-pair)
residual correlation in traits. Using long-term data collected in pairs of
wild blue tits and a covariance partitioning approach, we empirically
demonstrate that such residual covariance indeed exists and can generate
phenotypic correlations (or mask assortative mating) in behavioural and
morphometric traits. These findings i) imply that residual covariance is
likely to be common and bias phenotypic estimates of assortative mating,
which can have consequences for evolutionary predictions, ii) call for the
use of rigorous statistical approaches in the study of assortative mating,
and iii) show the applicability of one of these approaches in a common
study system.
Morphometric and behavioural data collected in blue tit pairs (7
traits)Data collected in a wild population blue tits breeding in
South-western Finland between 2003 and 2017. The names of males' and
females' traits end, respectively with "_m" and
"_f". Wing, tarsus, head-bill (Head) and tail lengths are in mm
and weight is in g. Handling aggression (Aggression) is on a 1-5 scale and
breath rate (BR) is expressed as a number of breaths per second. The
birds' age at the time of measurement is in
years.Data_BT_7traits_19618.csvDefence data collected in wild blue
titsBehavioural data collected from 2007 to 2017 in a wild population of
blue tits breeding in South-western Finland. The number of times males and
females attacked an observer during a 2 minutes test is reported,
respectively in the columns"Nr_attacks_m" and
"Nr_attacks_f". The square root of this number
("Attacks_m" and "Attacks_f".) was used for our
analyses.The birds' age at the time of measurement is in
years.Data_BT_Defence.csv
Finland