Low evolutionary potential for blue-green egg colouration in a wild bird population
: D’Arpa, Stefania R; Gil, Diego; Muriel, Jaime; Monclús, Raquel; Pérez-Rodríguez, Lorenzo; Martínez-Padilla, Jesús
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
: 2024
: Journal of Evolutionary Biology
: Journal of evolutionary biology
: J Evol Biol
: 37
: 9
: 1035
: 1042
: 1010-061X
: 1420-9101
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voae088
: https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voae088
: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/457297787
Exploring the evolutionary architecture of female sexual traits and their potential evolvability is important to understand their possible role as post-mating sexual signals. Egg colouration has been proposed to be one of these post-mating sexual signals, honestly advertising female quality in birds, especially in blue-green laying species. In this study, we used an animal model in a Bayesian framework to estimate the evolvability of multiple descriptors of blue-green egg colouration and egg size in a wild long-term monitored population of spotless starlings (Sturnus unicolor). Our results show low to moderate heritability (h2 = 0.31 - 0.44) for three egg colour descriptors (blue-green chroma, chroma and lightness) and egg size. Using the coefficient of additive genetic variance (CVA) and the evolvability (IA) as proxies of evolutionary potential of all components of this trait, we found low values of CVA for all these variables, suggesting a small evolutionary potential of these phenotypic traits, contrasting to previous results reported in another blue-green egg laying species. Our results indicate a modest raw genetic material of this trait on which sexual selection can act upon and, therefore, a small probability for these traits to respond easily to selection.
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This paper is the result of a long-term study financed by a series of research grants by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades to DG (refs.: CGL2008-03501/BOS, CGL2011-26318 and CGL2017-83843-C2-1-P) and LP-R (ref.: PGC2018-099596-B-I00, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund -ERDF-). From 2009 to 2013, JM was supported by a FPI grant (BES-2009- 021383) from the ICINN and from 2019 to 2021 by a postdoctoral grant from the Juan De La Cierva Subprogram (FJCI-2017-34109), with the financial sponsorship of the MICINN. RM was funded by a Marie Skłodowska Curie Action within the Horizon 2020 Initiative from the European Commission.
