TY - JOUR
T1 - Gene flow after inbreeding leads to higher survival in deer mice
AU - Schwartz, Michael K.
AU - Mills, L. Scott
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a McIntire-Stennis Grant and NSF DEB 9870654 to LSM, and an NSF Training WEB grant. We thank Brice Adams and Shawn Cleveland for their help in the field and John Citta for his help with the analysis. David Tallmon, Yvette Ortega, Fred Allendorf, Dan Pletscher, Len Ruggiero and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. We thank the Peromyscus Stock Center for their advice on mouse husbandry.
PY - 2005/6
Y1 - 2005/6
N2 - We test the ability of gene flow to alleviate the deleterious effects of inbreeding in a small mammal, the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus). After three generations of sib-sib mating, individuals from three lines of mice were either subject to further inbreeding or were mated with an outbred individual. Subsequently, these mice, plus a control line, which were first generation (F1) mice from unrelated individuals kept in captivity for the same duration as the treatment lines, were released into isolated pens in a forest in western Montana. Survival of individual mice was recorded. Survival models that allowed variation in breeding treatments were well supported, whereas models explaining variation in line, or release location were not well supported. Survival was highest for offspring of the outcross group, intermediate for the inbred animals, and lowest for the control group. This suggests that the introduction of migrants can reduce inbreeding depression, as theory predicts. We also show limited evidence for purging of deleterious recessive alleles that can cause inbreeding depression. While purging may have occurred, the demographic cost was non-trivial as 5 of 8 of our inbred mouse lines went extinct during the inbreeding process.
AB - We test the ability of gene flow to alleviate the deleterious effects of inbreeding in a small mammal, the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus). After three generations of sib-sib mating, individuals from three lines of mice were either subject to further inbreeding or were mated with an outbred individual. Subsequently, these mice, plus a control line, which were first generation (F1) mice from unrelated individuals kept in captivity for the same duration as the treatment lines, were released into isolated pens in a forest in western Montana. Survival of individual mice was recorded. Survival models that allowed variation in breeding treatments were well supported, whereas models explaining variation in line, or release location were not well supported. Survival was highest for offspring of the outcross group, intermediate for the inbred animals, and lowest for the control group. This suggests that the introduction of migrants can reduce inbreeding depression, as theory predicts. We also show limited evidence for purging of deleterious recessive alleles that can cause inbreeding depression. While purging may have occurred, the demographic cost was non-trivial as 5 of 8 of our inbred mouse lines went extinct during the inbreeding process.
KW - Conservation biology
KW - Deer mouse
KW - Inbreeding depression
KW - Migration
KW - Purging
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=14644398619&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.biocon.2004.11.016
DO - 10.1016/j.biocon.2004.11.016
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:14644398619
SN - 0006-3207
VL - 123
SP - 413
EP - 420
JO - Biological Conservation
JF - Biological Conservation
IS - 4
ER -