Original Article

Heredity (1993) 71, 405–412; doi:10.1038/hdy.1993.155

Constraints on the evolution of attractive traits: genetic (co)variance of zebra finch bill colour

Donald K Price1,2 and Nancy Tyler Burley1,3

1Department of Ecology, Ethology, and Evolution, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Correspondence: D. K. Price, Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA

2Present address: Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, U.S.A.

3Present address: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA 92717, U.S.A.

Received 19 February 1993.

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Abstract

We estimated the heritability and genetic correlation between male and female bill colour in a laboratory population of zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) in order to examine the potential genetic constraints on the evolution of a sexually dimorphic trait. The heritability estimates of bill colour from regressions of offspring on single parents ranged from h2 = 0.34 to 0.73 and all but one of these estimates were significantly greater than zero. The restricted maximum likelihood heritability estimates for full- and half-siblings were significant for females (h2 = 0.48) but not significant for males (h2 = 0.45). The maximum likelihood estimates indicate that there is little dominance genetic variance for bill colour. The large genetic correlation between male and female bill colour (rg = 0.91) combined with opposing selection on male and female bill colour indicates that the evolution to sex-specific optima may proceed very slowly.

Keywords:

attractive traits, bill colour, genetic covariance, heritability, sexual dimorphism, zebra finch

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