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Evolution of the G-matrix in life history traits in the common frog during a recent colonisation of an island system

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Abstract

Studies of genetic correlations between traits that ostensibly channel the path of evolution away from the direction of natural selection require information on key aspects such as ancestral phenotypes, the duration of adaptive evolution, the direction of natural selection, and genetic covariances. In this study we provide such information in a frog population system. We studied adaptation in life history traits to pool drying in frog populations on islands of known age, which have been colonized from a mainland population. The island populations show strong local adaptation in development time and size. We found that the first eigenvector of the variance–covariance matrix (g max) had changed between ancestral mainland populations and newly established island populations. Interestingly, there was no divergence in g max among island populations that differed in their local adaptation in development time and size. Thus, a major change in the genetic covariance of life-history traits occurred in the colonization of the island system, but subsequent local adaptation in development time took place despite the constraints imposed by the genetic covariance structure.

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Acknowledgments

We thank J. Almfelt for help with egg collection and laboratory experiments, and two anonymous reviewers for very constructive comments that improved this article. The Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Research Council FORMAS funded the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, 901 87, Umeå, Sweden

    Frank Johansson, Martin I. Lind, Pär K. Ingvarsson & Folmer Bokma

  2. Department of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, 75236, Uppsala, Sweden

    Frank Johansson

  3. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK

    Martin I. Lind

  4. Umeå Plant Science Centre, Umeå University, 901 87, Umeå, Sweden

    Pär K. Ingvarsson

Authors
  1. Frank Johansson
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  2. Martin I. Lind
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  3. Pär K. Ingvarsson
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  4. Folmer Bokma
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Frank Johansson.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 3.

Table 3 Genetic variance (V G ), covariance (rG [COV G ]) and heritability (h2) for life history traits in each population category
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Johansson, F., Lind, M.I., Ingvarsson, P.K. et al. Evolution of the G-matrix in life history traits in the common frog during a recent colonisation of an island system. Evol Ecol 26, 863–878 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-011-9542-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-011-9542-2

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