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Variation in the peacock’s train shows a genetic component

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Abstract

Female peafowl (Pavo cristatus) show a strong mating preference for males with elaborate trains. This, however, poses something of a paradox because intense directional selection should erode genetic variation in the males’ trains, so that females will no longer benefit by discriminating among males on the basis of these traits. This situation is known as the ‘lek paradox’, and leads to the theoretical expectation of low heritability in the peacock’s train. We used two independent breeding experiments, involving a total of 42 sires and 86 of their male offspring, to estimate the narrow sense heritabilities of male ornaments and other morphometric traits. Contrary to expectation, we found significant levels of heritability in a trait known to be used by females during mate choice (train length), while no significant heritabilities were evident for other, non-fitness related morphological traits (tarsus length, body weight or spur length). This study adds to the building body of evidence that high levels of additive genetic variance can exist in secondary sexual traits under directional selection, but further emphasizes the main problem of what maintains this variation.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Anders Møller, Doug Maisie, James Futter, John Howe and Ellen Vale for help in measuring the peacocks, Michael Jennions and two anonymous referees for comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript, Loeske Kruuk for discussion on the statistical analyses and Quinton Spratt for allowing us to work at his farm. This work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB).

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Author notes

  1. Peter Cotgreave

    Present address: Campaign for Science & Engineering, 29 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9QU, UK

  2. Thomas W. Pike

    Present address: Division of Environmental and Evolutionary Ecology, Graham Kerr Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Evolutionary Biology Research Group, School of Clinical Medical Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Marion Petrie

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK

    Peter Cotgreave

  3. School of Biology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Thomas W. Pike

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  1. Marion Petrie
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  2. Peter Cotgreave
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Correspondence to Marion Petrie.

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Petrie, M., Cotgreave, P. & Pike, T.W. Variation in the peacock’s train shows a genetic component. Genetica 135, 7–11 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-007-9211-0

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