| There is widespread interest in the relationship between individual genetic diversity and fitness-related traits (heterozygosity-fitness correlations; HFCs). Most studies have found weak continuous increases of fitness with increasing heterozygosity, while negative HFCs have rarely been reported. Negative HFCs are expected in cases of outbreeding depression, but outbreeding is rare in natural populations. Negative HFCs may also arise through viability selection acting on low heterozygosity individuals at an early stage producing a skew in the heterozygosity distribution. We tested this idea using survival and clutch parameters (egg mass, egg volume, chick mass, clutch size) in female Black Grouse Lyrurus tetrix and carried out simulations to determine how... |
