Why some species of birds do not avoid inbreeding: insights from New Zealand robins and saddlebacks

When dispersal options are limited and encounters with relatives are likely, individuals need to recognize and avoid mating with kin to avoid the fitness costs of close inbreeding. New Zealand robins and saddlebacks are genetically monogamous and possess life-history traits that predict they should show zero tolerance of close inbreeding. However, of 11 population-years of pedigree data, there was evidence of inbreeding avoidance in only 1 year. We also found no indication that incestuous pairings were avoided or that individuals were choosing genetically dissimilar mates based on microsatellite DNA analysis. Furthermore, a review of the literature revealed that inbreeding avoidance via kin recognition is common in cooperatively breeding birds, but pair-breeding birds such as robins and saddlebacks mate randomly with respect to relatedness. A model that incorporates encounter rates with close kin for various degrees of mate-searching effort shows that inbreeding avoidance is beneficial at intermediate to high levels of encounter rates with close kin (as found in cooperative breeders), but that random mating is more beneficial at low or extremely high encounter rates. We conclude that random mating normally results in such low rates of close inbreeding that it exerts negligible selection pressure to evolve kin recognition. Consequently, many threatened species are unlikely to have a natural "built-in" mechanism for avoiding close inbreeding, and the assumption of random mating built into many population viability models may be appropriate. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.