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Relative male and female contributions to the supercooling point of their offspring in Microvelia reticulata (Heteroptera: Veliidae)
Author(s) -
Ditrich Tomáš,
Boukal David S.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
entomological science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.536
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1479-8298
pISSN - 1343-8786
DOI - 10.1111/ens.12196
Subject(s) - biology , heteroptera , hardiness (plants) , offspring , maternal effect , overwintering , sire , zoology , ecology , genetics , botany , pregnancy , cultivar
Cold hardiness is a key life history trait in temperate and polar ectothermic species, as it affects survival during overwintering, but its evolution is poorly understood. While many studies of cold hardiness in insects have shown differences between species, populations or developmental stages, data on the relative contribution of individual genotypes to cold hardiness are scarce and mainly limited to drosophilid fly species. We used a sib‐analysis (paternal half‐sib/full‐sib breeding design) to estimate the relative contributions of parental generation to the supercooling point (SCP) of the offspring of a heteropteran non‐model insect species, Microvelia reticulata (Heteroptera: Gerromorpha: Veliidae). We found that parent identity affected significantly SCP values of their offspring. Magnitudes of estimated sire and dam variance components were similar but the distributions of individual contributions to SCP differed between sires and dams, which points to sex‐specific genetic or parental effects on SCP in this species. The animal model failed to find a realistic estimate of heritability ( h 2 ) of SCP, suggesting that the underlying genetics of SCP in M. reticulata can not be characterized by purely additive effects.