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Towards unbiased parentage assignment: combining genetic, behavioural and spatial data in a Bayesian framework
Author(s) -
HADFIELD J. D.,
RICHARDSON D. S.,
BURKE T.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
molecular ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.619
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1365-294X
pISSN - 0962-1083
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-294x.2006.03050.x
Subject(s) - biology , heritability , pedigree chart , quantitative genetics , bayesian probability , range (aeronautics) , population , statistics , acrocephalus , sample size determination , population genetics , evolutionary biology , genetics , mathematics , genetic variation , demography , composite material , materials science , sociology , gene
Inferring the parentage of a sample of individuals is often a prerequisite for many types of analysis in molecular ecology, evolutionary biology and quantitative genetics. In all but a few cases, the method of parentage assignment is divorced from the methods used to estimate the parameters of primary interest, such as mate choice or heritability. Here we present a Bayesian approach that simultaneously estimates the parentage of a sample of individuals and a wide range of population‐level parameters in which we are interested. We show that joint estimation of parentage and population‐level parameters increases the power of parentage assignment, reduces bias in parameter estimation, and accurately evaluates uncertainty in both. We illustrate the method by analysing a number of simulated test data sets, and through a re‐analysis of parentage in the Seychelles warbler, Acrocephalus sechellensis . A combination of behavioural, spatial and genetic data are used in the analyses and, importantly, the method does not require strong prior information about the relationship between nongenetic data and parentage.