Some apparent ‘heritability’ in dispersal may be the geometry of the nest boxes
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
Using four blue-tit populations monitored for 26–48 years, the preprint combines pedigrees for 2,718 individuals with genomic analyses on 139 birds. Estimated natal-dispersal heritability ranged from about 0.03 to 0.13, but permutation and power analyses showed that nest-box spatial arrangement could generate spurious additive genetic variance in three of the four populations; four SNP associations were also reported.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
For long-running field studies, the sampling lattice is not neutral. Spatially structured monitoring can leak into genetic inference, which makes this a useful methodological signal well beyond dispersal ecology.
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
This is a preprint with modest heritability estimates and broad uncertainty, and the genome-wide sample is small. Results come from intensively monitored nest-box populations and the reported SNP associations should be treated as exploratory until replicated.
SOURCE
EcoEvoRxiv
View original evidence ↗
A new blue-tit preprint finds modest genetic signal for natal dispersal—but shows spatial autocorrelation can manufacture additive variance in three of four populations.
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