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A fine scale study finds limited evidence of kin clustering in a grey seal colony

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poland2008marinemammalsci371.pdf (450.3Kb)
Date
04/2008
Author
Poland, V. F.
Pomeroy, Patrick
Twiss, S.D.
Graves, Jefferson Alden
Keywords
Genetic structure
Microsatellites
Gray seal
Halichoerus grypus
Relatedness
Kin clustering
QH301 Biology
Metadata
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Abstract
Microsatellites were used to investigate fine-scale spatial and temporal genetic structure of a gray seal breeding colony, using samples collected throughout the colony (1997) and more extensive local sampling (2000-2002). Previous behavior of breeding seals on North Rona, including philopatry and high breeding site fidelity, suggested female kin may cluster together. However, low F-ST scores indicated no genetic differentiation between the major breeding aggregations in different regions of the colony. Nevertheless, the pairwise relatedness of mothers within regions was significantly higher than the relatedness of mothers between regions. Evidence of kin clustering occurred within one region in the colony. Within this region, mothers' pairwise relatedness decreased significantly with increasing distance between pupping sites. Pairwise relatedness of neighboring females within this region was also higher than expected. Conversely, in the other regions mothers that were considered likely to have social interactions, based on their spatial and temporal proximity, were not more related to each other than random. Therefore, sustained scale (> 500 m), but not at finer scales. This suggests that long-term associations of mothers on North Rona detected previously are unlikely to be formed solely by close kin.
Citation
Poland , V F , Pomeroy , P , Twiss , S D & Graves , J A 2008 , ' A fine scale study finds limited evidence of kin clustering in a grey seal colony ' , Marine Mammal Science , vol. 24 , no. 2 , pp. 371-387 . https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2008.00191.x
Publication
Marine Mammal Science
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2008.00191.x
ISSN
0824-0469
Type
Journal article
Rights
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Poland, V. F., Pomeroy, P. P., Twiss, S. D. and Graves, J. A. (2008), Fine-scale study finds limited evidence of kin clustering in a gray seal colony. Marine Mammal Science, 24 (2): 371–387, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2008.00191.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=42449159248&partnerID=8YFLogxK
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7343

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