Data from: Parenting behaviour is highly heritable in male stickleback

Parental care is critical for fitness, yet little is known about its genetic basis. Here, we estimate the heritability of parenting behaviour in a species famous for its diversity and its behavioural repertoire: three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Male threespined stickleback are the sole providers of paternal care that is necessary for offspring survival, therefore this system offers the opportunity to study the inheritance of parental behavior when selection is primarily acting on males. Fanning behaviour is a conspicuous parental behaviour that is readily quantified in this species. We show that the heritability of fanning behaviour is ≥0.9, and significantly different from zero within a freshwater population. Moreover, there was abundant genetic variation for fanning behaviour, indicating that it could readily evolve. These results suggest that parenting behaviour is tractable for further genetic dissection in this system.

双亲抚育行为对于个体适合度至关重要，然而目前学界对其遗传基础的认知仍较为匮乏。本研究以因物种多样性与行为谱丰富而闻名的三刺棘鱼（three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus）为研究对象，对其亲代抚育行为的遗传力进行估算。雄性三刺棘鱼是后代存活所必需的父本抚育的唯一提供者，因此该研究体系为探究选择压力主要作用于雄性时的亲代行为遗传规律提供了理想模型。扇动行为（fanning behaviour）是该物种中一种易于量化的典型亲代抚育行为。本研究结果显示，在淡水种群中，扇动行为的遗传力≥0.9，且显著不为零；此外，扇动行为存在丰富的遗传变异，表明该行为可快速发生演化。上述结果表明，在该研究体系中，亲代抚育行为适合开展进一步的遗传解析。