VCF from: Genetic evidence of female philopatry in a socially polyandrous shorebird

Sex-biased dispersal plays a key role in shaping population dynamics and
genetic structure. Two main hypotheses have been proposed for how
territoriality and mating competition impact sex-biased dispersal.
Female-biased dispersal is expected in monogamous systems with male
resource defense, whereas male-biased dispersal is expected in polygynous
systems with male competition over mates. However, patterns of sex-biased
dispersal in socially polyandrous species, where females compete for both
territories and mates, remain poorly understood. We investigated
sex-biased dispersal in two polyandrous Jacana species across Central
America, the Northern Jacana (Jacana spinosa) and Wattled Jacana (J.
jacana), which exhibit intense female-female competition for territories
and mates and differ in the strength of sexual selection. We analyzed
sex-biased dispersal by assessing genetic differentiation and individual
assignment indices to determine the probability of an individual being a
recent immigrant or philopatric in relation to its sampling location. Our
findings reveal strong male-biased dispersal in Northern Jacanas,
indicated by higher genetic structuring and philopatry in females. In
contrast, Wattled Jacanas showed no significant dispersal bias between
sexes. Furthermore, sexually selected traits in Northern Jacana females,
such as larger body mass and wing spur length, were associated with
philopatry, suggesting that larger females retain territories, whereas
smaller females disperse. To our knowledge, this is the first genetic
evidence of male-biased dispersal in a polyandrous species. Our findings
reveal that sexually selected traits, in addition to territorial and mate
competition, are important for understanding species and sex differences
in dispersal evolution.