Strongly deleterious mutations influence reproducitve output and longevity in an endangered population

Inbreeding depression has been documented in various fitness traits in a wide range of species and taxa, however, the mutational basis is not yet well understood. We investigate how putatively deleterious variation influences fitness and is shaped by individual ancestry by sequencing complete genomes of 37 individuals in a natural arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) population subjected to both inbreeding depression and genetic rescue. We find that individuals with high proportion of loss of function genotypes (LoFs), which are predicted to exert a strong effect on fitness, generally have lower lifetime reproductive success and live shorter lives compared with individuals with lower proportion of LoFs. We also find that juvenile survival is negatively associated with the proportion of homozygous missense genotypes and positively associated with genome wide heterozygosity. Our results demonstrate that homozygosity of strongly and moderately deleterious mutations can be an important cause of trai..., , , # Strongly deleterious mutations influence reproducitve output and longevity in an endangered population

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7wm37pw2r](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7wm37pw2r)

## Description of the data and file structure

The study is carried out on a natural population of arctic foxes in Sweden. We investigated how putatively deleterious mutations influenced individual fitness, whether an immigration event altered the proportion of deleterious mutations in the population and whether individual ancestry influenced fitness. For fitness traits, lifetime reproductive success, longevity, litter size and juvenile survival were used. Individual ancestry were based on whether foxes were of native origin or whether they had immigrant ancestry. These were also divided into different generations (F1-F4). The mutations were divided into three categories: synonymous, missense and loss of function mutations. We also controlled for sex, phase of the rodent cycle and natal den.

Data is...