Data from: The genetic architecture of recombination rates is polygenic and differs between the sexes in wild house sparrows (Passer domesticus)

Meiotic recombination through chromosomal crossing-over is a fundamental
feature of sex and an important driver of genomic diversity. It ensures
proper disjunction, allows increased selection responses, and prevents
mutation accumulation; however, it is also mutagenic and can break up
favourable haplotypes. This cost/benefit dynamic is likely to vary
depending on mechanistic and evolutionary contexts, and indeed,
recombination rates show huge variation in nature. Identifying the genetic
architecture of this variation is key to understanding its causes and
consequences. Here, we investigate individual recombination rate variation
in wild house sparrows (Passer domesticus). We integrate genomic and
pedigree data to identify autosomal crossover counts (ACC) and
intra-chromosomal allelic shuffling () in 13,056 gametes transmitted from
2,653 individuals to their offspring. Females had 1.37 times higher ACC,
and 1.55 times higher  than males. ACC and  were
heritable in females and males (ACC h2 = 0.23 and 0.11;  h2 =
0.12 and 0.14), but cross-sex additive genetic correlations were low (rA =
0.29 and 0.32 for ACC and ). Conditional bivariate analyses showed that
all measures remained heritable after accounting for genetic values in the
opposite sex, indicating that sex-specific ACC and  can evolve
somewhat independently. Genome-wide models showed that ACC and
 are polygenic and driven by many small-effect loci, many of
which are likely to act in trans as global recombination modifiers. Our
findings show that recombination rates of females and males can have
different evolutionary potential in wild birds, providing a compelling
mechanism for the evolution of sexual dimorphism in recombination.