Rates of alloparental care by male stickleback in natural lake populations

In many animal species, alternative reproductive tactics can result in alloparenting: adult individuals providing care for juveniles that are not genetically their own progeny. In species with parental care, males may exhibit “sneaking” behavior and fertilize eggs in the nest of another male, or nesting males may commit egg-theft from a more successful male, possibly to help attract females. Alloparenting may have important consequences for both male and female reproductive output and mate choice, but rates of alloparenting in natural populations are poorly understood in many taxa, as are the ecological factors that might influence these rates. Here, we quantified the frequency of alloparenting (detected by genetic mismatches between males and the eggs in their nests) within 15 natural populations of threespine stickleback, and tested whether the frequency of mismatch was predicted by characteristics of the lake (lake size and nest density) or features of individual males (body size and..., This data was collected from fifteen lakes in southwestern British Columbia during a single breeding season in 2013. Threespine stickleback fish fin clips and eggs underwent DNA extraction using a Progema Wizard Genomic DNA extraction kit, following manufacturer instructions (expect we eluted the final product in 50 μl of water. Microsatellites were resolved on an Applied Biosciences 3730 Sanger sequencer and alleles were scored using GeneMarker. ,