Full-factorial breeding experiment with lake char (Lake Geneva, winter 2017/2018)

We sampled 16 wild lake char (Salvelinus umbla) and used their gametes to investigate the genetic consequences of different mating scenarios. A full-factorial breeding was used to separate additive genetic from maternal environmental effects, and embryos were raised singly after sublethal exposures to a pathogen, a common pollutant, or water only. In all treatment groups, embryo development was strongly reduced with increased genetic relatedness between the parents. Contrary to predictions of ‘good genes’ sexual selection, pathogen tolerance of offspring declined with increasing coloration of their fathers.
Determination of inbreeding and kinship coefficients: All 10 males and 4 of the 6 females were used in a parallel study that included sperm competition experiments (Nusbaumer et a. 2021). These 14 parents had been prepared in one library for ddRAD sequencing on 2 lanes on an Illumina HIseq 2500 (see de Guttry et al. 2022 for the corresponding 14 gzipped .fastq of these individuals). ...