In group living species, individuals may gain the indirect fitness benefits characterising kin selection when groups contain close relatives. However, tests of kin selection have primarily focused on cooperatively breeding and eusocial species, whereas its importance in other forms of group living remains to be fully understood. Lekking is a form of grouping where males display on small aggregated territories, which females then visit to mate. As females prefer larger aggregations, territorial males might gain indirect fitness benefits if their presence increases the fitness of close relatives. Previous studies have tested specific predictions of kin selection models by using measures such as group-level relatedness. However, a full understanding of the contribution of kin selection in the evolution of group living requires estimating individuals’ indirect fitness benefits across multiple sites and years. Using behavioural and genetic data from the black grouse (Tetrao tetrix), we show that the indirect fitness benefits of group membership were limited because newcomers joined leks containing few close relatives who had limited mating success. Males’ indirect fitness benefits were higher in yearlings during increasing population density but overall remained small and only marginally changed the variation in male fitness. Kin selection acting through increasing group size has a limited influence on male fitness and is therefore unlikely to contribute substantially to the evolution and maintenance of lekking in this black grouse population.
DataFileLebigreEtAl
These data are for the paper:
"Limited indirect fitness benefits of male group membership in a lekking species."
by Christophe Lebigre et al.
Molecular Ecology (2014)
The data come from a large scale study of a Finnish black grouse population, and are sufficient to replicate the analyses presented in the article.
If you are interested in running analyses using this dataset or the full dataset, then please do get in touch with
Christophe Lebigre (christophe-dot-lebigre-at-uclouvain-dot-be) or Carl Soulsbury (csoulsbury-at-lincoln-dot-ac-dot-uk).
Entries are:
NewcomerID: running number for the 104 newcomers
Study site code: running number for each of the study sites
year: Study year
ID_other: running number for the other lekking males
Top_male: whether the other lekking male was a top male (1) or not (0)
Father: whether the other lekking male was the father of the newcomer (1) or not (0)
FullSib: whether the other lekking male was a fullsibling of the newcomer (1) or not (0)
HalfSib: whether the other lekking male is a halfsibling of the newcomer (1) or not (0)
Cops: mating success of the other male
Kinship: k value of the dyad newcomer-other lekking male
Relatedness: RQG value of the dyad newcomer-other lekking male
Tot_cops: total number of copulations observed on the study site in a specific year
GenotypesLekkingBlackGrouse
These data are for the paper:
"Limited indirect fitness benefits of male group membership in a lekking species."
by Christophe Lebigre et al.
Molecular Ecology (2014)
The data come from a large scale study of a Finnish black grouse population, and are sufficient to replicate the analyses presented in the article.
If you are interested in running analyses using this dataset or the full dataset, then please do get in touch with
Christophe Lebigre (christophe-dot-lebigre-at-uclouvain-dot-be) or Carl Soulsbury (csoulsbury-at-lincoln-dot-ac-dot-uk).
Entries are:
Focal_newcomer: whether the individual is a newcomer (1) or not (2)
ID: individual ID (running number)
Subsequent entries: alleles for the genotyped loci (BG16,BG18,BG15,BG19,BG6,TTT1,TTD2,TTD3,TUD6,TUT3,TUT4).
LekSizeVsTotCops
These data are for the paper:
"Limited indirect fitness benefits of male group membership in a lekking species."
by Christophe Lebigre et al.
Molecular Ecology (2014)
The data come from a large scale study of a Finnish black grouse population, and are sufficient to replicate the analyses presented in the article.
If you are interested in running analyses using this dataset or the full dataset, then please do get in touch with
Christophe Lebigre (christophe-dot-lebigre-at-uclouvain-dot-be) or Carl Soulsbury (csoulsbury-at-lincoln-dot-ac-dot-uk).
Entries are:
Site: study site code
Year: study year
tot_cops: total number of observed copulations
lek_size: lek size