Inheritance of Material Wealth in a Natural Population
Murielle Ålund, S. Eryn McFarlane, Arild Husby, Jonas Knape, Tomas Pärt, Päivi Sirkiä, Franz J. Weissing, David Wheatcroft, Yishu Zhu, Anna Qvarnström · 2024
Read Inheritance of Material Wealth in a Natural Population by Murielle Ålund, S. Eryn McFarlane, Arild Husby, Jonas Knape, Tomas Pärt, Päivi Sirkiä, Franz J. Weissing, David Wheatcroft, Yishu Zhu, Anna Qvarnström (2024) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-11686942.txt.
Description
Wealth, in a wild bird, is a territory rich in caterpillars — and collared flycatchers pass such wealth down generations. Murielle Ålund and co-authors asked in 2024 whether that inheritance rides on heritable hunting skill or on something else. Genome-wide analysis put the heritability of access to caterpillar-rich territory high, at about 0.41.
Yet the team found little sign of heritable variation in the abilities that win such territories. Instead, simulations, experiments, and long-term monitoring point to philopatry. Birds return to breed near where they hatched, so good neighborhoods stay in the family. The population gains a genetic structure across a patchy landscape. The lesson is broad — genes can spread because they sit in lucky places, not because they cause success.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Murielle Ålund, S. Eryn McFarlane, Arild Husby, Jonas Knape, Tomas Pärt, Päivi Sirkiä, Franz J. Weissing, David Wheatcroft, Yishu Zhu, Anna Qvarnström |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 46 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |