Wild pedigrees inform mutation rates and historic abundance in baleen whales
DOI10.5281/ZENODO.8306163Zenodo8306163MaRDI QIDQ6672449FDOQ6672449
Dataset published at Zenodo repository.
Vania Rivera-Leon, Rampal S. Etienne, Jooke Robbins, Marcos Suárez-Menéndez, Britas Klemens Eriksson, Martine Bérubé, Richard Sears, Fabrício Furni, Finn Larsen, Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen, Christian Ramp, Per Palsbøll
Publication date: 31 August 2023
Phylogeny-based estimates suggesting a low germline mutation rate (μ) in baleen whales have influenced research ranging from assessments of whaling impacts to evolutionary cancer biology. We estimated μ directly from pedigrees in four baleen whale species for both the mitochondrial control region and nuclear genome. The results suggest values higher than those obtained through phylogeny-based estimates and similar to pedigree-based values for primates and toothed whales. Applying our estimate of μ reduces previous genetic–based estimates of pre-exploitation whale abundance by 86% and suggests that μ cannot explain low cancer rates in gigantic mammals. Our study shows that it is feasible to estimate μ directly from pedigrees in natural populations, with wide-ranging implications for ecological and evolutionary research.
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