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Archived Comments for: Evidence that pairing with genetically similar mates is maladaptive in a monogamous bird

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  1. Molecular Ecology Discussion group

    Joseph Hughes, University of Glasgow

    3 August 2009

    Elegant approach considering the difficulty in studying these types of systems in the wild. Indeed, the odds of finding these results with a low number of pairs and small number of loci is quite small and it is therefore surprising and interesting but the authors should discuss the biological relevance of the marginal (yet significant) differences reported in Table 1.
    After this point, the paper is very weak for the following reasons:
    Relatedness is not included in the model (Table 2), genetic similarity between individuals could have been included and would have been a more powerful approach and provided more convincing evidence.
    The statistics in Table 2 are weak. If the two way interaction between rank and heterozygosity is not significant, it is not justifiable to interpret 3-way interactions. It is also odd not to present the main effects separately.
    Marc Stift
    Joseph Hughes
    on behalf of the MEG discussion group

    Competing interests

    None declared

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