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Inbreeding avoidance, or the inbreeding avoidance hypothesis, is a concept in evolutionary biology that refers to the prevention of the harmful effects of inbreeding. Animals only rarely exhibit inbreeding avoidance. [ 1 ]
The avoidance of expression of such deleterious recessive alleles caused by inbreeding, via inbreeding avoidance mechanisms, is the main selective reason for outcrossing. [6] [7] Crossbreeding between populations sometimes has positive effects on fitness-related traits, [8] but also sometimes leads to negative effects known as outbreeding ...
Some abnormal behaviours may be related to environmental conditions (e.g. captive housing) whereas others may be due to medical conditions. The list does not include behaviours in animals that are genetically modified to express abnormal behaviour (e.g. reeler mice). A polar bear performing stereotyped pacing.
In evolutionary biology and psychology, such an ability is presumed to have evolved for inbreeding avoidance, [1] though animals do not typically avoid inbreeding. [2] An additional adaptive function sometimes posited for kin recognition is a role in kin selection. There is debate over this, since in strict theoretical terms kin recognition is ...
Inbreeding depression is predominantly caused by the homozygous expression of recessive deleterious alleles. [167] Over time, inbreeding depression may lead to the evolution of inbreeding avoidance behaviour. Several examples of animal behaviour that reduce mating of close relatives and inbreeding depression are described next.
In addition to mice, two species of bumblebee, in particular Bombus bifarius and Bombus frigidus, have been observed to use pheromones as a means of kin recognition to avoid inbreeding. [50] For example, B. bifarius males display "patrolling" behavior in which they mark specific paths outside their nests with pheromones and subsequently "patrol ...
In the house mouse, the major urinary protein gene cluster provides a highly polymorphic scent signal of genetic identity that appears to underlie kin recognition and inbreeding avoidance. Thus there are fewer matings between mice sharing MUP haplotypes than would be expected if there were random mating. [56]
"The period before World War I led to the initiation of inbreeding in rats by Dr Helen King in about 1909 and in mice by Dr C. C. Little in 1909. The latter project led to the development of the DBA strain of mice, now widely distributed as the two major sub-strains DBA/1 and DBA/2, which were separated in 1929-1930.