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Cultural Hitchhiking in the Matrilineal Whales

Whitehead, Hal, Vachon, Felicia, Frasier, Timothy R.·2017·Behavior Genetics
DOI 10.1007/s10519-017-9840-8
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Abstract

Five species of whale with matrilineal social systems (daughters remain with mothers) have remarkably low levels of mitochondrial DNA diversity. Non-heritable matriline-level demography could reduce genetic diversity but the required conditions are not consistent with the natural histories of the matrilineal whales. The diversity of nuclear microsatellites is little reduced in the matrilineal whales arguing against bottlenecks. Selective sweeps of the mitochondrial genome are feasible causes but it is not clear why these only occurred in the matrilineal species. Cultural hitchhiking (cultural selection reducing diversity at neutral genetic loci transmitted in parallel to the culture) is supported in sperm whales which possess suitable matrilineal socio-cultural groups (coda clans). Killer whales are delineated into ecotypes which likely originated culturally. Culture, bottlenecks and selection, as well as their interactions, operating between- or within-ecotypes, may have reduced their mitochondrial diversity. The societies, cultures and genetics of false killer and two pilot whale species are insufficiently known to assess drivers of low mitochondrial diversity.

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Metadata

Authors
Whitehead, H., Vachon, F., & Frasier, T. R.
Venue
Behavior Genetics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2017-03-09
Volume
47
Issue
3
Pages
324-334
ISSN
  • 0001-8244
  • 1573-3297
DOI
10.1007/s10519-017-9840-8
Cited by
25
References
0
Language
en
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (unspecified)
Funders
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2014-06534)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Cultural Hitchhiking in the Matrilineal Whales. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1007/s10519-017-9840-8
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Whitehead, H., Vachon, F., & Frasier, T. R. (2017). Cultural Hitchhiking in the Matrilineal Whales. Behavior Genetics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-017-9840-8