Bite force performance from wild derived mice has undetectable heritability despite having heritable morphological components.

Abstract

Fitness-related traits tend to have low heritabilities. Conversely, morphology tends to be highly heritable. Yet, many fitness-related performance traits such as running speed or bite force depend critically on morphology. Craniofacial morphology correlates with bite performance in several groups including rodents. However, within species, this relationship is less clear, and the genetics of performance, morphology and function are rarely analyzed in combination. Here, we use a half-sib design in outbred wild-derived Mus musculus to study the morphology-bite force relationship and determine whether there is additive genetic (co-)variance for these traits. Results suggest that bite force has undetectable additive genetic variance and heritability in this sample, while morphological traits related mechanically to bite force exhibit varying levels of heritability. The most heritable traits include the length of the mandible which relates to bite force. Despite its correlation with morphology, realized bite force was not heritable, which suggests it is less responsive to selection in comparison to its morphological determinants. We explain this paradox with a non-additive, many-to-one mapping hypothesis of heritable change in complex traits. We furthermore propose that performance traits could evolve if pleiotropic relationships among the determining traits are modified.