No Heterozygote Advantage in Fallow Deer

Effects of inbreeding on individual fitness are of long-standing interest in evolutionary biology and conservation studies. Since estimation of the inbreeding coefficient of a given individual is often impossible in wild populations, some authors have attempted to demonstrate inbreeding depression in such populations by correlating the multi-locus marker heterozygosity of individuals with a trait that is assumed to be associated with fitness. A certain consensus exists, suggesting that associations between multi-locus heterozygosity and fitness-related components are relatively common. Nevertheless, negative results often go unreported and could thus lead to a bias in our overall understanding of inbreeding effects in wild populations. Here we investigate the effect of heterozygosity level in a population of fallow deer Dama dama. We found an absence of correlations between heterozygosity at a set of 20 expected neutral microsatellite markers and two fitness-related components (birth weight and winter survival of fawns). We discuss these results in relation to the characteristics of the studied population.