Fig 1.
Crossing design used to establish three levels of in- and outbreeding in the founder females of the experimental lineages of P. persimilis (original figure [34]).
Families were iso-female lines established from populations originating from Sicily and Greece. Mates came either from the same family (siblings), or from different families of the same population, or from different families from different populations.
Fig 2.
Predicted trans-generational development of Wright’s (1922) [48] inbreeding coefficient (ft) in chronically inbreeding experimental lineages of P. persimilis founded by females mated to a brother, a male from the same population or a male from another population (curve estimation using Populus 5.5 [51]).
Assumed female to male inbreeding coefficients (f0) of the parental generation (F0) were 0.1 for sibling and same population mates and 0 for different population mates. Accordingly, f1 was 0, 0.125 and 0.275 for offspring (F1) of founders mated to males from different populations, the same population and siblings, respectively [50].
Fig 3.
Trans-generational dynamics of experimental lineages founded by single P. persimilis females from Sicily and Greece.
Founding females were mated to males with graded levels of genetic relatedness (siblings, same population, different populations) and lineage abundance (number of mobile mites) recorded over 40 days, corresponding to approximately four generations.
Fig 4.
Mean generation-specific abundance of experimental lineages of P. persimilis founded by single females from Sicily or Greece, mated to males with graded levels of genetic relatedness (siblings, same population, different populations).
Lineage abundance (number of mobile mites) was separately analyzed on days 5 and 10 of the experimental period (F1 generation; before F1 females started reproduction) and from day 15 onwards (F2 to F4 generations; after F1 females started reproduction). P-values refer to pairwise comparisons (LSD) between founder relatedness levels following GEE.