Table 2 Variance components for local dispersal distance and exploration rate in great tits.

From: Genetic integration of local dispersal and exploratory behaviour in a wild bird

(a) Univariate models

 

N

Variance components

h 2

P -value

  

Additive genetic

Natal brood

Birth plot

Birth year

Residual

  

Dispersal distance

1,230

0.024** (0.0093)

0.011 (0.0080)

0.0022# (0.0020)

0.0015 (0.0014)

0.12 (0.010)

0.15 (0.058)

0.0036

Exploration rate

806

21.63** (8.52)

12.22# (7.16)

0.51 (0.89)

0.64 (0.77)

38.27 (8.10)

0.30 (0.11)

0.0096

(b) Bivariate model

 

N

Variance components

h 2

 
  

Additive genetic

Natal brood

Birth plot

Birth year

Residual

  

Dispersal distance

1,230

0.022 (0.0091)

0.012 (0.0080)

0.0021 (0.0020)

0.0016 (0.0014)

0.12 (0.010)

0.14 (0.057)

 

Exploration rate

806

20.12 (8.33)

11.94 (7.25)

0.26 (0.68)

0.56 (0.72)

39.88 (8.18)

0.28 (0.11)

 
  

Components of covariance

r G

P -value

Dispersal and exploration rate

Distance

0.66** (0.24)

−0.14 (0.23)

0

0

−0.29 (0.29)

0.99 (0.40)

0.0062

  1. Univariate (a) and bivariate (b) animal models were used to estimate the variance components of dispersal distance and exploration rate, from which narrow-sense heritability (h2) estimates were calculated. Sex was included as a fixed effect on dispersal distance to account for sex differences in dispersal distance (see Fig. 3). The covariances and the genetic correlation (rG) between dispersal distance and exploration rate were estimated with the bivariate animal model (b). Birth plot and birth year effects explained negligibly small fractions of the variance in both dispersal distance and exploration rate (also see Fig. 4), and therefore we fixed the covariances for the birth plot and birth year effects at 0. A model actually estimating these covariances gave similar results (Supplementary Table S8). S.e. are in parentheses. All analyses and reported estimates are based on 10log(x+10) transformed dispersal distances (in metres) and residual exploration rates from a linear regression on test date (from 1 July; see Methods). Using untransformed dispersal distances gave similar results (Supplementary Table S6). The significance of model terms (except for the residual variance terms) was determined using log-likelihood-ratio tests. For the bivariate model, this test allowed for assessing the significance of the covariances only. **P<0.01 and #P<0.1.