Wild pedigrees inform mutation rates and historic abundance in baleen whales
Marcos Suárez-Menéndez, Martine Bérubé, Fabrício Furni, Vania E. Rivera-Léon, Mads Peter Heide‐Jørgensen, Finn Larsen, Richard Sears, Christian Ramp, Britas Klemens Eriksson, Rampal S. Etienne, Jooke Robbins, Per J. Palsbøll
Abstract
Phylogeny-based estimates suggesting a low germline mutation rate (μ) in baleen whales have influenced research ranging from assessments of whaling impacts to evolutionary cancer biology. We estimated μ directly from pedigrees in four baleen whale species for both the mitochondrial control region and nuclear genome. The results suggest values higher than those obtained through phylogeny-based estimates and similar to pedigree-based values for primates and toothed whales. Applying our estimate of μ reduces previous genetic-based estimates of preexploitation whale abundance by 86% and suggests that μ cannot explain low cancer rates in gigantic mammals. Our study shows that it is feasible to estimate μ directly from pedigrees in natural populations, with wide-ranging implications for ecological and evolutionary research.