Are titis genetically monogamous?
Our results indicate that coppery titis are genetically monogamous. All
sampled social fathers were identified as genetic fathers of all
offspring in their respective family groups (18 offspring in 9 groups, 1
to 5 offspring per group; Supplementary Table 1). Of 8 sampled social
mothers, 7 were identified as genetic mothers of all offspring in their
family groups (17 offspring in 7 groups, 1 to 5 offspring per group).
The adult female of Group 4 was found not to be the genetic mother of
the group’s offspring; they did not share the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
haplotype and had 11 allelic mismatches. However, the social father of
this offspring was identified as the genetic father. No other female was
identified as the most likely mother for this offspring or shared a
mtDNA haplotype with it.
All assignments were made with a 95% confidence level in Cervus
software and confirmed with Colony software (Supplementary Table 1). The
assignments did not change when the set of known mother-offspring pairs
was excluded from the priors. Colony also yielded strong support for
full-sib relationships between all offspring from the same groups,
confirming correct parentage assignments. Across all assigned
parent-offspring dyads, we found only two cases of allelic mismatches:
father-daughter dyad from Group 1, mismatched at locus chr10a, and
father-daughter dyad from Group 9, mismatched at locus chrXa
(Supplementary Table 1).