Accounting for female space sharing in St. Kilda Soay sheep (Ovis aries) results in little change in heritability estimates

Research on the St. Kilda Soay sheep population reveals that accounting for female space sharing has minimal impact on heritability estimates, contrary to previous suggestions of significant bias. The study analyzed five traits—birthweight, birth date, lamb August weight, and female post-mortem jaw and metacarpal length—and found that while spatial factors explained up to 18% of trait variance, heritability estimates decreased by only up to 7%. This challenges the assumption that philopatry (relatives clustering in space) inevitably leads to substantial bias. The findings suggest that modeling shared space may not always be necessary but encourage its consideration when relatives share space to better understand potential biases.

Regan, C. E., Pilkington, J. G., Bérénos, C., Pemberton, J. M., Smiseth, P. T., & Wilson, A. J. (2016). Accounting for female space sharing in St. Kilda Soay sheep (Ovis aries) results in little change in heritability estimates. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 30(1), 96–111. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.12990