Under inbreeding, heterozygosity at neutral genetic markers is likely to reflect genome-wide heterozygosity and, thus, is expected to correlate with fitness. There is, however, growing evidence that some of heterozygosity-fitness correlations (HFCs) can be explained by 'local effects', where noncoding loci are at linkage disequilibrium with functional genes. The aim of this study was to investigate correlations between heterozygosity at seven microsatellite loci and two fitness-related traits, nestling growth rate and nutritional condition, in a recently bottlenecked population of great cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis. We found that heterozygosity was positively associated with both nestling traits at the between-brood level, but the individual (within-brood) effects of heterozygosity were non-significant. We also found that only one locus per trait was primarily responsible for the significant multi-locus HFCs, suggesting a linkage disequilibrium with non-identified functional loci. The results give support for 'local effect' hypothesis, confirming that HFCs may not only be interpreted as evidence of inbreeding and that genetic associations between functional and selectively neutral markers could be much more common in natural populations than previously thought.
Keywords: Great cormorant; Growth rate; Heterozygosity-fitness correlations; Microsatellites; Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis.