Dominance and inheritance patterns of mobility and death feigning in beetle strains selected for moving activity

Reciprocal crossing of different strains is a suitable method to investigate the dominance and inheritance of a focal trait. Herein, we performed reciprocal crossing among strains of Tribolium castaneum exhibiting a genetically high (H strain) and low (L strain) moving activity and investigated the related heritable factors in the F₁ and F₂ generations. We also evaluated death-feigning behavior, which negatively responded to artificial selection for moving activity in T. castaneum. The results obtained for the F₁ generation suggest that low moving activity and short duration of death feigning were dominant. In the F₂ generation, movement and death feigning exhibited continuous segregation. The distribution of each trait value in the F₂ generation differed from that in the parental generation, and no individuals transgressing the distribution of trait values in the parental generation emerged in the F₂ generation. These results suggest that the genetic correlation between movement and death-feigning behavior is controlled in a polygenic manner. Moreover, the examination of the proportions of both behaviors (high vs. low moving activity and long vs. short death-feigning duration) in the F₁ generation revealed that the two behaviors may be controlled by the maternal genotype, suggesting that the gene(s) that control movement and death feigning are located on the sex chromosome in T. castaneum.