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opencc-zeroDec 2020View details →

Indirect parental effects on offspring fitness by egg-derived fluids in an external fertiliser

The capacity for parents to influence offspring phenotypes via nongenetic inheritance is currently a major area of focus in evolutionary biology. Intriguing recent evidence suggests that sexual interactions among males and females, both before and during mating, are important mediators of such effects. Sexual interactions typically extend beyond gamete release, involving both sperm and eggs, and their associated fluids. However, the potential for gamete-level interactions to induce transgenerational parental effects remains under-investigated. Here, we test for such effects using an emerging model system for studying gamete interactions, the external fertiliser Mytilus galloprovincialis. We employed a split-ejaculate design to test whether exposing sperm to egg-derived chemicals (ECs) from one female would affect fertilisation rate and offspring survival when those sperm were used to fertilise a different female's eggs. We found significant and separate effects of ECs from non-fertilising females on both fertilisation rate and offspring survival. The offspring survival effect indicates that EC-driven interactions can have transgenerational implications for offspring fitness independent of the genotypes inherited by those offspring. These findings provide a rare test of indirect parental effects driven exclusively by gamete-level interactions, and to our knowledge the first evidence that such effects occur via the gametic fluids of females.

opencc-zeroNov 2021View details →

Effects of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on parents' attitudes towards green space and time spent outside by children in Cambridgeshire and North London, United Kingdom

1. In the United Kingdom, children are spending less time outdoors and are more disconnected from nature than previous generations. However, interaction with nature at a young age can benefit wellbeing and long-term support for conservation. Green space accessibility in the UK varies between rural and urban areas and is lower for children than for adults. It is possible that COVID-19 lockdown restrictions may have influenced these differences. 2. In this study, we assessed parents' attitudes towards green space, as well as whether the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions had affected their attitudes or the amount of time spent outside by their children, via an online survey for parents of primary school-aged children in Cambridgeshire and North London, UK (n = 171). We assessed whether responses were affected by local environment (rural, suburban or urban), school type (state-funded or fee-paying) or garden access (with or without private garden access). 3. Parents' attitudes towards green space were significantly different between local environments: 76.9% of rural parents reported being happy with the amount of green space to which their children had access, in contrast with only 40.5% of urban parents. 4. COVID-19 lockdown restrictions also affected parents' attitudes to the importance of green space, and this differed between local environments: 75.7% of urban parents said their views had changed during lockdown, in contrast with 35.9% of rural parents. The change in amount of time spent outside by children during lockdown was also significantly different between local environments: most urban children spent more time inside during lockdown, whilst most rural children spent more time outside. 5. Neither parents' attitudes towards green space nor the amount of time spent outside by their children varied with school type or garden access. 6. Our results suggest that lockdown restrictions exacerbated pre-existing differences in access to nature between urban and rural children in our sampled population. We suggest that the current increased public and political awareness of the value of green space should be capitalised on to increase provision and access to green space and to reduce inequalities in accessibility and awareness of nature between children from different backgrounds.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

Light condition experienced by parent plants influences the response of offspring to light via both parental effects and soil legacy effects

1. Environmental conditions experienced by parent plants can influence offspring performance through parental effects induced by DNA methylation. The offspring can also be influenced by environmental conditions experienced by their parents via soil legacy effects due to plant-mediated changes in the composition of soil microbes. These two effects are likely to act simultaneously, but empirical evidence for combined effects is limited. 2. We conducted a two-phase experiment with five genotypes of a clonal plant Hydrocotyle vulgaris. In the first phase, we grew parent plants of each genotype under two light conditions (ambient vs. shade) and two DNA demethylation treatments (treated with water vs. 5-azacytidine). We then collected soils and clonal offspring for each genotype from each of these four treatments and measured soil (a)biotic properties. In the second phase, we grew the offspring from each of the four treatments in the four different soils, under the two light conditions. 3. When grown under ambient light condition and in soil from ambient parents, offspring produced by ambient parents grew larger than offspring produced by shaded parents when the parents were treated with water. This difference was smaller when the parents were treated with 5-azacytidine, and disappeared when the offspring were grown in soil from shaded parents. The growth difference was also observed when the offspring were grown under shaded condition and in soil from shaded parents. However, this difference was greater when the parents were treated with 5-azacytidine, and disappeared when the offspring were grown in soil from ambient parents. Moreover, offspring growth was associated with fungal composition and total phosphorus of the soil in which the parents had grown. 4. Our results show, for the first time, that light condition experienced by parents can influence offspring responses to light through both parental effects and soil legacies. The parental effects were mediated by changes in DNA methylation and the soil legacies were due to plant-mediated changes in a combination of soil biotic and abiotic properties. These impacts may eventually influence the ecological and evolutionary trajectories of clonal plant populations.

zenodo36/100

The effects of Covid-19 lockdown on health, lifestyle, and wellbeing of children with Type 1 diabetes and their parents in Kuwait

This is a full data set to accompany our study, presently in submission. Abstract Objective. The restrictions brought about by Covid-19 pandemic have substantially affected people’s health and rapidly changed their daily routines. This is a prospective study that investigated the impact of the pandemic on primary school children with Type 1 diabetes and their parents during the first lockdown in Kuwait. Methods. A questionnaire battery related to mental health, well-being, and lifestyle was administered at baseline in Summer 2019 (face-to-face, at a diabetes outpatient clinic) and at follow-up during lockdown in Summer 2020 (via telephone, in adherence with Covid-19 restrictions). Data were collected for 70 dyads with children aged 9-12 years. Results. Significant differences were found in most scores for both children and parents. Their mental health worsened to a higher level of depression, anxiety, stress, and a poor level of wellbeing. The average scores on the follow-up tests fell within a clinical range on these measures. Significant differences in their lifestyle, compared to before the lockdown, included decreased levels of physical activity and lower healthy core nutritional intake. Conclusions. Our findings indicate that the Covid-19 lockdown has had a significant psychological and possibly physiological impact on children with Type 1 diabetes and their parents. We conclude that there is a need for mental health support services focusing on these groups. Although full lockdown restrictions will have stopped in the past year, post-pandemic stressors may be expected to continue to adversely affect this cohort.

opencc-by-4.0Aug 2022View details →

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Adaptive effects of parental and developmental environments on offspring survival, growth, and phenotype

Phenotypic adjustments to environmental variation are particularly relevant to cope with putative environmental mismatches often imposed by natal dispersal. We used an inter-generational cross-transplant field-based experiment to evaluate the morphological and physiological effects of parental and post-settlement water flow environments on the orange-fin anemonefish Amphiprion chrysopterus through ontogeny (at pre- and post-settlement stages). Offspring born from parents under high water flow had an 18% higher caudal fin aspect ratio (a compound measure of shape) at the pre-settlement stage, 10% slower growth after settlement, and 55% lower survival after settlement compared to offspring from low-water-flow parents. At the pre-settlement stage, caudal fin length was determined by parental caudal fin length. At the post-settlement stage, fish survived equally well with similar phenotypes in both high- and low-developmental-flow environments. However, results suggest potential developmental phenotypic plasticity in caudal fin length, which increases more under low water flow during development. After settlement growth was the only morphological or physiological trait that was associated with parental water flow, which was lower from parents under high flow, as was survival. These results give important insights into the parental contribution, both genetic and non-genetic, in determining early offspring phenotype and subsequent growth and survival. Our results also suggest that offspring may possess the flexibility to cope with a wide range of local environments including those different from their parents. Overall, the findings of this study show the fitness consequences of living in different environments and the likely trade-offs between parental and offspring fitness in a wild population.

zenodo36/100

Lifespan and fecundity data for: The evolutionary potential of diet-dependent effects on lifespan and fecundity in a multi-parental population of Drosophila melanogaster

This repository contains 3 original data files for a study of heritability in a half-sibling design of outbred multi-parent population of Drosophila melanogaster treated with 3 nutritional conditions.   1) lifespan_only.xlsx contains lifespan records. Columns: setDate, start date flipDate, observation date days, age fID, identity of line repl, replicate number treat, diet treatment (HS=high sugar, STD=standard, LY=low yeast) NstartF, starting number of females NstartM, starting number of males box, ccord, rcoord are position coordinates of a vial in a holding box deadF, number of female dead deadM, number of males dead cens, censored events carriedF, dead females that flip to a new food vial carriedM, dead males that flip to a new food vial flipper initials of observer time, time in which 108 vials were flipped.   2) feclife_with-image-ids.xlsx - lifespan observation vials are matched with a specific image of eggs collected at a specific day (once a week). Columns: cameraid, image id assigned by the camera handcounted, images counted by hand handcount, number of eggs on an image counted by hand training_set, images that were used to develop and test a prediction model drop_from_lifespan & visually_recheck, quality control.   3) egg_images.tgz - all original images. Each image represent fecundity from a single vial at a specific date (in feclife_with-image-ids.xlsx ). The images have been cropped to remove the excess area outside the egg disc. The area outside the circular disc has been converted to black to peripheral eliminate noise.

opencc-by-4.0Jun 2018View details →

zenodo36/100

Datasets and codes for 'Heat stress effects on offspring compound across parental care'

This repository contains the datasets and code associated with the manuscript, 'Heat Stress Effects on Offspring Compound Across Parental Care.' For inquiries regarding this repository, please contact the corresponding author, Syuan-Jyun Sun (<a rel="noopener">sjs243@ntu.edu.tw</a>).

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2024View details →

opencc-zeroMay 2020View details →

Data from: Environmental variation mediates the evolution of anticipatory parental effects

Theory maintains that when future environment is predictable, parents should adjust the phenotype of their offspring to match the anticipated environment. The plausibility of positive anticipatory parental effects is hotly debated and the experimental evidence for the evolution of such effects is currently lacking. We experimentally investigated the evolution of anticipatory maternal effects in a range of environments that differ drastically in how predictable they are. Populations of the nematode Caenorhabditis remanei, adapted to 20°C, were exposed to a novel temperature (25°C) for 30 generations with either positive or zero correlation between parent and offspring environment. We found that populations evolving in novel environments that were predictable across generations evolved a positive anticipatory maternal effect, since they required maternal exposure to 25°C to achieve maximum reproduction in that temperature. In contrast, populations evolving under zero environmental correlation had lost this anticipatory maternal effect. Similar but weaker patterns were found if instead rate-sensitive population growth was used as a fitness measure. These findings demonstrate that anticipatory parental effects evolve in response to environmental change so that ill-fitting parental effects can be rapidly lost. Evolution of positive anticipatory parental effects can aid population viability in rapidly changing but predictable environments.

opencc-zeroSep 2021View details →

Beneficial cumulative effects of old parental age on offspring fitness

Old parental age is commonly associated with negative effects on offspring life-history traits. Such parental senescence effects are predicted to have a cumulative detrimental effect over successive generations. However, old parents may benefit from producing higher quality offspring when these compete for seasonal resources. Thus, old parents may choose to increase investment in their offspring, thereby producing fewer but larger and more competitive progeny. We show that Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodites increase parental investment with advancing age, resulting in fitter offspring who reach their reproductive peak earlier. Remarkably, these effects increased over six successive generations of breeding from old parents and were subsequently reversed following a single generation of breeding from a young parent. Our findings support the hypothesis that offspring of old parents receive more resources and convert them into increasingly faster life-histories. These results contradict the theory that old parents transfer a cumulative detrimental "ageing factor" to their offspring.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Data for: Parental environmental effects are common and strong, but unpredictable, in Arabidopsis thaliana

The phenotypes of plants can be influenced by the environmental conditions experienced by their parents. However, there is still much uncertainty about how common and how predictable such parental environmental effects really are. We carried out a comprehensive experimental test for parental effects, subjecting plants of multiple Arabidopsis thaliana genotypes to 24 different biotic or abiotic stresses, or combinations thereof, and comparing their offspring phenotypes in a common environment. The majority of environmental stresses caused significant parental effects, with ‑35% to +38% changes in offspring fitness. The expression of parental effects was strongly genotype-dependent, and multiple environmental stresses often acted non-additively when combined. The direction and magnitude of parental effects were unrelated to the direct effects on the parents: some environmental stresses did not affect the parents but caused substantial effects on offspring, while for others the situation was reversed. Our study demonstrates that parental environmental effects are common and often strong in A. thaliana, but they are genotype-dependent, act non-additively, and are difficult to predict. We should thus be cautious with generalizing from simple studies with single plant genotypes and/or only few individual environmental stresses. A thorough and general understanding of parental effects requires large multi-factorial experiments.

The Effect of the Close Collaboration With Parents Intervention - Estonian Study

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT06258655. IPD Sharing: NO. Countries: 1. Publications: 1.

Effect of Primary Care Education on Parents' Health-Related Perceptions and Attitudes

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT07381088. IPD Sharing: NO. Countries: 1. Publications: 0.

Effect of Nurse-led Education on Parent's Anxiety and Depression on Managing Side Effects of Chemotherapy

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT03753542. IPD Sharing: NO. Countries: 1. Publications: 15.

Effects of Telepsychiatric Parent Training on Caregivers of Children With ADHD (TPT-ADHD)

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT06884007. IPD Sharing: NO. Countries: 1. Publications: 1.

Parent Key Opinion Leaders to Increase Demand of Effective Treatments for Youth Anxiety

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT04929262. IPD Sharing: NO. Countries: 1. Publications: 1.

controlledIPD-YESFeb 2026View details →

Effectiveness of a Blended Care Parenting Intervention for Parents With PTSD (KopOpOuders-PTSD)

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT05237999. IPD Sharing: YES. Countries: 1. Publications: 13.

controlledIPD-YESFeb 2026View details →

Effectiveness of an Online Parenting Training

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT05111886. IPD Sharing: YES. Countries: 1. Publications: 5.

A Randomized Trial of Effects of Parent Mentors on Insuring Minority Children

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT01264718. IPD Sharing: NO. Countries: 1. Publications: 5.

restrictedIPD-UNDECIDEDFeb 2026View details →

Study of the Impact of Parental Note Taking on the Effectiveness of Anticipatory Guidance

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT01014169. IPD Sharing: Not stated. Countries: 1. Publications: 9.