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101 results for “Reproduction: investment”
Individual optimization of reproductive investment and the cost of incubation in a wild songbird
<p>Despite keen interest in life-history trade-offs and the costs of reproduction, evidence that increased parental allocation reduces subsequent breeding productivity is mixed. Some of this uncertainty is attributable to environmental heterogeneity in space and time, necessitating multi-year field experiments. Across three breeding seasons, we cross-fostered clutches between nests to manipulate females' incubation duration in a wild population of Carolina wrens, a small songbird species in which only females incubate, to test for the cost of incubation on current and future reproduction. Prolonged incubation affected maternal productivity within seasons, impacting their current offspring post-hatching and their probability of breeding subsequently, both in a manner that depended upon the current environment and level of maternal investment (initial egg and brood size), suggesting incubation effort is optimized according to other components of investment and individual quality. Effects of incubation duration on subsequent fledging success and nestling condition varied between years, being costly in one year, beneficial in another, and neutral in the third. Thus, our results suggest that the costs of increased incubation effort were almost entirely dependent upon the maternal quality and environmental variation, thus demonstrating the importance of multi-year experiments for robust inference of the costs of reproduction and evolution of life histories.</p>
Experimental reduction of haemosporidian infection affects maternal reproductive investment, parental behaviour, and offspring condition
<p>When hosts have a long coevolutionary history with their parasites, fitness costs of chronic infection have often been assumed to be negligible. Yet, experimental manipulation of infections sometimes reveals effects of parasites on their hosts, particularly during reproduction. Whether these effects translate into fitness costs remains unclear. Here, we present the results of an experimental study conducted in a free-ranging population of red-winged blackbirds (<em>Agelaius</em> <em>phoeniceus</em>) naturally experiencing a high prevalence of haemosporidian infections, with > 95% of breeding adults infected with parasites from one or more haemosporidian genus. To assess effects of infection during reproduction, we manipulated adult red-winged blackbird females' parasite burden by administering an anti-haemosporidian medication before onset of egg-laying. Experimental reduction of infection resulted in significant benefits to mothers and their offspring. Medicated females laid heavier clutches, invested more in incubation and provisioning behaviour, and produced more fledglings than control females. Nestlings of medicated females had higher haematocrit, higher blood glucose, and lower reactive oxygen metabolites than nestlings of control females. Overall, our results provide evidence that, even in a species with a long history of high prevalence of infection, parasites can lead to decreased maternal investment and offspring quality, substantially reducing fitness.</p>
Climate and non-native herbivores influence reproductive investment by Greater Sage-grouse
<p>Highly seasonal environments can increase competition among herbivores for nutrients, leading to consequences affecting rates of reproduction and survival. There is concern about the impacts of non-native ungulates on Greater Sage-grouse in the Great Basin of North America. We estimated nesting propensity, the annual proportion of females attempting a nest, for Greater Sage-grouse in relation to the abundance of ungulates using 7 years of data from the northwestern Great Basin, USA. We focused on nesting because it is the necessary first major investment required for the production of new recruits. We used a Bayesian multi-stratum model to investigate the effects of weather and sympatric non-native herbivores, free-roaming horses and domestic cattle, on reproductive rates and female survival of adult and yearling sage-grouse. Adults nested at a higher rate (0.931, 95% CI, 0.904 – 0.953) than yearlings (0.867, 95% CI, 0.802 – 0.922) under average conditions of all other covariates. If the first nest failed, renesting rates were similar between adults (0.349, 95% CI, 0.292 – 0.410) and yearlings (0.353, 95% CI, 0.217 – 0.507). Females in better body condition at the start of the season nested at higher rates, and moderately snowy winters led to the highest nesting propensity during the following spring. Drier conditions led to low rates of nesting, particularly in areas with dense cattle grazing. Female survival was lower for nesting females, indicating a survival cost of reproduction. Areas with abundant free-roaming horses had slightly higher nesting propensity, though other research suggests negative impacts later in the breeding cycle. Sage-grouse face life-history trade-offs that may be shifting due to changing climatic conditions. Our work suggests that the effects of competition with non-native ungulates on sage-grouse life-histories may be exacerbated by adverse weather.</p>
Experimental reduction of haemosporidian infection affects maternal reproductive investment, parental behaviour, and offspring condition
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Individual optimization of reproductive investment and the cost of incubation in a wild songbird
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Climate and non-native herbivores influence reproductive investment by Greater Sage-grouse
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Data from: Patterns of annual and seasonal immune investment in a temporal reproductive opportunist
Historically, investigations of how organismal investments in immunity fluctuate in response to environmental and physiological changes have focused on seasonally breeding organisms that confine reproduction to seasons with mild environmental conditions and abundant resources. The red crossbill, <i>Loxia curvirostra</i>, is a songbird that can breed opportunistically if conifer seeds are abundant, on both short, cold, and long, warm days, providing an ideal system to investigate interactions between immunity, reproduction, and environmental fluctuations. In this study, we measured inter- and intra-annual variation in complement, natural antibodies, PIT54, and leukocytes in crossbills across four summers (2010-2013) and multiple seasons within one year (summer 2011-spring 2012). Overall, we observed substantial changes in crossbill immune investment among summers, with interannual variation driven largely by food resources, while seasonal variation was less pronounced and lacked a dominant predictor of immune investment. However, we found weak evidence that physiological processes (e.g., reproductive condition, moult) or abiotic factors (e.g., temperature, precipitation) affect immune investment. Collectively, this study suggests that a reproductively flexible organism may simultaneously invest in both reproduction and survival-related processes, potentially by exploiting rich patches with abundant resources. More broadly, these results emphasize the need for more longitudinal studies of trade-offs associated with immune investment.
Prolonged maternal investment in northern bottlenose whales alters our understanding of beaked whale reproductive life history
<div>Nursing and weaning periods are poorly understood in cetaceans due to the difficulty of assessing underwater behaviour in the wild. However, the onset and completion of weaning are critical turning points for individual development and survival, with implications for a species life history including reproductive potential. δ15N and δ13C deposited in odontocete teeth annuli provide a lifetime record of diet, offering an opportunity to investigate variation and trends in fundamental biology. While available reproductive parameters for beaked whales have largely been inferred from single records of stranded or hunted animals and extrapolated across species, here we examine the weaning strategy and duration of nursing in northern bottlenose whales (<i>Hyperoodon ampullatus</i>) by measuring stable isotopes deposited in teeth growth layer groups (GLGs). Using a collection of <i>H. ampullatus </i>teeth taken from whales killed during the whaling era (N = 48) and from two stranded specimens, we compared ontogenetic variation of δ15N and δ13C found in annual GLGs across all individuals, by sex and by region. We detected age-based trends in both δ15N and δ13C that are consistent across regions and males and females, and indicate that nursing is prolonged and weaning does not conclude until whales are 3-4 years old, substantially later than previous estimates of 1 year. Incorporating a prolonged period of maternal care into <i>H. ampullatus</i> life history significantly reduces their reproductive potential, with broad implications for models of beaked whale life history, energetics and the species' recovery from whaling.</div>
Age predicts risky investment better than residual reproductive value
Life-history theory predicts that investment into reproduction should increase as future reproductive opportunities (i.e., residual reproductive value, RRV) decrease. Researchers have thus intuitively used age as a proxy for RRV and assume RRV decreases with age when interpreting age-specific investment. Yet, age is an imperfect proxy for RRV and may even be a poor correlate in some systems. We used a 30-year study of the nesting ecology of painted turtles ( Chrysemys picta ) to assess how age and RRV compare in explaining variation in a risky investment behavior. We predicted that RRV would be a better predictor of risky investment than age because RRV accounts for variation in future reproductive potential across life. We found that RRV was high in early life, slowly decreased until midlife, and then steadily decreased to terminal reproduction. However, age predicted risky behavior better than RRV. This finding suggests stronger correlates of age (e.g., size) may be more responsible for this behavior in turtles. This study highlights that researchers should not assume that age-specific investment is driven by RRV and that future work should quantify RRV to more directly test this key element of life-history theory.
Wolbachia-infected ant colonies have increased reproductive investment and an accelerated life cycle
<p><b><em>Wolbachia </em>is a widespread group of maternally-transmitted endosymbiotic bacteria that often manipulates the reproductive strategy and life history of its hosts to favor its own transmission. <em>Wolbachia </em></b><b>mediated phenotypic effects are well characterized in solitary hosts, although evidence of similar effects are rare in eusocial insects, such as ants. The invasive pharaoh ant, <em>Monomorium pharaonis</em>, shows natural variation in </b><b><em>Wolbachia </em></b><b>infection between colonies and can be readily bred under laboratory conditions. We previously showed that </b><b><em>Wolbachia</em></b><b>-infected pharaoh ant colonies had a queen-biased sex ratio, which is expected to favor the spread of maternally-transmitted </b><b><em>Wolbachia</em></b><b>. Here, we further characterize the effects of </b><b><em>Wolbachia </em></b><b>on the short- and longer-term reproductive and life history traits of pharaoh ant colonies. First we characterized reproductive differences between naturally infected and uninfected colonies at three discrete time points and found that infected colonies had higher reproductive investment (i.e. infected colonies produce more new queens), in particular when colony queens were three months old. Next, we compared the long-term growth and reproduction dynamics of infected and uninfected colonies across their whole life cycle. Infected colonies had increased colony-level growth and early colony reproduction, resulting in a shorter colony life cycle, when compared to uninfected colonies. </b></p>
Investment in regeneration versus asexual reproduction is resource-dependent in a freshwater annelid
<ol> <li>The post-embryonic developmental processes of regeneration and asexual agametic reproduction are widespread and often co-occur in animals. These traits are of great ecological significance, but their physiological dynamics within species are not well understood. In naid annelids, regeneration and asexual reproduction via fission are evolutionarily related and mechanistically similar yet distinct, making these animals useful systems in which to study resource allocation strategies between the two processes.</li> <li>How asexual reproductive investment varies as a function of somatic investment demands was tested in the naid <em>Pristina</em> <em>leidyi</em> by repeatedly amputating the heads of individual worms, allowing regeneration to proceed, and measuring reproductive output over time. Treatments were replicated under high and low food levels to determine to what extent the investment dynamic between regeneration and fission is affected by the resource pool.</li> <li>Reproductive output was affected by injury and regeneration frequency in a resource-dependent manner, such that only worms with less food availability exhibited reproductive deficits; injury and regeneration did not affect reproductive output of worms under the high food condition. When reproductive output was decreased, this occurred not through a reduction in offspring quantity but a reduction in offspring quality. In the offspring of experimental animals, body size and fission speed were dependent on parental feeding level and to a lesser and inconsistent extent on parental injury history, but regeneration speed was unaffected by parental treatment.</li> <li>These findings suggest that in a species capable of both regeneration and asexual reproduction: 1) the resource pool is a key factor mediating the resource investment pattern between regeneration and fission; 2) sacrificing per-offspring investment rather than fecundity may be an optimal strategy if resources are limiting; 3) regeneration and fission have evolved distinct resource allocation pathways. This work prompts further questions about the physiological dynamics between regeneration and asexual reproduction in animals, such as whether and to what extent these have evolved adaptively, including in response to injury and resource pressures.</li> </ol>
Elevated temperature increases reproductive investment in less preferred mates in the invasive European corn borer moth
<p>Rapidly changing environments may weaken sexual selection and lead to indiscriminate mating by interfering with the reception of mating signals or by increasing the costs associated with mate choice. If temperature alters sexual selection, it may impact population response and adaptation to climate change. Here, we examine how differences in temperature of the mating environment influence reproductive investment in the European corn borer moth (<i>Ostrinia nubilalis</i>). Mate preference in this species is known to be related to pheromone usage, with assortative mating occurring between genetically distinct E- and Z-strains that differ in the composition of female and male pheromones. We compared egg production within and between corn borer lines derived from four different populations that vary in pheromone composition and other traits. Pairs of adults were placed in a mating environment that matched the pupal environment (ambient temperature) or at elevated temperature (5ºC above the pupal environment). At ambient temperature, we found that within-line pairs produced eggs sooner and produced more egg clusters than between-line pairs. However, at elevated temperature, between-line pairs produced the same number of egg clusters as within-line pairs. These results suggest that elevated temperature increased investment in matings with typically less preferred, between-line mates. This increased investment could result in changes in gene flow among corn borer populations in warming environments.</p>
Pessimistic cognitive bias is associated with enhanced reproductive investment in female zebrafish
<p><span>Optimistic and pessimistic cognitive biases have been described in many animals and are related to the perceived valence of the environment. We, therefore, hypothesize that such cognitive bias can be adaptive depending on environmental conditions. In reward rich environments an optimistic bias would be favored, whereas in harsh environments a pessimistic one would thrive. Here, we empirically investigated the potential adaptive value of such bias using zebrafish as a model. We first phenotyped female zebrafish in an optimistic/pessimistic axis using a previously validated judgment bias assay. Optimistic and pessimistic females were then exposed to an unpredictable chronic stress protocol for 17 days, after which fish were euthanized and the sectional area of the different ovarian structures was quantified</span><span> in both undisturbed and stressed groups. Our results show that </span><span>zebrafish ovarian development responded to chronic stress, and that judgment bias impacted the relative area of the vitellogenic developmental stage in the stress treatment, with pessimists showing higher vitellogenic areas as compared with optimists. These results suggest that pessimism maximize reproductive investment, through increased vitellogenesis, indicating a relationship between cognitive bias and life-history organismal decisions.</span></p>
Life history data for: High investment into reproduction is associated with reduced lifespan in dogs
<p><span>Prominent differences in aging among and within species present an evolutionary puzzle. The theories proposed to explain evolutionary differences in aging are based on the axiom that selection maximizes fitness, not necessarily lifespan. This implies trade-offs between investment into self-maintenance and investment into reproduction, where high investment into growth and current reproduction are associated with short lifespans. Fast growth and large adult size are related with shorter lifespans in the domestic dog, a bourgeoning model in aging research, however, whether reproduction influences lifespan in this system remains unknown. Here we test the relationship between reproduction and differences in lifespan among dog breeds, controlling simultaneously for shared ancestry and recent gene flow. We found that shared ancestry explains a higher proportion of the among-breed variation in life history traits, in comparison with recent gene flow. Our results also show that reproductive investment negatively impacts lifespan, and more strongly so in large breeds, an effect that is not merely a correlated response of adult size. These results suggest that basic life history trade-offs are apparent in a domestic animal whose diversity is the result of artificial selection and that among-breed differences in lifespan are due to a combination of size and reproduction.</span></p>
Data from: Genetic variation in reproductive investment across an Ephemerality gradient in Daphnia pulex
<p>Species across the tree of life can switch between asexual and sexual reproduction. In facultatively sexual species, the ability to switch between reproductive modes is often environmentally dependent and subject to local adaptation. However, the ecological and evolutionary factors that influence the maintenance and turnover of polymorphism associated with facultative sex remain unclear. We studied the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of reproductive investment in the facultatively sexual model species, Daphnia pulex. We found that patterns of clonal diversity, but not genetic diversity varied among ponds consistent with the predicted relationship between ephemerality and clonal structure. Reconstruction of a multi-year pedigree demonstrated the coexistence of clones that differ in their investment into male production. Mapping of quantitative variation in male production using lab-generated and field-collected individuals identified multiple putative quantitative trait loci (QTL) underlying this trait, and we identified a plausible candidate gene. The evolutionary history of these QTL suggests that they are relatively young, and male limitation in this system is a rapidly evolving trait. Our work highlights the dynamic nature of the genetic structure and composition of facultative sex across space and time and suggests that quantitative genetic variation in reproductive strategy can undergo rapid evolutionary turnover.</p>
Data from: breeding under pressure: corticosterone is associated with reproductive investment under fluctuating predation risk in a long-lived sea duck
<p>Phenotypic plasticity may enable individuals to cope with predictable and unpredictable environments during their life-cycle. In that context, studying glucocorticoids – corticosterone (CORT) in birds – is relevant because of their primary role in allostasis. Higher baseline CORT levels are classically associated with environmental constraints and lower fitness (the CORT-fitness hypothesis). However, in some environments, higher baseline CORT levels can promote reproduction, therefore being associated with higher fitness (the CORT-adaptation hypothesis). These two hypotheses have been tested in multiple systems, but rarely in a context of fluctuating predation threat.</p> <p>We <span>used a </span>long-term individual-based monitoring of baseline CORT levels in female common eiders <em>Somateria mollissima</em> (n<sub>CORT</sub> = 1537; n<sub>individual</sub> = 790; 2009-2022) to disentangle the context-dependent links between environmental conditions, CORT and fitness. Importantly, the study population has been facing a drastic increase in predation pressure over the past decades, linked to the recovery of the white-tailed eagle <em>Haliaeetus albicilla</em>. Additionally, eiders breed on open or forested islands, further affecting adult and nest predation risk. This system allowed us to disentangle the relative contributions of within- and among-individual variation in baseline CORT levels under predation.</p> <p>Supporting the CORT-adaptation hypothesis, baseline CORT levels were positively associated with reproductive investment (clutch size), age and hatching success. By partitioning within- and among-individual effects, we showed that at the individual level, CORT flexibly increased with clutch size and age. Females displaying higher CORT levels were more successful, suggesting a link between CORT and individual quality.</p> <p><span>At both the population and individual levels, baseline CORT levels decreased over the study period. This decrease was correlated with an increase in predation risk. Females had reduced baseline CORT when nesting under high eagle abundance or adult predation risk (within-individual effect). Interestingly, apparent plasticity towards adult predation risk was only observed on open islands, likely reflecting habitat-dependent strategies.</span></p> <p><span>Consistent with the CORT-adaptation hypothesis, we show that changes in predation regime not only correlate with changes in reproductive investment, but also with rapid plastic adjustment of glucocorticoid levels and therefore individual strategies to cope with predation risk. Given the correlative nature of our study, we encourage further experimental studies testing for a causal relationship between predation and corticosterone levels.</span></p>
Life history data for: High investment into reproduction is associated with reduced lifespan in dogs
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Pessimistic cognitive bias is associated with enhanced reproductive investment in female zebrafish
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Save for a rainy day? Simulating how current investment in escaping decisions may affect future reproductive success of males
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No difference in reproductive investment or success across urban and rural breeding pairs in an urban-adapted songbird
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