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opencc-zeroSep 2019View details →

Data from: Adaptive maternal investment in the wild? Links between maternal growth trajectory and offspring size, growth, and survival in contrasting environments

Life history theory predicts that investment per offspring should correlate negatively with the quality of environment offspring are anticipated to encounter; parents may use their own experience as juveniles to predict this environment and may modulate offspring traits such as growth capacity as well as initial size. We manipulated nutrient levels in the juvenile habitat of wild Atlantic salmon Salmo salar to investigate the hypothesis that the egg size maximizing juvenile growth and survival depends on environmental quality. We also tested whether offspring traits were related to parental growth trajectory. Mothers that grew fast when young produced more, smaller offspring than mothers that had grown slowly to reach the same size. Despite their size disadvantage, offspring of faster-growing mothers grew faster than those of slow-growing mothers in all environments, counter to the expectation that they would be competitively disadvantaged. However, they had lower relative survival in environments where the density of older predatory/competitor fish was relatively high. These links between maternal (but not paternal) growth trajectory and offspring survival rate were independent of egg size, underscoring that mothers may be adjusting egg traits other than size to suit the anticipated environment faced by their offspring.

opencc-zeroJun 2024View details →

Data from: Effects of maternal age and environmental enrichment on learning ability and brain size

It is well known that maternal age at reproduction affects offspring lifespan and some other fitness-related traits, but it remains understudied whether maternal senescence affects how offspring respond to their environments. Early environment often plays a significant role in the development of an animal's behavioral phenotype. For example, complex environments can promote changes in cognitive ability and brain morphology in young animals. Here, we study whether and how maternal effect senescence influences offspring plasticity in cognition, group behavior, and brain morphology in response to environmental complexity. For this, juvenile three-spined sticklebacks from young and old mothers (i.e. 1-year and 2-years-old) were exposed to different levels of environmental enrichment and complexity (i.e. none, simple and complex), and their behavior, cognitive ability, and brain size were measured. Exposing fish to enriched conditions improved individual learning ability assessed by a repeated detour-reaching task, increased the size of the whole brain, and decreased aggressive interactions in the shoal. Maternal age did not influence the inhibitory control, learning ability, and group behavioral responses of offspring to the experimental environmental change. However, maternal age affected how some brain regions of offspring changed in response to environmental complexity. In offspring from old mothers, those exposed to the complex environment had larger telencephalons and cerebellums than those who experienced simpler environments. Our results suggest that maternal effect senescence may influence how offspring invest in brain functions related to cognition in response to environmental complexity.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Relationships between egg size and maternal size, life-history forms, and habitats of Greenlandic Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus)

Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus [L.] complex) has been widely used as a model system for studies in evolutionary ecology because of its diversity in feeding ecology, habitat use, life-history forms, and associated morphologies observed in matured individuals. However, we still know relatively little about traits exhibited early in life of the species, although the trait diversity of matured individuals may largely be shaped during development. Egg size is a key determinant ofvarious traits exhibited early in life. Therefore, describing egg size variation within- and between-individuals as well as the link between egg size and adult traits will be a useful step in understanding the early life trait diversity of Arctic charr. Here, using Greenlandic Arctic charr, which includes alternative life-history forms (i.e., anadromous and resident) and spawning habitat use (i.e., lake- and river- spawner), we described egg size variation (i.e., clutch-mean egg diameter and within-clutch variation) and explored the link between egg size variation and female body length, life-history form, and spawning habitats. As in many other fishes, clutch-mean egg diameter increased with female body length. No significant effect of other female traits on clutch mean-egg diameter was detected, suggesting that female body size variation could be a direct cause of early life history trait variation. On the other hand, we found that the degree of within-clutch variation of the anadromous life-history form was higher than that of the resident life-history form. The pattern could be interpreted in an adaptive context. For instance, given that the anadromous life-history form tends to be semelparous, anadromous females could decrease the likelihood of complete reproductive failure by producing variable-sized offspring within a clutch since at least some offspring are expected to be matched to the prevailing environment.

publicJun 2025View details →

Maternal quality, paternal effects, and sibling interactions influence seed size in the eelgrass, Zostera marina

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publicJun 2024View details →

Data from: Effects of maternal age and environmental enrichment on learning ability and brain size

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publicDec 2022View details →

Relationships between egg size and maternal size, life-history forms, and habitats of Greenlandic Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus)

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publicSep 2019View details →

Data from: Adaptive maternal investment in the wild? Links between maternal growth trajectory and offspring size, growth, and survival in contrasting environments

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publicOct 2023View details →

Momma's larvae: Maternal oceanographic experience and larval size influence early survival of rockfishes

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opencc-zeroDec 2014View details →

Data from: Context-dependence of maternal effects: testing assumptions of optimal egg size, differential- and sex-allocation models

If offspring develop in adverse conditions, the maternal component of their phenotypic variation might increase due to the stronger dependence of offspring traits on parental investment. This should result in increased parental investment to individual offspring, as assumed by the model of optimal egg size. The opposite pattern, i.e., stronger dependence of offspring fitness on parental investment and consequently larger parental investment under good conditions is assumed by both the theory of differential allocation if attractive males provide material benefits, and reproductive compensation if they invest less into paternal care. Another influential idea is the Trivers-Willard model, which assumes sex-specific dependence of offspring fitness on parental investment. Here we tested these ideas by examining the effects of egg size on offspring fitness across many postnatal contexts in the Collared Flycatcher Ficedula albicollis. We employed a cross-fostering design that generated variation in egg size within nests and used brood means of fledgling mass as a functional measure of the quality of rearing conditions. Effects of egg size on three offspring traits, including lifetime reproductive success of recruits, were more pronounced in low-quality broods. These results support the assumption of the model of optimal egg size. Based on female preference for males providing material benefits, this pattern could support differential allocation, if attractive males invest less in paternal care, or reproductive compensation, if they invest more. By comparison, we did not find any evidence for sex specificity of fitness returns that might explain sex monomorphism of egg size in this species. The challenge for future studies will be the integration of components of parental investment and offspring fitness into their global measures and testing how the former affects the latter across gradients of postnatal conditions.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →

Data from: Cooperative breeding favours maternal investment in size over number of eggs in spiders

The transition to cooperative breeding may alter maternal investment strategies depending on density of breeders, extent of reproductive skew and allo-maternal care. Change in optimal investment from solitary to cooperative breeding can be investigated by comparing social species with non-social congeners. We tested two hypotheses in a mainly semelparous system: that social, cooperative breeders, compared to subsocial, solitarily breeding congeners, 1) lay fewer and larger eggs because larger offspring compete better for limited resources and become reproducers; 2) induce egg size variation within clutches as a bet-hedging strategy to ensure that some offspring become reproducers. Within two spider genera, Anelosimus and Stegodyphus, we compared species from similar habitats and augmented the results with a mini-meta-analysis of egg numbers depicted in phylogenies. We found that social species indeed laid fewer, larger eggs than subsocials, while egg size variation was low overall, giving no support for bet-hedging. We propose that the transition to cooperative breeding selects for producing few, large offspring because reproductive skew and high density of breeders and young create competition for resources and reproduction. Convergent evolution has shaped maternal strategies similarly in phylogenetically distant species and directed cooperatively breeding spiders to invest in quality rather than quantity of offspring.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2024View details →

Effects of host size, maternal state, and developmental time on the adult size in a parasitoid

Body size is a crucial characteristic of many animal species because it affects many fitness-related traits. Parasitoids are important insects that are well-known biological control agents of pests, and it is favourable to obtain larger parasitoids that increase fitness and benefit wild application. Host size is thought to be one of the most crucial factors influencing the body size and has received widespread attention. Here, in an egg parasitoid Anastatus disparis, we found that the body size of female significantly increased with increasing host size, while host size did not significantly affect male body size. In addition to the widely known factor of host size, both female and male offspring size significantly increased with increasing maternal size, and female offspring produced by younger mothers were larger in size. However, inconsistent with common knowledge, the body sizes of both females and males appears to increase when the total development time from egg to adult eclosion decreases. Although all the developmental temperatures of the offspring were the same, the development time significantly differed and was significantly affected by maternal status. The male offspring produced by larger females have shorter development times, and the female offspring produced by older females have longer development times. Consequently, our results suggested that the effect of maternal status on offspring size may be mediated by influencing development time. Furthermore, A. disparis is considered potential biological control agent for several Lepidoptera pests, and our results provide further guidance for mass rearing indoors and pest control in the wild.

FIG. 2 in Maternal Body Size and Condition Predict Measures of Reproductive Success and Future Reproductive Allocation in Territorial Eastern Red-Backed Salamanders

FIG. 2. The regression of number of surviving offspring (at 185 d posthatching) on (A) maternal body size (SVL in mm) and (B) maternal condition (residuals of the regression of maternal mass, mm, on maternal body size, SVL in mm).

FIG. 3 in Maternal Body Size and Condition Predict Measures of Reproductive Success and Future Reproductive Allocation in Territorial Eastern Red-Backed Salamanders

FIG. 3. The body size of siblings that did and did not survive to 185 d after hatching. Each point represents the mean SVL of siblings from a single female that did or did not survive. The diagonal line represents the hypothetical situation in which the body size of siblings that did and did not survive are equal.

FIG. 1 in Maternal Body Size and Condition Predict Measures of Reproductive Success and Future Reproductive Allocation in Territorial Eastern Red-Backed Salamanders

FIG. 1. The regression of (A) clutch size (number of eggs) and of (B) mean juvenile size (measured as mean snout–vent length, SVL, in mm per clutch) on maternal body size (SVL in mm).

FIG. 4 in Maternal Body Size and Condition Predict Measures of Reproductive Success and Future Reproductive Allocation in Territorial Eastern Red-Backed Salamanders

FIG. 4. The regression of number of developing oocytes (visible through the body wall) produced by females on (A) maternal body size (SVL in mm) and (B) maternal condition (residuals of the regression of maternal mass, mm, on maternal body size, SVL in mm).

restrictedIPD-UNDECIDEDFeb 2026View details →

ClinicalTrials.gov32/100

Assessment of Fetal Pancreatic Size and Maternal Serum Biomarkers in GDM

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT05392231. IPD Sharing: Not stated. Countries: 1. Publications: 1.

publicJun 2016View details →

Data from: Maternal effects on offspring size and number in mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki

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publicAug 2019View details →

Data from: Maternal size and body condition predict the amount of post-fertilization maternal provisioning in matrotrophic fish

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publicAug 2013View details →

Data from: Maternal size and age shape offspring size in a live-bearing fish, Xiphophorus birchmanni

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