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86 results for “sex-specific effects”
Time spent in distinct life-history stages has sex-specific effects on reproductive fitness in wild Atlantic salmon
<p><span>In species with complex life cycles, life history theory predicts that fitness is affected by conditions encountered in previous life history stages. Here, we use a four-year pedigree to investigate if time spent in two distinct life history stages has sex-specific reproductive fitness consequences in anadromous Atlantic salmon (<i>Salmo salar</i>). We determined the amount of years spent in fresh water as juveniles (freshwater age, FW, measured in years), and years spent in the marine environment as adults (sea age, SW, measured in sea winters) on 264 sexually mature adults collected on a river spawning ground. We then estimated reproductive fitness as the number of offspring (reproductive success) and the number of mates (mating success) using genetic parentage analysis (>5000 offspring). Sea age is significantly and positively correlated with reproductive and mating success of both sexes whereby older and larger individuals gained the highest reproductive fitness benefits (females: 62.2% increase in offspring/SW and 34.8% increase in mate number/SW; males: 201.9% offspring/SW and 60.3% mates/SW). Younger freshwater age was significantly related to older sea age and thus increased reproductive fitness, but only among females (females: -33.9% offspring/FW and -32.4% mates/FW). This result implies that females can obtain higher reproductive fitness by transitioning to the marine environment earlier. In contrast, male mating and reproductive success was unaffected by freshwater age and more males returned at a younger age than females despite the reproductive fitness advantage of later sea age maturation. Our results show that the timing of transitions between juvenile and adult phases has a sex-specific consequence on female reproductive fitness, demonstrating a life-history trade-off between maturation and reproduction in wild Atlantic salmon.</span></p>
Data from: Sex-specific effects of inbreeding in juvenile brown trout
<p>Inbreeding depression, i.e., the reduction of health and vigour in individuals with high inbreeding coefficients, is expected to increase with environmental, social, or physiological stress. It has therefore been predicted that sexual selection and the associated stress usually lead to higher inbreeding depression in males than in females. However, sex-specific differences in life history may reverse that pattern during certain developmental stages. In some salmonids, for example, female juveniles start developing their gonads earlier than males who instead grow faster. We tested whether the sexes are differently affected by inbreeding during that time. To study the effects of inbreeding coefficients that may be typical for natural populations of brown trout (<em>Salmo trutta</em>), and also to control for potentially confounding maternal or paternal effects, we sampled males and females from the wild, used their gametes in a block-wise full-factorial breeding design to produce 60 full-sib families, released the offspring as yolk-sac larvae into the wild, sampled them 6 months later, identified their genetic sex, and used microsatellites to assign them to their parents. We used whole-genome resequencing to calculate the kinship coefficients for each breeding pair and hence the expected average inbreeding coefficient per family. Juvenile growth could be predicted from these expected inbreeding coefficients and the genetic sex: Females reached lower body sizes with increasing inbreeding coefficient, while no such link could be found in males. This sex-specific inbreeding depression led to the overall pattern that females were on average smaller than males by the end of their first summer.</p>
Pesticide exposure triggers sex-specific inter- and trans-generational effects conditioned by past sexual selection
<p>Environmental variation often induces plastic responses in organisms that can trigger changes in subsequent generations through non-genetic inheritance mechanisms. Such transgenerational plasticity thus consists of environmentally-induced non-random phenotypic modifications that are transmitted through generations. Transgenerational effects may vary according to the sex of the organism experiencing the environmental perturbation, the sex of their descendants, or both, but whether they are affected by past sexual selection is unknown. Here we use experimental evolution on an insect model system to conduct a first test of the involvement of sexual selection history in shaping transgenerational plasticity in the face of rapid environmental change (exposure to pesticides). We manipulated evolutionary history in terms of the intensity of sexual selection for over 80 generations before exposing individuals to the toxicant. We found that sexual selection history constrained adaptation under rapid environmental change. We also detected intergenerational and transgenerational effects of pesticide exposure in the form of increased fitness and longevity. These cross-generational influences of toxicants were sex-dependent (they affected only male descendants), and intergenerational, but not transgenerational, plasticity was modulated by sexual selection history. Our results highlight the complexity of intragenerational, intergenerational, and transgenerational influences of past selection and environmental stress on phenotypic expression.</p>
Sex-specific effects of psychoactive pollution on behavioural individuality and plasticity in fish
<p>The global rise of pharmaceutical contaminants in the aquatic environment poses a serious threat to ecological and evolutionary processes. Studies have traditionally focused on the collateral (average) effects of psychoactive pollutants on ecologically-relevant behaviours of wildlife, often neglecting effects among and within individuals, and whether they differ between males and females. We tested whether psychoactive pollutants have sex-specific effects on behavioural individuality and plasticity in guppies (<em>Poecilia</em> <em>reticulata</em>), a freshwater species that inhabits contaminated waterways in the wild. Fish were exposed to fluoxetine (Prozac) for two years across multiple generations before their activity and stress-related behaviour were repeatedly assayed. Using a Bayesian statistical approach that partitions the effects among and within individuals, we found that males—but not females—in fluoxetine-exposed populations differed less from each other in their behaviour (lower behavioural individuality) than unexposed males. In sharp contrast, effects on behavioural plasticity were observed in females—but not in males—whereby exposure to even low levels of fluoxetine resulted in a substantial decrease (activity) and increase (freezing behaviour) in the behavioural plasticity of females. Our evidence reveals that psychoactive pollution has sex-specific effects on the individual behaviour of fish, suggesting that males and females might not be equally vulnerable to global pollutants.</p>
Pesticide exposure triggers sex-specific inter- and trans-generational effects conditioned by past sexual selection
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Data from: Sex-specific effects of inbreeding in juvenile brown trout
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Time spent in distinct life-history stages has sex-specific effects on reproductive fitness in wild Atlantic salmon
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Sex-specific effects of psychoactive pollution on behavioural individuality and plasticity in fish
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Sex-specific variation in thermal sensitivity has multiple negative effects on reproductive trait performance
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DNA methylation associates with sex-specific effects of experimentally increased yolk testosterone in wild nestlings
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Sex-specific intergenerational plasticity I: maternal and paternal effects on sons and daughters
<p>1. Intergenerational plasticity or parental effects – when parental environments alter the phenotype of future generations – can influence how organisms cope with environmental change. An intriguing, underexplored possibility is that sex –of both the parent and the offspring – plays an important role in driving the evolution of intergenerational plasticity in both adaptive and nonadaptive ways.</p> <p>2. Here, we evaluate the potential for sex-specific parental effects in a freshwater population of threespined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) by independently and jointly manipulating maternal and paternal experiences and separately evaluating their phenotypic effects in sons versus daughters. We tested the adaptive hypothesis that daughters are more responsive to cues from their mother, while sons are more responsive to cues from their father.</p> <p>3. We exposed mothers, fathers, or both parents to visual cues of predation risk and measured offspring antipredator traits and brain gene expression.</p> <p>4. Predator-exposed fathers produced sons that were more risk-prone, while predator-exposed mothers produced more anxious sons and daughters. Further, maternal and paternal effects on offspring survival were nonadditive: offspring with a predator-exposed father, but not two predator-exposed parents, had lower survival against live predators. There were also strong sex-specific effects on brain gene expression: exposing mothers versus fathers to predation risk activated different transcriptional profiles in their offspring, and sons and daughters strongly differed in the ways in which their brain gene expression profiles were influenced by parental experience.</p> <p>5. We found little evidence to support the hypothesis that offspring prioritize their same-sex parent's experience. Parental effects varied with both the sex of the parent and the offspring in complicated and nonadditive ways. Failing to account for these sex-specific patterns (e.g., by pooling sons and daughters) would have underestimated the magnitude of parental effects. Altogether, these results draw attention to the potential for sex to influence patterns of intergenerational plasticity and raise new questions about the interface between intergenerational plasticity and sex-specific selective pressures, sexual conflict, and sexual selection. </p>
Data from: Sex-specific effects of experimental ectoparasite infestation on telomere length in great tit nestlings
<p>Telomere length is a biomarker of biological ageing and lifespan in various vertebrate taxa. Evidence is accumulating that telomeres shorten more rapidly when an individual is exposed to environmental stressors. Parasites are potent selective agents that can cause physiological stress directly or indirectly through the activation of the host's immune system. Yet to date, empirical evidence for a role of parasites in telomere dynamics in natural populations is limited.</p> <p>Here we show experimentally that exposure to ectoparasitic hen fleas (<i>Ceratophyllus gallinae</i>) during growth results in shorter telomeres in female, but not male, great tit (<i>Parus major</i>) nestlings. Females had significantly longer telomeres than males when growing up in experimentally deparasitized nests but because of the sex-specific effects of parasitism on telomere length, this sexual dimorphism was absent in birds growing up in experimentally infested nests. Our results provide the first experimental evidence for a role of ectoparasitism in telomere dynamics in a natural vertebrate population, and suggest that the costs of infection manifest in sex-specific ways.</p>
Sex-specific transgenerational effects of diet on offspring life history and physiology
<p>Dietary variation in males and females can shape the expression of offspring life histories and physiology. However, the relative contributions of maternal and paternal dietary variation to phenotypic expression of latter generations are currently unknown. We provided male and female <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em> grandparents with<em> </em>diets differing in sucrose concentration prior to reproduction, and similarly subjected their grandoffspring to the same treatments. We then investigated the phenotypic consequences of this dietary variation among the grandsons and granddaughters. We observed transgenerational effects of dietary sucrose, mediated through the grandmaternal lineage, which mimic the direct effects of sucrose on lifespan, with opposing patterns across sexes; low sucrose increased female, but decreased male, lifespan. Dietary mismatching of grandoffspring-grandparent diets increased lifespan and reproductive success, and moderated triglyceride levels of grandoffspring, providing insights into the physiological underpinnings of the complex transgenerational effects on life histories.</p>
Data: Sex-specific effects of capital resources on reproductive timing and success in red squirrels
<p><span>Reproduction is an energetically expensive activity for both sexes. However, if males and females differ in their annual timing of reproduction, such that peak investment for one sex occurs during a more resource-limited period, there is an opportunity for sex-specific selection to act on the acquisition of energetic resources. Both male and female North American red squirrels (<em>Tamiasciurus hudsonicus</em>) cache conifer cones, although males typically have larger caches than females. Peak energetic investment in reproduction occurs for males during the mating season in winter and early spring (when squirrels rely almost exclusively on cached resources) and for females during lactation (which can align with fresh food availability). We provide evidence that suggests sex differences in cache size are likely driven by a stronger positive connection between cached resources and components of fitness for males than for females. Specifically, males with larger caches have greater siring success than males with smaller caches, whereas for females, only early breeding females experience a positive effect of cache size on the number of recruits produced. We also show that males sire pups and females give birth earlier in the year if they have larger caches compared with squirrels of the same sex with smaller caches. Sexual selection can thus extend beyond traits directly connected to mating behavior, and can act on traits related to acquiring resources needed to fuel reproduction that are expressed months or years in advance of breeding efforts.</span></p>
Data from: Sex-specific effects of dietary restriction on physiological variables in Japanese quails
<p>Nutritional limitation is a common phenomenon in nature that leads to trade-offs among processes competing for limited resources. These trade-offs are mediated by changes in physiological traits such as growth factors and circulating lipids. However, studies addressing the sex-specific effect of nutritional deficiency on these physiological variables are limited in birds. We used dietary restriction to mimic the depletion of resources to various degrees and investigated sex-specific effects on circulating levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and triglycerides in Japanese quails (<em>Coturnix japonica</em>) subjected to <em>ad libitum</em>, 20%, 30% or 40% restriction of their daily requirement, for two weeks. We also explored the association of both physiological variables with body mass and egg production. While dietary restriction showed no effects on circulating IGF-1, this hormone exhibited a marked sexual difference, with females having 64.7% higher IGF-1 levels than males. Dietary restriction significantly reduced plasma triglyceride levels in both sexes. Females showed more than six-fold higher triglyceride levels than males. Triglyceride levels were positively associated with body mass in females while showed not association in males. Overall, our findings revealed sex-specific expression of physiological variables under dietary restriction conditions, which coincide with body size.</p>
Sex-specific paternal age effects on offspring quality in Drosophila melanogaster
<p>Advanced paternal age has been repeatedly shown to modulate offspring quality via male- and/or female-driven processes, and there are theoretical reasons to expect that some of these effects can be sex-specific. For example, sex allocation theory predicts that, when mated with low-condition males, mothers should invest more in their daughters compared to their sons. This is because male fitness is generally more condition-dependent and more variable than female fitness, which makes it less risky to invest in female offspring. Here, we explore whether paternal age can affect the quality and quantity of offspring in a sex-specific way using Drosophila melanogaster as model organism. In order to understand the contribution of male-driven processes on paternal age effects, we also measured the seminal vesicle size of young and older males and explored its relationship with reproductive success and offspring quality. Older males had lower competitive reproductive success, as expected, but there was no difference between the offspring sex ratio of young and older males. However, we found that paternal age caused an increase in offspring quality (i.e., offspring weight), and that this increase was more marked in daughters than sons. We discuss different male- and female-driven processes that may explain such sex-specific paternal age effects.</p>
Data for: Sex-specific transgenerational plasticity: Developmental temperatures of mothers and fathers have different effects on sons and daughters
<p>Each parent can influence offspring phenotypes via provisioning of the zygote or sex-specific DNA methylation. Transgenerational plasticity may therefore depend on environmental conditions experienced by each parent. We tested this hypothesis by conducting a fully factorial experiment across three generations of guppies (<em>Poecilia reticulata</em>), determining the effects of warm (28°C) and cold (21°C) thermal backgrounds of mothers and fathers on mass and length, and thermal performance (sustained [Ucrit] and sprint swimming speeds, citrate synthase and lactate dehydrogenase activities; 18, 24, 28, 32 and 36°C test temperatures) of sons and daughters. Offspring sex was significant for all traits except for sprint speed. Warmer mothers produced sons and daughters with reduced mass and length, and warmer fathers produced shorter sons. U<sub>crit</sub> of male offspring was greatest when both parents were raised at 28°C, and warmer fathers produced daughters with greater U<sub>crit</sub>. Similarly, warmer fathers produced sons and daughters with greater metabolic capacities. We show that thermal variation experienced by parents can modify offspring phenotypes, and that predicting the impacts of environmental change on populations would require knowledge of the thermal background of each mothers and fathers, particularly where sexes are spatially segregated.</p>
Data from: Sex-specific effects of experimental ectoparasite infestation on telomere length in great tit nestlings
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Sex-specific effects of antagonistic coevolution: Insights from an insect host and a bacterial pathogen coevolution system
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Data: Sex-specific effects of capital resources on reproductive timing and success in red squirrels
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Allen Brain Atlas
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