Maternal diet and age alter direct and indirect relationships between life‐history traits across multiple generations

Abstract

Maternal age has important consequences for offspring fitness, with influences on size, development and reproductive schedules. Such maternal age effects may be driven by differential provisioning of resources; yet, little is known about the role of environmental supply of nutritional resources in mediating such effects. We tested the influence of limiting nutritional resource, dietary phosphorus (P), on maternal age effects across multiple generations by examining the potential interactive effects of maternal nutrition and age on daughter and granddaughter life‐history traits in the freshwater crustacean Daphnia pulicaria. Maternal age and diet had significant but contrasting effects on offspring life history. We did not observe any evidence that age effects on offspring life history are mediated by maternal diet. However, granddaughter growth and size at maturation were influenced by the interaction between grandmaternal age and diet, suggesting that the appearance of transgenerational effects of age and diet were delayed by one generation. Because offspring life history is often linked directly and/or indirectly to life history variation in previous generations, we utilized structural equation modelling (SEM) to assess such direct or indirect relationships. SEM revealed striking differences in the relationship between growth, development time and fecundity both within and among generations, depending on the age and diet in the F0 generation. Interestingly, direct and persistent relationships between the F0 generation and the F2 generation are most prevalent when grandmothers are old and fed low P diets, and such relationships are largely driven by fecundity in the F0 generation. Additionally, indirect causal relationships between the F0 generation and F2 generation are most pronounced when grandmothers are young and fed low P diets or when grandmothers are old and fed high P diets. Our results indicate that transgenerational effects of maternal age and environment persist across multiple generations, and vary between successive generations. Further, our examination of the interaction network between life‐history traits of each generation suggest that the mechanisms for such persistent transgenerational effects are highly dependent on maternal condition. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13258/suppinfo is available for this article.

The Influence of Changes in Magnetic Variations and Light–Dark Cycle on Life‐History Traits of Daphnia magna

“…These results, along with data on the dependence of the mean brood size on the interaction of lighting regime with magnetic variations during the cultivation, could be viewed as maternal effect in a parthenogenetic line of daphnids when the life conditions of parents influence the properties of their progeny [Gliwicz and Guisande, 1992; Alekseev and Lampert, 2004; Goos et al, 2019]. The maternal effects are driven by differential distribution of resources between the maternal organism and offspring.…”

“…The maternal effects are driven by differential distribution of resources between the maternal organism and offspring. This is an effective way for resistance to environmental changes at the parthenogenesis, i.e., when the genetic variability is limited [Gliwicz and Guisande, 1992; Alekseev and Lampert, 2004; Goos et al, 2019]. Sizes of produced offspring are considered to be one of the main indicators of the maternal effect in daphnids.…”

Annually twice induced spawnings provide multiple benefits: Experimental evidence from an Indian major carp ( Catla catla , Hamilton 1822)

“…mRNAs and proteins), nutrition, induced breeding techniques, environment and physiology, fertilization and hatching conditions, offspring rearing systems, etc. (Ahi, Singh, Lecaudey, Gessl, & Sturmbauer, 2018;Beck et al, 2019;Gagliano & McCormick, 2009;Goos, Swain, Munch, & Walsh, 2019;Hagmayer, Furness, Reznick, & Pollux, 2018;Joshi, Woolliams, Meuwissen, & Gjøen, 2018;Kikko et al, 2015;Redfern et al, 2017;Segers, Berishvili, & Taborsky, 2012). In the present experiment, like first experiment, female size, dietary conditions, spawning systems and offspring rearing conditions were properly maintained to minimize any effect of them on any selected trait of offspring.…”

Grandmaternal age at reproduction affects grandoffspring body condition, reproduction and survival in a wild population of lizards

“…More recently, studies on fruit flies have shown that GM age influences grandoffspring viability (Hercus & Hoffmann, 2000;Bloch Qazi et al, 2017), developmental instability (Faurby et al, 2005;Røgilds et al, 2005;Kjarsgaard et al, 2007) and short-term memorisation capacities (Burns & Mery, 2010). GM age effects were also found affecting grandoffspring weight in the rice weevil (Opit & Throne, 2007) and grandoffspring growth and size at maturation in a Daphnia (Goos et al, 2019). At the population level, it has also been shown in soil mites that maternal age affects population dynamics for several generations (Benton et al, 2008;Plaistow & Benton, 2009).…”

“…More recently, studies on fruit flies have shown that GM age influences grandoffspring viability (Bloch Qazi et al, 2017;Hercus & Hoffmann, 2000), developmental instability (Faurby et al, 2005;Kjarsgaard et al, 2007;Røgilds et al, 2005) and short-term memorisation capacities (Burns & Mery, 2010). GM age effects were also found affecting grandoffspring weight in the rice weevil (Opit & Throne, 2007) and grandoffspring growth and size at maturation in a Daphnia (Goos et al, 2019).…”